Contemplative nature subjects such as "The Oak Trees," skeptical reflections to the poem "Half of Life," and the demanding "Hymn to Freedom," all have opulent piano parts, with Chris Jarrett and baritone Orlando Schenk achieving impressively empathetic prosody. The four "English Songs" are more moderate in rhythmic temperament and more melodically accessible, while "Onward II" and "The Blue Book" for solo piano, present Chris Jarrett as a virtuoso pianist with his own music." Neue Musikzeitung (10.2024) (Hans-Dieter Grünefeld) - (CD "6 Hölderlin Lieder" (2024))
"The musician revalorizes the grandeur of this sovereign instrument, located in the communication space between divinity and humanity. Contrasting timbral colors are used in order to achieve intensely dramatic effects, or dissolved in quasi-pastoral modulations, then disturbed by machine-gun-like sounds or notes flying like a flock of birds. Pre-classical interludes, with a ceremonious dance allure, evolve towards sound apotheoses evoking biblical trumpets, but they can also veer towards rhythmic impulses that swing."
(New Journeys - Virgil Mihaiu, Romania Literara, 9.2024)
"The entire program excelled in dynamism, vitality, jubilant communication between the two improvisers as well as with the audience. It was a delight to relive the emotions generated for the audience of a once totalitarian country, through the instrumental (and ... attitudinal) formulas proposed by Jarrett & Ditzner. After all, such a jazz background testifies to the power of music to overcome inhuman, Iron Curtain-type divisions."
("Variations" with Erwin Ditzner - Virgil Mihaiu, Romania Literara, 9.2024)
"Pianist Chris Jarrett spontaneously emerged as the central figure of this year's edition of the (Bran Castle, Rumania) festival. Chris has never been overshadowed by his much more famous brother, because he chose a completely different path musically.The reaction, of the local audience ("New Journeys" organ improvisations) was undividedly positive. (In) his (piano and drums) concert on the same evening in the Castle with Erwin Ditzner, the question of style did not arise at any moment, but only that of the personal expression of its actors." Zlatan Dmitrijevic (Jazzin, Serbia) 08.28.2024
("New Journeys," "Variations" with Erwin Ditzner)
"Way of the Cross in Sound.....the improvisations left a lot of room for the imagination" 03.19.2024 Die Rheinpfalz (New Journeys organ improvisations)
"Utterly unleashed sound experiences were followed by phases determined by rhythm, harmony and melody - both with equally high virtuosity." Hofgeismarer Allegemeine 06.19.24. (New Journeys)
"A defiant people's rebellion cast into piano tones......his soundtrack impresses with a remarkable sense of presence and authenticity" - Lahrer Zeitung 2.01.2024 (Battleship Potemkin)
"Music that you absorb with all your senses - opulent sound images"
Die Rheinpfalz (November 19,2023)
"His music is a natural phenomenon, a wild stream, a multi-layered ringing of bells, rhythmic, colourful, furious, menacing, loving and at the same time unbelievable virtuoso. The pianist Chris Jarrett cast a spell over 200 people in the opera barn on Saturday evening."
Ostholsteiner Anzeiger 8.8.2023"
Axel Flierl and Chris Jarrett enter new musical territory and thrill the audience. In the alternation between quiet, reduced and expressive-dynamic passages, he (Jarrett) proved himself to be a true piano master. (on the organ) With hitherto unheard tones and combinations, with experimental sounds that sounded silver or spherical at times, and with unconventional registrations, he built up a soundscape that ended in a musical frenzy."
Augsburger Allgemeine 07.05.2023
"With his music he empathized with the linguistic melody, and worthily transferred the often misunderstood genius Hölderlin's "tonality" into notes. What is certain is that the two (Jarrett and Schenk) cast a spell over the audience....The audience was more than enraptured: deeply touched." Rheinpfalz 05.22.2023 (Das Hölderlin Programm")
"A stunned and enthusiastic audience... One should be cautious with exuberant praise, but that was just terrific."
OH- Online (Eutiner Festspiele) (08.03.22)
“There was great applause for this new organ music, which was pleasantly off the beaten track.”
