Standards Live is the first concert recording of the trio of Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette, the group that became known simply as the Standards Trio. Taped in Paris in July 1985, it came after two studio volumes of standards and showed how the songbook repertoire opened up in front of an audience. Six tunes, all slow to mid-tempo, are stretched out to between six and eleven minutes each.
The three had first recorded together on Peacock's Tales of Another in 1977. They met again as a trio in January 1983 at the Power Station in New York for the sessions of Standards, Vol. 1. This concert took place on 2 July 1985 at the Palais des Congrès, Studio de la Grande Armée. Manfred Eicher produced it and Martin Wieland was the engineer. Jarrett plays piano, Peacock double bass, DeJohnette drums, and the cover carries a drawing by Franz Kafka.
The choice of tunes mixes the famous and the half-forgotten. Stella by Starlight opens with a long piano solo before bass and drums come in, and one contemporary reviewer felt it did more than justice to an overplayed tune. Too Young to Go Steady starts in a contemplative mood, with Peacock and DeJohnette sliding in gently behind the piano. Falling in Love with Love and The Way You Look Tonight send Jarrett flying over the keyboard on Peacock's driving bass. The set ends with The Old Country, by Nat Adderley and Curtis Lewis, whose more complex structure makes the three work harder to get inside the melody.
The New York Times wrote that "gravity is suspended when the Keith Jarrett Trio performs". Not everyone was convinced at first. Reviewing the album for Jazz Journal in July 1986, Simon Adams praised the trio's "perfect equilibrium" but found the material too slight for Jarrett. Writing in 2012, Tyran Grillo of ECM Reviews heard in The Way You Look Tonight the trio "at its finest" and called the record "beyond recommended".
This CD belongs to ECM's Touchstones series, which brings key albums from the label's back catalogue back into print in card sleeves. ECM 1317, first released in 1986, this edition 2008.
