The following interview can also be viewed at this web address --
http://www.calendarlive.com/HOME/CALENDARLIVE/CALENDAR/t000016674.html
---------------------------
Los Angeles Times
February 23, 1999
A Ferocious Spirit, Untamed
As Keith Jarrett battles chronic fatigue syndrome, he displays
the same force of will as in his hard-driving solo days
By DON HECKMAN
Special to The Times
Keith Jarrett's piano playing is based upon one fundamental tenet: no
fear.
Engaging the keyboard with passionate intensity, his slight frame
often writhing in dance-like gyrations, his head thrown back, his throat
occasionally uttering growls and grunts, he is the visualization of a
man possessed, literally giving himself over to the channeling of music
through his body and into the instrument.
His performances -- especially his now legendary solo outings -- are
sheer feats of musical chance-taking. Improvisational versions of free
rock climbing; tightrope walking without a net.
"It's dangerous," says Jarrett, 53. "And I think that's partly why
I'm drawn to it -- because of the danger. Look, you're sitting comfortably
in a room, and you're conditioned to think that it's safe. But something
could happen. The roof could fall in.
"So the drive to do music that way came from the realization that
being safe is a lie, anyway, that if I'm not going to be safe, I might
as well be aware of that and be present for whatever comes through me at
the time."
What Jarrett didn't realize, over the many years -- dating back to
the early '70s -- in which he performed as many as 50 grueling solo
concerts a year, was that he was risking, perhaps generating, an
entirely different kind of danger.
It finally caught up with him in November 1996.
"The only way I could describe it," he says, "was that aliens were
invading my body. That was actually how it felt."
Jarrett was in Italy for a solo performance. He had not been in
especially good physical shape for a few months before the tour, but
nothing prepared him for what was to happen.
"It just hit me like lightning," he says.
"It," Jarrett now knows, was the onset of chronic fatigue syndrome.
At the time, it was nameless and undefined, as mysterious to the pianist
as it was frightening. And above all, it was painfully debilitating.
"I managed to do those concerts," he says, "but the only way I did
them was by staying in bed most of the day, and getting up to go to the
concert.
"But this was in the middle of a tour. So, somehow, I willed myself .
. . and finished my job as a professional. But I could tell while I was
playing that I almost had to just throw my arms around, and if something
happened, I'd be lucky."
Lucky enough to garner rave reviews from the Italian critics. But
it signaled the end of Jarrett's playing for nearly two years.
On Thursday at UCLA's Royce Hall, he makes his first Los Angeles
appearance since 1995 in a concert with his "Standards" trio -- including
bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Including a concert
last October in Newark, near his New Jersey home, it is only Jarrett's
second performance since the fateful Italian tour.
The concert takes place the night after the Grammy Awards, when
Jarrett will discover whether or not his sixth nomination -- for "Tokyo
'96" -- will produce his first award. (His five previous nods include two
trio albums, two classical sessions and one solo album.)
The nomination -- with Peacock and DeJohnette in the jazz
instrumental performance, individual or group category -- is somewhat
bittersweet, given that it's for a live performance that took place
shortly before Jarrett became ill.
He has spent the intervening time in seclusion, initially trying to
find the correct diagnosis for his malady, then undergoing a rigorous
drug and diet therapy. Still balancing good days against bad -- an October
concert in Chicago had to be canceled -- Jarrett has essentially been
homebound.
"I haven't even been out to dinner since November of '96," he said
recently by phone. "And I wouldn't have been able to do this interview a
month ago."
Jarrett's uncertain pattern of recovery and relapse is not uncommon
to victims of chronic fatigue syndrome, an elusive, misunderstood
disorder, its seriousness undercut by the apparent triviality of its
label.
"The stupid thing is that the name of the disease is so
lightweight," Jarrett says. "It sounds like somebody whining to their
mother, 'I don't want to take the garbage out.' Well, OK, you've got
chronic fatigue syndrome.
"But some doctors say that if you want to give the average person
an idea . . . it's like the last four months of an AIDS patient's
life -- but forever. I know people who have had this who have wished that
they had terminal cancer."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta describe
chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome as "a serious,
multi-systemic disease, organic in origin. . . . While there are many
suspected causes of the disease, there is currently no definitive
evidence of one causative agent."
CDC studies in Seattle and San Francisco estimate that the disease
has a prevalence anywhere between 75 to 265 people per 100,000
population. The CDC also estimates that "perhaps as many as half a
million persons in the United States have a CFS-like condition."
When the symptoms struck Jarrett, however, he had no idea where to
turn.
"In the beginning, I just read and read, trying to figure out what
the hell it could be," he says. "I tried to go with what I felt, and
looked through descriptions of illnesses or syndromes. . . . I knew
there was something called chronic fatigue syndrome, but I had no idea
what it was."
Although CFS remains a still somewhat mysterious disease, there are
several possible causes, which may function individually or as multiple
precipitating factors. Among them are infectious agents, immunological
dysfunction, physical or emotional stress and nutritional deficiency.
Jarrett believes that his syndrome was caused by a combination of
airborne pathogens and stress factors.
If he is correct about his contracting of the disease, then Jarrett
is probably also correct in his belief that the stresses associated with
his performing schedule of the last few decades created an increased
susceptibility.
His solo concerts obviously placed especially strong demands upon
him. But those performances were enormously successful, with albums such
as his 1975 "The Koln Concert" selling millions of copies.
"I think there is an essential insanity -- physical and emotional
insanity -- to the solo thing," Jarrett says. "In the way I approach my
work, I was asking for it. If there was anything that was going to be
triggered, it would be triggered. And in my case, certain things came
together at a certain moment, and everything broke down. The few people
who know how much I put into each performance were probably amazed for
20 or 30 years that I was still alive.
"When I was in that format, I felt like I was in a universe that I
had absolutely no control over, versus a universe where I could always
touch base. In print I would say 'dangerous,' and people would think,
'That's a little over the top,' or 'That's really self-absorbed,' or
something. But it was the truth. And now I'm sort of proving to myself
that I was right. But after what's happened to me, I wish I had been
wrong."
When he breaks his current seclusion to play at Royce, Jarrett will be
moving into unknown territory, insofar as his disease is concerned.
"I have no idea how it's going to work," he says. "But I'm just
going to have to handle it."
His prognosis is still somewhat uncertain. The CDC studies indicate
that only 45% of CFS patients will regain 80% of their former abilities
within five years of onset. Jarrett, however, is seeing slow, steady
improvement, still interrupted by occasional relapses. But he is
approaching his recovery with the same determination he has always
brought to his music.
"Taking antibiotics for two years can be pretty daunting," he says,
"and a lot of people don't want to go through that kind of a course of
treatment. But the bottom line is that I want to get well, and I don't
care if I have to go through hell to get there."
-- END --
---------------------------------------------
Co-Cure is not a discussion list. Please do not reply to the list.
Co-Cure Archives: http://listserv.nodak.edu/archives/co-cure.html
Co-Cure Website: http://www.co-cure.org
---------------------------------------------
|