Weser Kurier 11.04.22“
Mr. Jarrett, do you collect points? Very subjectively: we would give you a 97.4 out of 100 for this extraordinary experience.”
Nordwestzeitung 9.04.22"
Not one listener in the church sat without heart pounding and the feeling of shock."
14.03.22 Rheinzeitung ("New Journeys" organ improvisations)
"And Jarrett, a highly gifted improviser, also improvised on a few of Schenks recitations. On his modestely-positioned grand, which was stationed at the corner of the stage, he unleashed cascades of sound on a symphonic scale which were highly emotional, deep and sustainable, and, with that, in brotherly allegience to the spirit of Friedrich Hölderlin." (Six Hölderlin Songs) Die Rheinpfalz (08.11.2021)
"The recording presents two lively virtuosos who, with all their sensitivity for the qualities and strategies of the other, take clear paths in terms of sound and dynamics....A spirited, closely worked-out duo concert."
Frankfurter Rundschau 12.28.2020 (review of the LP and CD "Ditzner's carte Blanche" - live in Mannheim)
"The music expresses the open questions and contradictions of human existence: contrasting with homely-eerie, familiar-strange, harmonic-dissonant passages or using a fast, light series of tones over long, dark basic tones - yet it is never completely free, atonal, chaotic; but rather as if set in a frame."
(New Journeys Organ Improvisations - 10.20.20 Saarbrücker Zeitung)
"His music includes, in surprising combinations, expressive improvisation, complex jazz variations, musical abstractions, classical harmony, profoundly moving, delicate melodies or simply silence from which an echo of sound remains - it is creative , emotional, pictorial and unique, and was able to convinced the audience, which repeatedly rewarded the artist with applause"
Swidnica 24.pl, Poland 09.03.20An extraordinary concert and an extraordinary musician, whose audience listened as if enchanted. Chris Jarrett won the hearts of the Poznań audience "
TenPoznan.pl 06.03.20
"As a pianist, he conveys a sometimes surprisingly bold, rough "Sturm und Drang." Jarrett and Ditzner maintain a concentrated and compressed texture."
Mannheimer Morgen 11.15.19 ("Variations for Piano and Drums" with Erwin Ditzner)
"He sets resting points next to and after the arabesque thunderstorms with wide, mystical surfaces or through magical song-like music. The music sparkles, fabulously, intelligently, brilliantly and artfully. Wow, what an evening!"
Neue Presse, Coburg 10.26.19
"Shimmering, ecstatic sound cascades in the trebles are just as much a part of this music as are grim bass rumblings played with untameable power."
InFranken 10.25.19
"Over the years, he has forged his own style, a very personal musical language indeed and without comparison. But it remains a style that pleases, seduces and subjugates. Chris Jarrett's name was not known to us before the concert. After the performance, we will surely never forget it."
L'Alsace 07.14.19
"elegant and supple like the well-oiled gears of a precise music machine....everything in these invariably original compositions was able to captivate and thrill the listener." ("Variations for Piano and Drums" with Erwin Ditzner)
Rheinpfalz, September 2019
"Chris Jarrett steered the organ like a ship on stormy seas with wind and no horizon. The stops were often pulled, lightning-fast, in the spur of the moment to define how loudly, how intensely, how secretively, how stealthily, how timidly, how powerfully the sounds should spread. Beguiling (and sometimes disturbing) collages of the highest quality, the church organ as in a rapture, and the audience unleashed and captivated at once. In the inner eye of the listener, images were constantly conjured up.Those willing to take the risk and travel along, were sure to come home enriched."
Rhein-Zeitung, May 2019; New Journeys
"With his compositions, Jarrett presented - in a nearly 2-hour concert without sheet music - a whole musical universe including echoes from the Baroque to the Classical eras and from French impressionism all the way to contemporary jazz and minimal music."
