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Staircase, Hourglass, Sundial, Sand | 
| Artist: Keith Jarrett
Label: ECM
Category: Music
List Price: £26.99
Buy New: £20.49
You Save: £6.50 (24%)
New (20) from £9.11
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 83448
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 13.3 x 4.7 x 1.3
MPN: 827337
UPC: 042282733726
EAN: 0042282733726
ASIN: B0000261KJ
Release Date: July 1, 1988
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Staircase | | • | Hourglass | | • | Sundial | | • | Sand |
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| Customer Reviews:
A cd to treasure July 6, 2007
This is one of my favourite Keith jarrett studio albums. I appreciate that his live recordings tend to have great audience atmosphere which draws the listener in, and there's always the sense of a tightrope being walked, but this cd makes you feel like an eavesdropper into something very personal and private. The other reviewers sum it up pretty well: these tracks are a showcase for most of Jarrett's musical moods, and a wonderful vehicle for his awesome talent.
Love this August 19, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Strange how you come to music.
My ears were opened to Keith Jarrett in college by an odd fella, who gave me 3 tapes of his music. I found this somehow the most moving. It has a tremendous sense of motion, but I feel it has something of the divine in it. To me it has that sense of great music that we cannot define, but know when we hear it. Happy memories for me when I left college and playing this upstairs in my house and hearing the divine piano notes spinning through the house. Jarrett rates it, so do I. At one time I heard with the ears of "too many notes my dear Mozart", but other times was moved by each one. Recommend it.
one of KJ's best July 9, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I entirely agree with the preceding reviewer. I could write tons, but who's going to read it? So let's keep it short.
Wounded, tender, autobiographic, melancholic, wistful, haunting (and all those other inadequate, cheap descriptives): this is magical KJ music. I have listened to it again and again and again, spellbound. Stands the test of time. Love it.
Jarrett's best without a doubt June 30, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I totally agree with the first reviewer of this album except for one point - it is and always has been a double album both on vinyl and CD. The first CD contains Staircase parts 1,2 and 3 plus Hourglass parts 1 and 2. The second CD contains Sundial parts 1,2 and 3 and Sand parts 1, 2 and 3.
This CD for me is the pinnacle of Jarrett's work because it is so incredibly well composed, structured and coherent as a complete piece of work across several different pieces. It is peerless in Jarrett's work because it is in many ways 'stripped down' to the barest elements of his musical style. Concise, precise and absolutely beautiful. The images of the albums artwork are of an enigmatic staircase in the middle of desert leading to....? I have read that Jarrett is interested in Sufism and Gurdjieff - well this album for me has many resonances with the music of the middle east and certainly encapsulates elements of the Sufi philosophy that 'Music is the voice of God'. There are also moments of beauty on this album that are hard to describe - way beyond the levels of the ever popular Koln Concert. For me Hourglass part 2 is the most lyrical piece of piano music I have ever heard and I've literally listened to it hundreds of times over a period of 25 years - and it always rewards another listen. There is some more dissonant work on this album as well which may be hard work for some listeners but if you can open yourself up to the overall album and give it a few listens you will start to hear a beautiful geometry to this work which will take you to a musical place you may have never been to before - well worth it! This is, without a doubt the work of a master musical architect.
Am I hearing things right ? April 1, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
STAIRCASE has received little critical acclaim, and the PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ gives it 2 stars with a bracketed ( ie. unenthusiastic) third. Yet it is one of the few Jarrett recordings that, for me, stands the test of time. The recording itself is impeccable, and the whole project is musically interesting in a way that the intense, emotional KOLN CONCERT is not. That is not to say that STAIRCASE lacks feeling or is coldly abstract and 'studio bound'; the second part of HOURGLASS always moves me to tears and stops and changes my day! Jarrett is involved and wears his heart on his sleeve as he does so often, but here there is something more structured, more lasting about the music. It is my favourite of Jarrett's solo piano recordings along with the very different 'THE MELODY AT NIGHT WITH YOU'. I cannot understand its comparative neglect. Just one caveat emptor....STAIRCASE is often listed and priced as a double CD. It is a single CD, so don't pay over the odds!
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