They are a tad sensitive in Perugia
Judging from an anathema being pronounced on jazz pianist Keith Jarrett for responding to heckling by referring to said place as a 'damn city'. Source
And that reaction from the jazz festival's artistic director Carlo Pagnotta, "I can understand everything, even being obsessed about the cameras, but you cannot insult an audience and even an entire city just because of a few flashes. As an artist Jarrett is sublime, but as a person he leaves much to be desired. It was unfortunate that we had to witness the schizophrenia of these two aspects".
A bit of digging makes it clear that Jarrett has form on these things, "Jarrett is notoriously intolerant of audience noise, including coughing and other involuntary sounds, especially during solo improvised performances. He feels that extraneous noise affects his musical inspiration. As a result, cough drops are routinely supplied to Jarrett's audiences in cold weather, and he has even been known to stop playing and lead the crowd in a "group cough." Source
Turns out Perugia is twinned with Seattle, and some how I cannot imagine Seattle-ites being quite so prickly.
And that reaction from the jazz festival's artistic director Carlo Pagnotta, "I can understand everything, even being obsessed about the cameras, but you cannot insult an audience and even an entire city just because of a few flashes. As an artist Jarrett is sublime, but as a person he leaves much to be desired. It was unfortunate that we had to witness the schizophrenia of these two aspects".
A bit of digging makes it clear that Jarrett has form on these things, "Jarrett is notoriously intolerant of audience noise, including coughing and other involuntary sounds, especially during solo improvised performances. He feels that extraneous noise affects his musical inspiration. As a result, cough drops are routinely supplied to Jarrett's audiences in cold weather, and he has even been known to stop playing and lead the crowd in a "group cough." Source
Turns out Perugia is twinned with Seattle, and some how I cannot imagine Seattle-ites being quite so prickly.
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Is it a ski resort ? I think I may have been there when I was at school .There’s probably some small monument to mark the occasion. Personally I feel jazz is improved by outbreaks of deafening and phlegmy lung disorders just as Harriet Harman would be improved by death
But then I am a purist
Singing along is widely practised by Italian audiences; my dear father-in-law was very fine in Puccini. We do not take kindly to being treated as passive recipients of art. If a performer does not want, indeed love, an audience we can all go, and pay, to enjoy another performance somewhere else.
No idol may expect to be offered silence as their tribute. The utter silence that is called 'rapt' is earned, not required.
Jarrett is not alone in his prickliness. Just watch the reactions of eg snooker players, tennis players and, particularly, golfers if somebody in the audience so much as dares to breathe as the maestro readies his shot. Prima donnas par excellence (or, as somebody once (ignorantly?) wrote an another blog - pre-Madonnas.
It must be particularly off-putting to the performers when audience participation entails everybody clapping along enthusiastically, and usually half a beat off time, when a stirring march or something else in 4/4 time is played at ice skating events.
Pre-Madonnas! V good!
Personally, I think the only cure for people who clap "in time" at ice skating events is deathbyviolence. Perhaps the staccato rat-tat-tat-tat of a machine gun might drill the tempo into their heads. Ice skating events are naff enough (although, ahem, I quite like watching them) without people who slip on the ice on their own garden paths "participating". In fact, except for pantomime ("Behind you!") when you're six, audience participation is never a good idea.
Newmania, It was Saki who wrote of someone, "He was one of those people who would be immensely improved by death." Harriett Harman wouldn't have been born when he wrote it, but I am certain he would have been OK with it being applied to her.
Gentlemen,
this is the actual report form the concert. Mr Damned Jarrett was completly out of his mind.
He has been in Perugia for UJ several times, never been interrupted or annoyed anyhow. How the news is reported is quite partial. BTW here is what you find in blogs from who attended the concert....
"Yesterday, at Umbria Jazz festival in Perugia, Italy, Keith Jarrett went onstage and, before even sitting down, said these very words:
”I don’t speak Italian, but I hope that somebody who speaks English tell those assholes to shut off those fucking cameras. Until you don’t do it, music won’t be at its best and you will have spent your money for nothing. I’m speaking to you, you, you, and you, and also you up there. If I see one single flash during the concert, I and Gary and Jack reserve to ourselves the right to stop playing and leave this goddamn city. It’s your privilege to be here, not mine”.
At the end of the concert, he refused to do an encore because of two (two!) flashlights he saw while the whole audience was honouring him with a standing ovation.
I swear it's the last time I pay to listen to this bastard egomaniac."
Anon - thank you for the fuller report on the ruckus in Perugia. He does not emerge with much credit from this concert, does he?
Yes, really.It is such a shame. I mean we all know him, but this time I think he really exaggerated.
What I am surpside of, is that some version af the news that is circulating through the official press does not tell really how things went: everythink started from the begginning when he came out with that words!
It was sad to witness such a mixed up artist as we did on tuesday, however an important reminder of how out of touch with the real world an artist can be. What the hell do you expect when your greed forces the arrangers to the stadium format? Silence? No flashes? No Coughing?
His grumpiness set the ambience of the audience to an all time low.
Add to the story that they played mostly on routine, having a true blue monday throughout the concert, never really challenging themselves or the concept, which is sad when you think of what theese guys are capable of doing.
The PA piano sound was thin and just worsend the total experience after his patronizing speech immediately after going on stage. However there were some truly sublime moments, especially on the outros, but that is, after all, the least you could expect from this trio.
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