work, but it is entirely gone from his three latest albums. Jarrett seems to have made the jump from "ex-Miles pianist" to the most important young keyboard stylist in jazz while nobody was looking.

Though Jarrett has been a mature and virtuosic solo pianist for some time, the formation of his current quartet late last year seems to have been the turning point. His choice of players is indicative of his inspirations and direction. The rhythm team of bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Paul Motian inevitably brings the original Bill Evans trio to mind. In that seminal group Motian was the drummer and the late Scott LaFaro, who like Haden played regularly with Ornette Coleman, was the bassist. Saxophonist Dewey Redman is, like Haden, a member of Ornette's current group. But Haden and Motian are also resident rhythm section for the Jazz Composer's Orchestra (hear them on Carla Bley's Escalator Over the Hill) and they performed, along with Redman, on Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra album. Jarrett's evolving ensemble style (and jazz pianists have invariably had to prove themselves as composer/bandleaders in order to be accepted as important stylists) covers a gamut of idioms from Evans' shimmering, chordally oriented lyricism to the contrapuntal, melody-based discipline of Ornette Coleman to the rock-jazz fusions of Carla Bley to the pure black energy music of which Coleman and Redman were founding fathers.

Birth encapsulates the polar extremes this quartet is capable of. The title tune is a beautiful quasi-spiritual reminiscent of late Coltrane. Redman's statement of the melody is perhaps his strongest, clearest exposition on record. "Wah Wah" finds Jarrett doubling on soprano sax and the band in a lean, tight rock groove. Haden plays his acoustic bass with a wah-wah pedal as he did on Ornette Coleman's "Rock the Clock" but the recording here favors him; the dry string bass is on one channel while the wah-wah is on the other, giving the piece a big, booming bottom. "Spirit" is free music in the manner of the Art Ensemble of Chicago: shifting textures and colors, bells and percussion, Redman's eerie, almost possessed singing and his piercing Chinese musette supported by Jarrett, Motian and Haden on an assortment of steel drums. "Forget Your Memories" is one of Jarrett's typically whimsical and lopsided lines. Like "Bring Back the Time When (If)" on the Columbia album it