Saarbrücker Zeitung, March 2018
"Chris Jarrett proves himself to be a superior musical architect, who can piece real masses of sound together into imposing sculptures, at the same time always inserting pianistic lyricism and intarsias with a subtle culture of piano touch."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 2018
"These are musical short stories, which contain (in compact form) just about everything one expects to find in musical tales. There are spectacularly furious sound monsters as well as mencholic reminiscences of the great epoch of Romantic piano literature."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 4. September 2018
"Acoustical canvases: with his playing the pianist Chris Jarrett made the halls of the Hohenofen Paper factory quake - and the audience as well. Practically perfect technically, Jarrett's listeners experienced something utterly unbelievable."
Märkische Allgemeine, July 2018
"Whether with trance-like atmospheres or driving rhythms, Ditzner and Jarrett widened the listener's musical horizon and were rewarded with strong applause."
Südwest Presse Online, March 2018; "Variations" - with Erwin Ditzner
"Bird calls, swarms of gnats, wind, a distant railroad, a fair, or traffic noise - Chris Jarrett seduced all this and much more out of the Stumm organ in Simmern. The musician performed two 45 minute sets of freely improvised music producing sounds and noises from the instrument (built in 1782) that probably no human ear had ever heard before. The result is a music that takes the listener on a fantasy-journey into nature, the big city, to the fair and the circus, to church and to the Orient, provided the listener was willing to follow."
Rhein-Zeitung, January 2018; New Journeys
"Through the combination of several piano layers in 'The Darkening', his playing creates something really new (and at the same time gives us a deep impression of his pianistic approach) which, however, in its supposed alienation, purifies and yet deepens musical dimension. Jarrett's work could find new listeners, who would, of course, have to be prepared to take part in restrained but deep emotional expression. Impressive."
Piano News, January 2018
"Hardly a listener was able to withdraw from the aura of a almost magic magnetism."
Die Rheinpfalz, October 2017; "Variations" - with Erwin Ditzner
"Chris Jarrett's reputation with lovers of experimental piano music is that of an ingenious artist with unbelievable technical capabilities. He upstages his brother."
Nordkurier, August 2017
"His compositions were full of beauty, boldness and clarity: subtle themes made up of structured improvisation and jazz. The audience was carried away and rewarded Jarrett with prolonged applause."
General-Anzeiger Bonn, May 2017
"... a firework display of pianistic control ... Jarrett's spring, clearly nourished by European music history, streams with a secure feeling of form and structure."
Rems-Murr Rundschau, February 2017
"A piano virtuoso who continues to enchant the most competent of international audiences. ... The level of his inspiration cannot be explained in words."
La Gazzetta di San Severo, December 2016
"Jarrett delivered a masterpiece with his accompaniment of the world-famous scene on the steps of Odessa."
Rhein Main Presse, November 2016; Battleship Potemkin
"His playing is total devotion."
Trierischer Volksfreund, October 2016
"A whirlwind of gargling floods of sound shooting off one wave of goose bumps after another straight through your body."
Die Rheinpfalz, September 2016; New Journeys - organ improvisations
"... with this extreme-artist - who is able to use the most tender nuances of sound, but can also whip the piano and is not shy of ecstasy - comfortable listening is not enough. ... A musical magician, Chris Jarrett can distill timbres and filter rhythms, enrich tones and create a sound-spectrum which produces brilliant images in the minds of his listeners or reflects the strength of nature and stirs emotions."
Die Rheinpfalz, July 2016
"Much of the performance may have been improvised - but, with all the virtuosity, these pieces were carefully controlled artworks in which nothing gets out of hand. Nothing about the music came across as accidental, marginal or merely decorative. ... If he can persevere with this huge effort, the piano may burst into flames."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 2016
"The first year's most outstanding event [of the 11th 'Mozg Festival' in Bydgoszcz and Warsaw, Poland] was a performance by the American pianist Chris Jarrett. The musician impressed through virtuosity and technical competence, combining the great lightness of jazz improvisation and abstract forms with lyrical and often romantic outlines."
Express Bydgoski, November 2015
"... this is the highest level of the piano art. ... Jarrett's playing remains unmistakable."
Die Rheinpfalz, September 2015
"Then there were sound phases with the roar of the ocean and the howl of the wind ... The audience at the sold out concert in the Huthmacherhof was delirious and refused to let the musicians leave without two more encores."
