Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945 in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American pianist and composer.
His career started with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in both classical music and jazz, as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisation technique combines not only jazz, but also other forms of music, especially classical, gospel, blues, and various ethnic-folk musics.
Jarrett has commented that his best performances were during the times where he had the least amount of preconception of what he was going to play at the next moment. A possibly apocryphal account of one such performance had Jarrett staring at the piano for several minutes without playing; as the audience grew increasingly uncomfortable, one member shouted to Jarrett, "D sharp!", to which the pianist responded, "Thank you!," and launched into an improvisation at speed.
In 2004, Jarrett was awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Award. The prestigious award usually associated with classical musicians and composers has only previously been given to one other jazz musician — Miles Davis. The first person to receive the award was Igor Stravinsky in 1959
