Expectations (Keith Jarrett album)

Expectations is an album recorded by Keith Jarrett in 1972 and released on Columbia Records the same year.[1] In addition to Jarrett, musicians on the recording include members of his "American group" (Dewey Redman (tenor saxophone), Charlie Haden (bass), Paul Motian (drums)) plus Sam Brown (guitar), Airto Moreira (percussion), as well as brass and string sections[4] whose members are not credited in the album information. Expectations was produced by George Avakian, Jarrett's manager since 1966 [6]

Expectations
Studio album by
Keith Jarrett
Released1972, October [1]
Recorded1972, April 5–6 & 27
StudioColumbia Studio E, New York City (USA)
GenreAvant-garde jazz, post-bop, jazz fusion
Length78:02
LabelColumbia
ProducerGeorge Avakian, Bob Belden
Keith Jarrett chronology
Facing You
(1971)		 Expectations
(1972)		 Hamburg '72
(1972)
Keith Jarrett American group chronology
Birth
(1971)		 Expectations
(1972)		 Hamburg '72
(1972)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic [2]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz[4]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide[5]

In January 1999 Jarrett wrote that "[Expectations] is a very special recording for me, and the only release that ties so many of the feelings I had about music together in such a rich, varied and coherent weave."[7]

Background: Jarrett and Columbia

Having been dropped from Atlantic Records after recording Restoration Ruin, Avakian approached Columbia and proposed a double album. That was in late summer 1971, and Jarrett was a member of the Miles Davis' band, which recorded for Columbia. Jarrett was given a contract and in April 1972 went into the studio to record Expectations. Right after its publishing (sometime in late 1972) and according to Jarrett himself he saw how the company broke the relationship unilaterally in what has been dubbed "The Great Columbia Jazz Purge" (along with Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans and Charles Mingus, apparently all were let go the very same day). Accordingly, Expectations remains Jarrett's only Columbia album under his own name.

The 1999 CD reissue (Columbia Legacy) original notes contain "A little essay on Expectactions" by Keith Jarrett. There he explains that:[7]

I had collected (over a period of time) material for what I guess I thought of as my "big" project: the inclusion of most of my expressive interests. I actually had the whole idea pretty well figured out when I talked to Columbia, but it didn't really matter because not only did they not care what I was going to do, they didn't really know what I did! I had a preliminary meeting with a guy at Columbia who actually asked me, "So ... what do you do?" So I told him I played the piano. Surprisingly, that seemed to answer his question. This actually was perfect for me since it meant that nobody would be snooping around the studio reporting the strange music they had heard to someone above. (However, they then "dropped" me only two weeks after the release of Expectations, thus breaking their own contract.)

Jarrett notes on Columbia CD reissue

Better than anyone else regarding his own critique, in 1999, on occasion of the Columbia Legacy CD reissue, Jarrett unfolds a few details about the production of Expectations:[7]

With "Expectations" I wanted a seamless, seemingly boundary-less expression of a broad range of emotions. i wanted colors to shift tonally and timbrely, and I wanted the content of each song to determine the direction of the playing. I talked a lot to the players about the kinds of feelings we were invoking in each piece.
(..)
I think of this album as a single thing, not just a bunch of tunes. The line from "Vision" to "There is a Road" is a coherent, intentional path; and the statement is the thing in its entirety. The order is the only order that tells the story. Once before, in the early '90's, Columbia re-released this music on CD, but, to my horror, they shuffled the order and ruined what the whole thing was about. This time I got involved early, and I appreciate its re-emergence in its correct form.

I could say a few things about specific tunes, but I believe the sonic message is much purer. I will explain, however, that "The Circular Letter (for J.K.)" was for Joseph Knecht in Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game and "Roussillion" (sic) is a town in the south of France (Provence) [actually Rousillon] with incredible red clay cliffs.

Track listing
All compositions by Keith Jarrett
  1. "Vision" – 0:51
  2. "Common Mama" – 8:14
  3. "The Magician in You" – 6:55
  4. "Roussillion" – 5:25
  5. "Expectations" – 4:29
  6. "Take Me Back" – 9:33
  7. "The Circular Letter (for J.K.)" – 5:04
  8. "Nomads" – 17:23
  9. "Sundance" – 4:31
  10. "Bring Back the Time When (If)" – 9:53
  11. "There Is a Road (God's River)" – 5:32

Personnel

(Moreira and Motian both play drums on "The Circular Letter" and "Sundance")

References
  1. Discogs Keith Jarrett: Expectations accessed June 2020
  2. Ginell, Robert S. (2011). "Expectations - Keith Jarrett | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 14 July 2011.
  3. Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857125958. Retrieved 1 May 2019.
  4. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 768. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  5. Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 112. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  6. Carr, Ian. Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music (New York: Da Capo, 1992), ISBN 9780306804786 p. 41.
  7. Expectations: 1999 CD reissue at Discogs Keith Jarrett: Expectations, Columbia Legacy accessed September 2020



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