Die Rheinpfalz, June 2015; Four Free
"When pressing the keys with such energy, such pianistic fury, but also with such brilliance and subtlety of attack, while virtually incorporating the bulky instrument ... [he awakens] associations to the mythical Centaur - half human, half piano ... full of fantasy, original, bursting with energy and technically perfect."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 2015
"His two solo pieces, 'Introduction and Solemn March' and 'Transitions', were as complex as they were enthralling; the latter evolving from machine-like relentlessness to pools of pensive beauty and a fluctuating urgency. ... The pair have arrived at a rigorous precision."
The Sydney Morning Herald, February 2015; Chris Jarrett Meets Luca Ciarla
"In his 'Introduction and Solemn March', the artist constructed such a rich universe of sounds that vivid visions of melancholy and beauty appeared in the listener's mind."
Rhein-Lahn-Zeitung, December 2014"Standing ovation for Chris Jarrett ... a feeling of deep human experience in which the listener can recognize himself followed the audience."
Thüringer Allgemeine, July 2014
"Conclusion: This kind of music has no expiration date and is actually much more daring and exciting than that of his more famous brother."
Reutlinger Nachrichten, June 2014
"Chris Jarrett's playing lights up in a stream. Nothing seems accidental - everything carefully considered. We heard contemplative tones aside from heroic ones, calm sounds along with presto tempi in which Jarrett also used the unusual 11/4 meter and demonstrated 14 different ways of playing forte. The tension in the audience exploded in 'bravo' calls and intense applause again and again. Jarrett's contemporary concert programmes for us people of the 21st Century are his heart-led mission."
Gerhard Folkerts on wedel.de, June 2014
"The concert was full of life and impulsive - the tempi in the second part almost impossible to keep up with. For those who were there, all expectations were exceeded."
Märkische Oderzeitung, June 2014
"In his programme with the name 'Tales of our Times', C. Jarrett put his pianistic art to the test impressively. Beginning with asiatic tone-rows followed by dreamy melodies paired with pop and jazz elements, he finished off by opening up a sound spectacle which left the listener breathless."
Wedel-Schulauer Tageblatt, June 2014
"Listening to Chris Jarrett’s music, you realize that his colors are as endless as the melodies he is able to create. They range from the most severe to the most tenuous, reaching the near silence of a whisper or a prayer. Contrasting and opposing melodies were performed with great technical mastery as demonstrated by his velocity, which was on the limit of the executable."
La Gazetta dello Spettacolo, January 2014"Passionate leaps, dramatic build-ups, searching for new dissonances in emotional depth, but all without virtuoso showiness as an end in itself, only using his virtuosity to tell his stirring stories, distant and capturing at once, and in the end, after the energy-sapping adventure, sending a loving invitation to the listener."
Coburger Tageblatt, March 2013
"Occasionally, this interpreter, who loves to improvise, uses oriental ornaments or jingles tremolos. Tonal chains pearl and crash into one another, and hold the dizzied audience in suspense."
Die Rheinpfalz, July 2012
"Throughout all his experimentation, his piano-technique remains on a high level. While his right hand skims over the keys, he holds the accompaniment in the left with breathtakingly accurate precision. Growling and rejoicing, excess and sensitivity - Chris Jarrett commands the piano in all facets."
Rhein-Zeitung, November 2011
"[Four Free] demonstrates a more impulsive part of his work, in which he leads his colleagues on to more unusual and risky terrain. 'Four Free' turns Jazz upside down and all around."
Poly, February 2010"Jarrett's borderless spektrum of expression and the explosivity of his comprehensive playing go beyond verbal explanation. His music 'speaks' for itself. A feeling of awe and astonishment overcomes the audience, because Jarrett's music seems brutal but so existential and 'true' at the same time."
Die Rheinpfalz, January 2010
"... his overflowing vitality unloads itself in blustering cascades like volcanic eruptions. There are also suddenly stiller moments and spheric music-box melodies. ... The soft sound of the piano mixes effectively with the somewhat nasal and percussive Saz - the Turkish lute - and together the 3 musicians wind up a gripping drive."
Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, December 2009; with Ismail Türker and Semir Türkkan
"Chris Jarrett's group 'Four Free' feels at home in the world of spontaneity, plays outside of all categories, and surprises the listener with sound experiments which, in spite of all the freedom, follow an inner logic. Such unconventional, fresh-saucy and humorous music makes you hungry for more."
Jazzpodium, December 2009; Four Free - Wax Cabinet CD
"What remains dominant are Pascal Gully's precisely beaten asymmetrical meters in 'Flunching' or 'Engführung' where Chris Jarrett shows an astounding virtuosity of tempo, or 'The Simmer', a soft barcarole. Jérôme Fohrer also proves his art with a lyric bass-solo, as in the impressionistic 'Friand Poulet', so that this magnificent album has managed a successful balance of equality between 'Four Free'."
Jazzzeitung, November 2009; Four Free - Wax Cabinet CD
"[The search for a common path] is often wonderfully mysterious, sometimes a little dreamy, and then barbed and heavily experimental. This quartet always plays openly, with a shot of humor and once in a while with a marvelously seizing drive. A great album to discover and listen to carefully."
Jazz thing, November 2009; Four Free - Wax Cabinet CD
"The pianist Chris Jarrett, who lives in Germany, has put a fabulous band together. Why haven't we heard much more about this first-class pianist and composer?"
Jazzthetik, November 2009; Four Free - Wax Cabinet CD
"Chris Jarrett has a fabulous piano technique, which enables him to perform incredibly difficult compositions and improvisations. In clockwork, the left hand weaved polyrhythmic carpets with the right. Raging sound cascades, dizzyinngly racing blocks of sound with heavy tremolos and cornered, rough rhythms activated the pianist in Blues Berceuse."
Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, January 2009
"Chris Jarrett's tempi go beyond the usual margins of velocity. ... with his extravagant musical concept, this rebel against the pianistic establishment is sure to win more and more friends."
Mannheimer Morgen, January 2009
"What Chris Jarrett then presented on his Bösendorfer grand was one of the very greatest concerts heard in recent months in our region."
Gießener Anzeiger, September 2008
"Chris Jarrett is ... a remarkably many-faceted pianist, who, with an effortless elegance, harmoniously mixes all the styles between classical and jazz, revealing their contents through exciting contrast. Lively, sparkling cascades of sound washed time and space away only to arrive at a welcome resolution when one least expected it."
Südwest Presse, September 2007
"Those in the audience who didn't know the pianist, were immediately taken in by his virtuosity and enjoyed the music from the very beginning. It was an evening they will never forget."
Journal de Franche-Comté, 2006
"Most probably until now, no one else has set football to modern classical music. To begin, Jarrett, in the double role of referee and conductor, whistles for playoff. An attack begins directly. The strings move in complex modernistic musical figurations towards the challenging team's goal. One can hear the goal being made: Then the conductor shows through whistle and card what the next game-situation will be: ballplay, loss of ball, challenger attack, opponent goal. The functioning principle? The strings have learned seperate motives, which the conductor can demand according to his tactical considerations - this, through colored cards and typical hand signals. ... Mr. Jarrett knows exactly how he wants the team to win the musical game."
Rhein-Zeitung, 2006; Rehearsal of Chris Jarrett's "Quarterfinales - Divertissement for 11 Strings and Conductor/Referee
""Not only is Jarrett a grandiose piano-man; he can tell 'Tales of Our Time' - 9 small stories, which show the whole range of his abilities, and document his influences and musical preferences. First, he blows a Balkan Blues into his public, and then ballade-like piece. Little animals creep through his flat, which, having been carefully observed, are now set ingeniously to music with his finger-play. ... The transitions from piano to forte or from elegic to energetic, are made with sleep-walking security. The second encore was magical. The last notes leave the instrument like pearls. They echo away - infinity is calling. The audience is stupefied and they show thanks with a grand ovation for these 2 shining hours of piano music."
