Ruta And Daitya

Down Beat (7/93, p.40) - 3.5 Stars - Good Plus - "...The Jarrett purists will be shocked if they haven't heard it before, what with Keith's funky wah-wahs and apparent ease at zig-zagging between keyboards and flute...definitely experimental, showing sides to both musicians we don't really see anymore..."|

Splitting his time between the electric and acoustic pianos and a bit of organ, Jarrett teams up with drummer/percussionist Jack DeJohnette in a series of experimental duets, his only electric session for ECM. The all-acoustic title number ranges all over the lot, from tootling on a bamboo (?) flute to the energizing barrelhouse gospel riffs that would bloom in the solo concerts. Tellingly, there is little in this collaboration that predicts what Jarrett and DeJohnette would do in their Standards Trio of the '80s; rather, it anticipates the exotic Third World side of Jarrett's American quartet immediately in the future and adds a finishing flourish to his jazz-rock period. Indeed, the most memorably percolating playing by both musicians turns up in the electric numbers, where Jarrett utilizes the distinctively funky, wah-wah, fuzz-tone approach on electric piano that he developed with Miles Davis. As such, this is a valuable, underrated transition album that provides perhaps the last glimpse of the electric Keith Jarrett as he embarked on his notorious (and ultimately triumphant) anti-electric crusade. ~ Richard S. Ginell