He called electronic instruments toys yet played them for Miles Davis; he demanded pin-drop silence from audiences yet moaned and grunted over his own playing. This episode explores Keith Jarrett, born with absolute pitch in Pennsylvania, on television by age five, playing Bach and his own compositions in recital at seven, and studying at the Curtis Institute before a Dave Brubeck concert pulled him toward jazz and he turned down Nadia Boulanger to attend Berklee.

We follow his short stint with Art Blakey, the Charles Lloyd Quartet’s crossover to the Fillmore and Royal Albert Hall, the folk-rock oddity Restoration Ruin, his electric years with Davis, and the simultaneous American and European Quartets. We then cover the solo concerts played from nothing, the Köln Concert, the Steely Dan lawsuit over Gaucho, the Standards Trio with Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock, chronic fatigue syndrome, and the 2018 strokes that ended his performing career.

• What absolute pitch does to a child’s experience of everyday sound
• Why he agreed to play electric keyboards for Miles Davis
• The ECM sound versus the gritty Americana of the American Quartet
• Cough drops, group coughs, and playing in the dark to protect improvisation
• How re-engineering his piano’s key resistance let him play through illness