Rhein-Zeitung, 2006
"Certainly, the sharpest profiles of the evening were delivered by the pianist Chris Jarrett. The American can forget himself while hammering the keys on the very left of the keyboard for minutes, or misuse the strings with a wine bottle, Lübeck marzipan, and heavy tape: Whatever he does, he seduces magnificent sounds out of the instrument."
Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, 2005"His music absorbs moods, feelings, passions and catastrophes and sets them directly to sound. ... and all this in a breathtaking tempo, his technique is grandiose."
Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 2005
"Instead of walking the paths of the straight and the expectable, new musical perspectives are searched for and found again and again. The piano and the Arabic lute communicate with comfort. As stoic pulse-maker, Shakir Ertek (drums) holds their playful fantasies together. ... Jarrett and his musicians were successful where so-called "world-music" often fails: in making the fusion of Western and Eastern colors and rhythms sound effortless."
Salzburger Nachrichten, 2005; Chris Jarrett Trio
"The originality [of the members of the Chris Jarrett Trio] is based on their unquenchable search for connections and similarities between the Orient and the Occident, but without giving the after-taste of a schoolmaster's lecture. Groove was created through transparency and reduction, homogenity through dialogue and tight-knittedness. Brilliance and virtuosity were displayed only when necessary. ... Almost no piece bore resemblance to another; instead, the concert had the structure of a theater-piece which put all the scenes and music-stories into place. The result of all this was an ocean of musical color, which intoxicates the listener."
Salzburger Volkszeitung, 2005; Chris Jarrett Trio
"His performance was set at a high-risk level - powerful, sharp-edged, and eruptive. He often played at an insanely fast speed, overrolling typical expectations with polyrhythms and all sorts of musical alienations."
Südwest Presse, 2005
"[The panist showed] that in qualities like musical wit and capability, and in spontaneity, he stands no step behind his brother. His feeling for structure and his expressiveness were not to be overheard."
Südkurier, 2005"Top cast for the movie by Heilig: Grammy prize-winner Michael Brammann and pianist Chris Jarrett in the service of good cinema."
Nordwest-Zeitung, 2004; "A Dreamed Life ...", a motion picture by Karl-Heinz Heilig
"Now, he proved to the pupils how alive music can be; and how direct, voiced, story-like, and deeply communicative. Sometimes simple, but often so complex, that the hearer gets confused, must be on his guard, and feel sensitively at once."
a tempo, 2004
"Chris Jarrett connects impressionism with the song-like; classical with jazz; folk with chorales; and minimal-music with free explosions. All this with ease, through a technique that sets no apparent boundaries in high-speed playing and (in spite of a hard attack) in dynamics."
Jazz Podium, 2004
"With his New World Music, Chris Jarrett not only managed to balance two instruments (piano and the arabic oud), but also the musical reconciliation of Islam and Christianity."
Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 2003; Chris Jarrett Trio
"The musicians presented their New World Music as brilliantly well connected to each other, attentive and with an exciting melodic invention."
Stuttgarter Zeitung, 2003; Chris Jarrett Trio
"A pianist with an astoundingly wide scope."
Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung, 2003
Refreshingly untortured and technically adept, this Jarrett takes the self-evident right to be Chris - and proves himself in announcements (in German, he has lived on the Rhine for years) to be an entertaining emcee. Pretty quickly, no more spirits hovered over the funny and calmly presented program."
Münchener Abendzeitung, February 2003
"Chris Jarrett has mastered the high art of creative unification, as in his enthusiastically received piano recital last Saturday in the small hall of the event forum Fürstenfeld proves. ... He utilizes Eastern ornamentation through the means of Western culture, sets a classical score directly next to some rough jazz improvisations without getting lost in ethnological or interpretative repertoire face-changes... For Chris Jarrett, the piano seems existential, it is a means of expressing his inner state, his inner life. And this is not characterized by intellectual arrogance, as is often conveyed toward the audience from solists on stage, but with subtlety, down-to-earthness and a dash of humour. Impressively in form like this, Chris Jarrett is second only to his brother Keith in one point: media popularity."
Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 2003
"In close contact with the movement in the film, he develops a virtuoso battle of the forces, which shove and push one another, and, not simply following the film, but sometimes just the other way around: the film seems to obey the music and its drama."
