Not so long ago pianists used to fit comfortably into bags. Some were known as romanticists, others as acerbic humorists, wailing time players, or sound-cluster specialists. You either played funk or you played free, right-handed "trumpet style" or locked-hands block chords. Keith Jarrett does all these things. When he was a sideman with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis he was often accused of being diffuse and unfocused, and this criticism continued to be leveled at his playing until this year. There was a certain tentative feeling in his 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 recalls half-a-dozen sentimental standards without quoting any of them. Redman's major tenor solo is on this tune. He sings through the horn, shrieks, boils in the lower register, and raises the energy level higher and higher with the sheer force and feeling of his playing. He switches to clarinet on "Remorse" while Jarrett uses the banjo, creating a new world of sharp, biting, metallic phrases and effective slurred swoops on the instrument. The clarinet solo is accomplished and Haden has a remarkable bass solo.

Expectations, a two-record set, is more ambitious than Birth. Jarrett has added occasional string and brass arrangements and employed overdubs, and guitarist Sam Brown and the Brazilian wizard Airto Moreira augment the basic quartet. The tunes range from very short (46 seconds) to long (17:20) and once again each composition suggests a different approach. In a number of cases the colors of the group are varied with more freedom and assurance than on the earlier Atlantic album. "Common Mama," for example, starts with brass section, piano and rhythm, cooks along through roaring piano and tenor solos, and ends up with tenor and soprano restating the theme and lending it a different dimension. "Expectations" begins with lyrical atempo piano over dense string voicings and later picks up considerably, propelled by Haden's forceful, deliberate bass.

"Take Me Back" is the rocker of the album; Jarrett gets a tough, chugging barrelhouse feel on the piano without sacrificing harmonic sophistication, and Sam Brown's electric guitar bites into the rhythm with stinging effect. Though he navigates difficult progressions with ease and reads tricky lines like the studio pro he is, Brown sounds most at home in a rock setting and his solo here is a gem. The band shows itself to advantage on this tune; as it progresses, the groove loosens up almost imperceptibly. Haden and Motian are able to keep the motion rocking on ahead while they vary the harmonic content and the meter. The tune's effect is diminished slightly by a noodling, unnecessary soprano sax overdub but once that's out of the way it's smooth sailing.

"Rousillon" and "The Circular Letter" are evidence of Jarrett's admiration for Ornette Coleman, Jarrett's soprano and Redman's tenor work well together, employing the loose unisons and harmolodic two-part voicings of the master. Jarrett seems to understand Ornette's music, and its underlying logic, better than any other keyboard-oriented musician. Redman plays a sizzling solo on the former tune, juxtaposing gritty growls and whoops with swirling flurries of notes and chewed-up theme fragments. Airto and Motian both play drum sets on the latter tune, and they kick up an invigorating storm of rolls and crashes under an organic, unfolding collective improvisation by the horns.

The strong fourth side begins with "Sundance," the album's most effective rock-based piece. Redman weaves recurring R&B-inflected solo statements into a high, shouting brass part and Jarrett's piano is superb. "Bring Back the Time" begins with stunning solo piano. Redman really brings it on home this time. Again the instrumentation is creatively varied. The last tune, "There Is a Road (God's River)" lives up to its name. The piano begins it and a long-lined theme emerges with the entrance of guitar and bass. This theme changes phrase by phrase from funky gospel to tight baroque counterpoint to tricky modern harmonic modulations but it rolls along at the same time, as inevitable as a tidal wave. The piano-guitar interchanges are both perfect and rousing and then the string section swoops in, the rhythm drops out, and long string lines move into a short concluding coda.

Expectations and Birth get more variety out of fewer musicians than any albums released this year, and while much of the credit must go to Jarrett for having enough faith in an eclectic, try-anything approach to group playing to find musicians who could make it happen, the musicians' brilliant performances are at least as important to the albums' success as the leader's directions. Redman in particular is never less than breath-taking. His is a completely unique tenor style, unmistakable from the first note he plays. He has entirely avoided the neo-Trane bag which so many modern tenor players have fallen into; his solos throughout these albums remind us how much we need an album of Dewey unleashed, playing his own music in his own way. Haden's bass is like a heartbeat. He is a feeling, emotional player, without the fast-fingered flash of a Richard Davis or a Stanley Clarke but with an unparalleled understanding of how to make music work and an uncanny ear that never seems to err in its split-second judgments. Motian is tasteful and intelligent, and on the Columbia album Airto and Sam Brown are solid assets to the music.

Meanwhile, Jarrett himself is gravitating more and more toward solo playing. He recently entranced a New York audience with an unaccompanied recital that demonstrated his strengths—his sure time, his far-ranging imagination, his sharply-honed technique and his particular inner fire, which is at once steady and vulnerable. When he plays alone, Jarrett pushes his creativity to its limits. It's almost scary to hear someone who apparently relies so totally on the spirited, flowing, almost effusive directions of his muse, yet the muse seems to never let him down. His inspirations seem to be as prolific and varied as his compositions. Columbia is thinking about releasing a Jarrett solo album, but until then Facing You is available in certain specialty stores and from the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association (1841 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10023). It may well be the finest album of jazz piano solos since Art Tatum left us, and it is without a doubt the most creative and satisfying solo album of the past few years. (RS 124)

BOB PALMER