Invocations/The Moth and the Flame

As in other of Jarett's albums, this album includes poetry in its liner notes. The included poem is "When things are heard" by Rumi, translated by Robert Bly,[6] although the poem is attributed only to Bly.

When Things Are Heard

The ear participates and helps arrange marriages
the eye has already made love with what it sees

The eye knows pleasure, delights in the body's shape
the ear hears words that talk about all this.

When hearing takes place character areas change,
but when you see, inner areas change.

If all you know about the fire is what you have heard,
see if the fire will agree to cook you!

Certain energies come only when you burn
If you long for belief sit down in the fire.

When the ear receives subtly it turns into an eye,
but if sounds do not reach the ear in the chest nothing happens

The Allmusic review by Richard S. Ginell awarded the album 3 stars, noting:

"If this schizophrenic double-CD set didn't throw Keith Jarrett's most devoted fans for a loop, nothing ever will. Here we have two radically disparate works involving different timbres, attacks and mindsets, both within themselves and with each other. On "Invocations," a seven-movement suite, Jarrett returns to the massive pipe organ in Ottobeuren, Germany for a series of sometimes wildly contrasting episodes... "The Moth and the Flame" finds Jarrett back in a studio with a grand piano, improvising musical still lifes, rambling aimlessly, or doing his rollicking E-flat ostinato thing familiar from the solo concerts. About all that these two pieces share, with the exception of the E-flat movement from "Moth," is an aversion to a jazz pulse, so although there are plenty of rewarding passages here, casual Jarrett browsers are hereby warned".[4]

All music by Keith Jarrett

Disc One: Invocations
Ottobeuren Benedictine Abbey (West Germany), October 1980.
Trinity Organ by Karl Joseph Riepp
Keith Jarrett – pipe organ, soprano saxophone

1. "Invocations-First (Solo Voice)" - 5:21
2. "Invocations-Second (Mirages,Realities)" - 8:58
3. "Invocations-Third (Power, Resolve)" - 7:32
4. "Invocations-Fourth (Shock, Scatter)" - 6:48
5. "Invocations-Fifth (Recognition)" - 5:04
6. "Invocations-Sixth (Celebration)" - 5:33
7. "Invocations-Seventh (Solo Voice)" - 3:04

Total time: 42:51

Disc Two: The Moth and the Flame
Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg (West Germany), November, 1979.
Keith Jarrett – piano (Steinway)

1. "The Moth and the Flame Part 1" - 6:58
2. "The Moth and the Flame Part 2" - 5:36
3. "The Moth and the Flame Part 3" - 8:23
4. "The Moth and the Flame Part 4" - 8:07
5. "The Moth and the Flame Part 5" - 9:42

Total time: 39:31

• Keith Jarrett – pipe organ, soprano saxophone, piano

• Martin Wieland - recording engineer
• Gabor Attalai - cover photography "Round Fire"
• Barbara Wojirsch - cover design and layout
• Manfred Eicher - production