Bergische Morgenpost, February 2003 (Battleship Potemkin)
"Chamber music, jazz and sounds from the Middle East collide in this trio and enter into an amazingly functional relationship with one other: sometimes through rhythmically complex figurations, and in other moments through romantic themes. Jarrett's compositions and his foreign adaptations sound exotic and seductive, they seek the confrontation between the three different voices and yet lead to a wonderfully expressive, common language."
Feedback, September 2002 (Chris Jarrett Trio)
"Not denying the roots of their homelands, they nevertheless create confrontation and harmony with a European feeling."
Freie Presse Freiberg, September 2002 (Chris Jarrett Trio)
"If genius means a highly talented and creative person, then one of them was sitting on a piano stool in Winterkasten. Name: Chris Jarrett. Profession: piano player and composer. ... Chris Jarrett couples the structures of classical music with the improvisational enthusiasm of jazz. He leaves the established paths of orthodox genre boundaries and runs cross-country. But sure-footed and ultra-lightly and therefore ingeniously. ... Jarrett's piano rumbles and whoops, complex rhythms and lovely dissonances bore directly into the auditory canal, making fans cheer and ignoramuses wail."
Bergsträsser Anzeiger, June 2002
"This is music for open ears and the audience, who has been listening intently from the start, cannot escape the pull of the explosive performance."
Weserkurier, December 2001
"Chris Jarrett's solo piano pieces combine the impressionistic with the song-like, chorale with folklore, minimal music with the contrapuntal. The moods alternate between pensive and cheerful. Right and left sometimes fight over the tempo, sometimes cats play, sometimes a tuba lumbers along with unpredictable rhythms."
Audio, Nov 2001
"In general, it is Jarrett who masters the daring alternation between transparent, percussive accompaniment and free, deeply emotional improvisation with ease."
Kieler Nachrichten, June 2001 (Trio "No Standard" )
"Mr. Jarrett conjures up complex melodies and rhythms with ease, creating a very natural style in which he can live out his musical inclinations to excess."
Dates Koblenz, May 200
"... an artist to be taken seriously, who inspires our imagination with his narrative piano playing." Stuttgarter Nachrichten, April 2001
"His claim is reflection without over-intellectualism - something he doesn't like at all - it is the combination of confrontation and harmony between musicians and audience."
Clubsessel, Oldenburg, April 2001
"Without any sensationalism, his playing makes it clear that Jarrett lives out his music with all means. ... Chris Jarrett is simply an experience."
Badische Zeitung, March 2001
"With rhythmic and tonal motif repetitions reminiscent of the seventies, but much more broken and dissonant, an impetuous and unflinching musical nature revealed itself. ... Such colorful images enraptured the listeners so much that the applause turned into shouting and exultation."
Ostsee-Zeitung, 2000
"Surprisingly, the perfect dynamics of touch, which made high pitches sparkle so wonderfully, were also able to give low chords a rumble reminiscent of dark works by Rachmaninov or Liszt."
Eckernforder Zeitung, 2000
"In addition, there is a sense for the scenic aspects of musical processes, which he was able to demonstrate in works for film and ballet. Jarrett has all these facets, he is imaginative and agile, sometimes lyrically dramatic, sometimes ironic, experimental or virtuoso, narrative, direct and authentic or hermetically extravagant. Chris Jarrett is an intelligent and stimulating performer." Piano News, 2000
"Music that speaks volumes and speaks more than a thousand words. ... Chris Jarrett doesn't seem to know any technical hurdles. ... the soloist uses the concentrated synergetic power of inspiration and skill to playfully explore the possibilities of his instrument. At times he leaves one hand darting almost untamed over the keys, while the other takes over the accompaniment in perfect timing."
Kieler Nachrichten, 2000
"Here is someone who becomes one with the piano and literally explodes."
Rhein-Zeitung, 2000
"... the musician conjured up complex rhythms, set them against each other and spun them together. He consciously used the entire keyboard and thus achieved a very personal style in which he lived his music out."
