Above you’ll see the cover of Hamburg ’72. The UK/Ireland release is now confirmed as Monday 24 November, according to Amazon. Tracks are: ‘Rainbow’, ‘Everything That Lives Laments,’ ‘Piece for Ornette,’ ‘Take Me Back,’ ‘Life, Dance,’ and ‘Song For Che.’  It’s out for the first time complete and officially released, and with a new mix by Manfred Eicher and Jan Erik Kongshaug. The bootleg alternative cover image you’ll still see for the time being on Amazon, incidentally – that illegal release now lapsing to ‘unavailable.’

Less than a decade after his first recordings in the obscure company of trumpeter Don Jacoby and the College All Stars in Chicago Keith Jarrett had in November 1971 recorded solo album Facing You in Oslo, one of his biggest career achievements, and in some ways an even more magnificent solo album than the later Köln Concert even if the latter would sell millions more copies and change Jarrett’s career for ever.

Jarrett in the year before Hamburg ’72 had been touring extensively with Miles Davis, and had been recording his own projects either in duo with Jack DeJohnette or with the American Quartet. He would play his final shows with Miles in December 1971 at the Gaslight Club in Washington DC.

In 1972 Jarrett recorded once again in April with the American Quartet (tenorist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Paul Motian) plus added brass and strings sessions that would be released much later in the year by Columbia as Expectations.

That June Jarrett was in Europe with Haden and Motian, and two days before the Hamburg recording the trio were taped in Munich at the Arri Kino, which circulates only on a bootleg album.

Updated 15.11.2014

• Last Dance, Jarrett’s duo album with Charlie Haden, was released in June, and is reviewed here