''The Survivors' Suite'' is an album by jazz pianist

Keith Jarrett Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945) is an American pianist and composer. Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey and later moved on to play with Charles Lloyd (jazz musician), Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s, he has also be ...

, recorded in April 1976 and released on ECM the following year. The quartet—Jarrett's "American Quartet"—features saxophonist

Dewey Redman Walter Dewey Redman (May 17, 1931 – September 2, 2006) was an American saxophonist who performed free jazz as a bandleader with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett. Redman mainly played tenor saxophone, though he occasionally also played alto s ...

and rhythm section

Charlie Haden Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than fifty years. Haden helped to revolutionize the harmonic concept of bass playin ...

and

Paul Motian Stephen Paul Motian (March 25, 1931 – November 22, 2011) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, and composer of Armenian descent. He played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties. Motian first came t ...

Conception and composition

Regarding sound, venues, composition and orchestration, in a February 2009 interview conducted by Stuart Nicholson, Keith Jarrett stated that:

The whole music of ''The Survivors' Suite'' was written—and this is something that's perhaps not known widely at all— ... specifically for Avery Fisher Hall in New York, because I knew we were going to play there, I think it was opposite Monk as part of the festival. I knew from playing in Avery Fisher Hall many times the sound was not precise enough onstage to play fast tempos— he soundgot blurred—so I decided to write the music for that evening. I felt it was important as an evening of music and that’s the first place we played it and it was written for that hall and then it became something we did at other places. So there was a rationale to that, but I think very few people would ever say, "Would you conceive, Mr. Jarrett, of writing for a specific hall?" I probably would say, "No." But the answer lies in the fact that I knew the hall to be very poor for certain kinds of things and if you listen to ''The Survivor’s Suite'' you’ll notice there are no fast tempos.Nicholson, S. (February 2009
Keith Jarrett Interview Conducted By Stuart Nicholson
accessed May 16, 2020

Critical reception

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'' voted the album their ''Jazz Album of the Year'' in 1978, stating: "''The Survivors' Suite'' is a brilliantly organized and full-blooded work which provides the perfect setting for all four talents. This is a very complete record. It creates its own universe and explores it thoroughly, leaving the listener awed and satisfied... An unashamedly ardent album, Jarrett’s very finest."EC
The Survivors' suite, Keith Jarrett
accessed May 16, 2020 Writing for the now defunct jazz magazine ''Jazz.com'',

Ted Gioia Ted Gioia (born October 21, 1957) is an American jazz critic and music historian. He is author of 12 books, including ''Music: A Subversive History'', '' The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire'', ''The History of Jazz'' and ''Delta Blues'' ...

, rating the album as a single track, gave ''The Survivors' Suite'' a 97/100.Gioia, Ted (June 2008
The Dozens: Essential Keith Jarrett by Ted Gioia at Jazz.com
accessed September 2020 The

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

review by Stacia Proefrock stated, "Like other albums of its time, this was beginning to show the brightness, lightness, and soft edges of contemporary jazz, but the solidness of Haden's bass helps the music rooted and earthbound."Proefrock, S
Allmusic Review
accessed September 16, 2011 ''

The Penguin Guide to Jazz ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled b ...

'' by Richard Cook and Brian Morton regards the album as a "masterpiece, with the quartet pulling together on an ambitiously large-scale piece, each member contributing whole-heartedly and passionately."

Track listing

Personnel

American Quartet

– piano,

soprano saxophone The soprano saxophone is a small, high-pitched member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented in the 1840s by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax. Built in B♭ an octave above the tenor saxophone (or rarely, slightly small ...

, bass recorder, celeste, Osi drums *

–

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (whi ...

, percussion *

–

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

– drums, percussion

Technical personnel

Manfred Eicher Manfred Eicher (born 9 July 1943) is a German record producer and the founder of ECM Records. Life and career Eicher was born in Lindau, Germany. He studied music at the Academy of Music in Berlin. He started as a double-bass player of classi ...

– producer * Martin Wieland – recording engineer *

Barbara Wojirsch Barbara Wojirsch (born 1940) is a German graphic designer known primarily for developing the visual style for album covers released by ECM Records. __TOC__ Early life Wojirsch studied painting at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts. A realizati ...

– layout * Keith Jarrett – cover photography

Liner notes

Quoted anonymously in the original liner notes: "And those that create out of the holocaust of their own inheritance anything more than a convenient self-made tomb shall be known as 'Survivors'."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Survivors' Suite, The Keith Jarrett albums 1977 albums ECM Records albums Albums produced by Manfred Eicher