Rhein-Zeitung, 1999
"He followed the formal, five-act architecture carefully, constantly creating tension through finely worked-out moments of scene-change anticipation ,making it easier for the viewer to understand the film through clear musical descriptions and motivic structures."
Osnabrücker Zeitung, 1998 (Battleship Potemkin)
"In addition, he has a virtue that has become rare in jazz piano of the last fifty years: two hands that act independently of each other. The listener sometimes ... thinks he has a whole orchestra in front of him."
Jazzzeitung, 1996
"Loud tones suddenly become soft, powerful expressiion is complimented by moments of gentle touch and sensitive sound."
Generalanzeiger, Bonn 1995
"... where Jarrett's strength lies is in an almost obsessive love for the piano, for the keyboard in its entire range, from the lowest contra-octave to the top as far as the fingers can reach."
Rhein-Zeitung, 1995
"There is no doubt: his self-composed piano music is highly dynamic. It thrives on improvisation. Its spectrum ranges from the immersed, elegiac sound meditation to the completely dissonant outburst, spontaneous, out of the mood of the moment. ... His music fits in a smoky jazz club as well as in an exclusive concert hall or in a studio for experimental music." Mitteldeutsche Allgemeine, 1994
"His own compositions were characterized by tremendous impulsiveness, joy of playing, rhythm and breathtaking technique."
Weser Kurier, 1993
"This symbiosis of Afro-American and Eastern European folk and serious music is original and unusual, witty and sophisticated, entertaining and catchy, and characterizes Chris Jarrett's personal style and special quality."
Nordwest Zeitung, 1993
"Wildly rhythmic, through-composed and yet jazz-based works alternate with a few almost sentimental, yet tastefully lyrical pieces and with experimental sound studies."
Fermata, 1992
"Intoxicating piano music without gimmicky, affected accessories, clear and accentuated in conception and played so simply and sensitively that the very densely woven atmosphere in his pieces became tangible. ... These pieces are not played, they take place."
Aachener Volkszeitung, 1992
"An evening that revealed the full depth and sonorous warmth of the grand piano in a synthesis of jazz, Eastern European folk music and serious music."
Trierer Tageszeitung, 1991
1992 "Jarrett's versatility is his hallmark, his style. An American whose music will... hopefully get more attention in the future."
Neue Musikzeitung, 1991
"Jarrett captivated and convinced from his very first touch with excelling virtuosity ripping the audience into a veritable firework of emotionally stirring and deeply touching compositions and improvisations."
OC, 1990
"His music is movement, his element is rhythm: Chris Jarrett's music penetrates the body walls, vibrates and pulsates ... the intensity that emanates from this teamwork between musician and grand piano is condense."
Nordwest Zeitung, 1990
"The composition follows Eisenstein's suggestive montage from start to finish. At the same time, Jarrett manages to relativize the occasional sentimentality, the black-and-white Christmas fairytale morality of the film: when the leader of the rebels is dead, the pianist does not play a funeral march, but a despondent, deeply sad ballad - where Eisenstein needs some time to get away from the weeping and the wailing, Jarrett is already further, the ballad has become an unobtrusive, melancholy blues.Then the proletarians of Odessa join forces with the sailors of the armored cruiser - the music returns to the bass beats of the revolution. Whenever you think catchy illustrative harmonies are nearby, Jarrett breaks up his music with small dissonant variations. A perfect film score, played technically and emotionally in a first-class manner." Tageszeitung, Berlin, 1988 (Battleship Potemkin)
"He possesses a rare virtue as a jazz pianist. With two hands, Chris Jarrett leads the listener to believe that a whole orchestra is playing."
Jazzzeitung
"Jarrett shows how deep, warm and full a piano sounds - his 'pictures' soak you up..."
Tageszeitung Berlin
"His music fits into a smoky jazz club as well as into an exclusive concert hall or a studio for experimental music."
Mitteldeutsche Allgemeine
"The pieces excite through the vitality and contrast of the improvisational flights, as well as through the aesthetical logic of the playing."
Jazz Podium
"Chris Jarrett's compositions are shaped by improvisation, the joy playing, jazz rhythms and breath-robbing technique."
Weser Kurier