Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette

Tribute is the record on which the trio of Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette turned its standards repertoire into a homage. Recorded at a single concert in Cologne in October 1989, it runs to almost two hours. Ten of the twelve pieces are dedicated to a musician who had made that song their own. The names run from Lee Konitz and Jim Hall to Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, with the singers Nancy Wilson and Anita O'Day among them.

The three had worked together on standards since their first New York sessions for ECM in January 1983. This concert, part of a European tour, took place on 15 October 1989 at the Kölner Philharmonie, a week after the Oslo date later issued as Standards in Norway. Manfred Eicher produced, with Jan Erik Kongshaug and Otto Fries as engineers. Jarrett plays piano, Peacock double bass, DeJohnette drums, and the cover is by Barbara Wojirsch.

The first disc opens with Lover Man, for Konitz, on a slow and sombre piano introduction. Peacock takes his first solo of the evening here, and Jarrett slips in a passing quote from The Girl from Ipanema. Solar, dedicated to Evans, goes the other way, an up-tempo reading in which Jarrett spins tight melodic eddies over the drums. On Ballad of the Sad Young Men, for O'Day, DeJohnette keeps the pulse with steady, chugging brushwork. Each disc ends on a Jarrett original. Sun Prayer builds over fourteen minutes into one of the most forceful passages of the night. U Dance closes the concert as a joyful romp with a spirited turn from the drummer.

Stereophile chose the album as its Recording of the Month in August 1991, reading the programme as Jarrett naming his influences tune by tune. Writing later for ECM Reviews, Tyran Grillo singled out DeJohnette's snare work and heard a set in which "every tune breathes with all the life it deserves". Among the trio's live albums it is the one where the choice of material is the concept, each dedication pointing back to a specific recording or player.

This edition is the double cassette of ECM 1420/21, first released in October 1990 and also available as a double CD and a double LP.