Standards, Vol. 1

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette had originally worked together on a 1977 album headline by Peacock, Tales of Another, coming back together in 1983 when producer Manfred Eicher proposed a trio album to Jarrett.[5] Jarrett approached Peacock and DeJohnette with the idea of performing standards, which was greatly contrary to the contemporary jazz scene of the early 1980s.[5] In a 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Jarrett recalled his reasons for wanting to record standards. "This material was so damn good," he said, "and why was everyone ignoring it and playing clever stuff that sounds all the same?"[5] He told Salon in 2000 that "[a] valuable player doesn't have to play anything new to have value, because it's not about the material, it's about the playing."[6]

The three joined in a studio in Manhattan, New York City for a 2​¹⁄₂ day session during which they recorded enough material for three albums, the two Standards volumes and Changes. For that session, as in subsequent, the trio did not rehearse or pre-plan their playlist.[5][6]

DeJohnette, also speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, recalled that the trio had agreed to "do this until we don't feel like doing this anymore".[5] In 2008, the trio celebrated its 25th anniversary,[5] becoming during that time "the preeminent jazz group interpreting standards".[6]

Standards, Vol. 1 reached No. 14 on the Billboard Jazz Albums charts.[7]

In his review in Rolling Stone Steve Futterman describes the album as "merely...competent", criticizing Jarrett's "deficiencies as a jazz improviser" and also adding a few visionary comments:

"Jarrett's technical skills may be unquestionable, but on this record, the singsong monochromaticism and skim-the-surface profundity of his style are all too apparent. Jarrett never digs into a tune; he glides over it. The only way you can tell he is heating up is when his grunts get louder. Yet this is the very pianistic method that has made Jarrett a star – his solos are so pleasingly pretty and unobtrusive that you don't really have to listen to them."

"The best that can be said about this project is that Jarrett is still his own man. The same quirks, mannerisms and lapses in taste displayed here were evident on his first trio LP for Atlantic fifteen years ago. In light of Jarrett's many multidisc sets, the fact that he named this collection Standards, Vol. 1 is a very frightening thought." [8]

Jazz musician and writer Ian Carr noted in his biography of Jarrett that with these volumes the trio had found "fresh ways of approaching the classic jazz repertoire".[9] In its review of the box set, Pop Matters noted that the material "sounded dazzling in the mid-1980s", adding that "[f]ans of Jarrett, like myself, will always hear these records as having a fresh immediacy".[10]

1. "Meaning of the Blues" (Bobby Troup, Leah Worth) – 9:26
2. "All the Things You Are" (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern) – 7:47
3. "It Never Entered My Mind" (Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers) – 6:48
4. "The Masquerade Is Over" (Herb Magidson, Allie Wrubel) – 6:01
5. "God Bless the Child" (Arthur Herzog Jr., Billie Holiday) – 15:32

• Keith Jarrett – Piano
• Gary Peacock – Double bass
• Jack DeJohnette – Drums

• Jan Erik Kongshaug – Recording Engineer
• Barbara Wojirsch – Cover Design
• Manfred Eicher – Production

• Interview at NPR, "Jarrett and Peacock explain how they wound up playing standards after so many years of playing original music." National Public Radio.