In a concert celebrating one of the premier trios in jazz history, UCLA Live presents the acclaimed piano master Keith Jarrett with longtime collaborators bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette in an evening furthering their extraordinary artistic partnership. The concert begins at 8 p.m., Saturday, March 12, at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus, and will run for approximately one hour and 45 minutes. There will be no intermission. For tickets, call (310) 825‑2101, visit http://www.uclalive.org/ or contact any Ticketmaster outlet.

In 2003 Jarrett, Peacock and DeJohnette, often referred to as The Standards Trio and considered one of jazz's most consistently creative piano ensembles, marked their 20th anniversary of playing together.

During the past two decades, the trio has received numerous international awards including four Grammy nominations, plus dozens of Record of the Year and Critics' Prize awards from the U.S., European and Japanese music press, including the Gold Disc Award (2000, 2003) from Swing Journal (Japan) and the Choc des Chocs Award (2000, 2001, 2003) from Jazzman Magazine (France) for Best Jazz Album of the Year. In 1991 their "Tribute" recording was awarded the Prix du President de la Republique from the Charles Cros Academy, France's award for the Best Recording of The Year. In 1998 and 1999, the trio was voted Best Acoustic Jazz Group in the Downbeat Readers' Polls.

Jarrett in particular has come to be recognized as one of the most creative and uncompromising musicians of our times.

He and DeJohnette first performed together in 1966–68 as members of the Charles Lloyd Quartet; then, for one year in 1970 with Miles Davis. All three musicians first played together in 1977, when Jarrett and DeJohnette played on Gary Peacock's first ECM Records recording, "Tales of Another."

They came together as a permanent trio in 1983, when Jarrett invited the other two to join him in New York for a recording session dedicated to playing "standards," the rich body of American popular songs from the 1930s, '40s and '50s. At the time it was considered passé for top players to concentrate on standards instead of original material, but Jarrett said he thought it was important to show that "music wasn't about material, but what the player brings to the material."

This philosophy has helped bring critical and public praise. "In the hands of this inquisitive trio," wrote The Philadelphia Inquirer, the songs "became a vital force, sparking virtuosic three-way exchanges and crazed long-shot lunges, inspiring moments of stray accidental magic that simply cannot be planned."

The January 1983 sessions produced the trio's first three ECM releases, "Standards Vol. 1 and 2," and "Changes." Twelve live concert recordings have followed on ECM, each recorded in a different international city: "Standards Live" (Paris, 1985); "Still Live" (Munich, 1986); "Changeless" (U.S. tour, 1987); "Tribute" (Cologne, 1989); "Standards in Norway" (Oslo, 1989); "The Cure" (New York, 1990); "Tokyo '96"; "Whisper Not" (Paris, 1999); and "Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note: The Complete Recordings" (New York, 1994), a 6-CD box set that captured the trio's complete three-night engagement at the Blue Note jazz club in New York in June 1994, which was voted "Album of the Year" in the 1996 Downbeat Critics' Poll. In October 1991, exactly two weeks after the death of Miles Davis, the trio recorded "Bye Bye, Blackbird," their deeply felt tribute to the jazz giant with whom all three had played.

Recent trio releases include "Inside Out" (London, 2000) and "Always Let Me Go" (Tokyo, 2001), which feature live recordings of freely improvised music, plus "Up For It" (2002, Juan‑Les‑Pins, France), which returns to standards. The latest release (August, 2004) is "The Out‑of‑Towners," recorded live at Munich's National Theatre in 2001, which showcases the trio at the top of their game. At the end of the disc — rare for the trio's recordings — Jarrett returns to perform a solo encore, a heart-melting rendition of "It's All in the Game."

Over the past 37 years, Keith Jarrett has been universally acclaimed as an improviser of unsurpassed genius, a master of jazz piano, a classical pianist of great depth, and a composer who has written hundreds of pieces for his various jazz groups, plus extended works for orchestra, soloist and chamber ensemble.

Born in May 1945 in Allentown, Penn., he began playing piano at age three with classical studies at age seven, then formal composition training at age 15. In the early 1960s, while still a teenager, he began playing jazz and was soon touring with Art Blakey, then for three years with Lloyd, and finally with Miles Davis. By the late 1960s, Jarrett was leading his own trio with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Paul Motian (soon to be a quartet with saxophonist Dewey Redman) and recording as a leader for Atlantic, Columbia and Impulse Records.

In 1971 he began an exclusive recording collaboration with ECM Records, the visionary German label headed by producer Manfred Eicher. This collaboration has produced a catalogue of nearly 60 recordings to date, unparalleled in their diversity and scope, including 15 trio recordings (on 23 CDs) with Peacock and DeJohnette; classical recordings of music by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Shostakovich; and Jarrett's groundbreaking solo piano recordings such as "Köln Concert" and "La Scala," which have helped to redefine the piano in contemporary music.

His most recent solo CD, "The Melody at Night, With You," an intimate studio recording of songs, was released in 1999 and has become one of the best-selling jazz CDs of the past decade,

winning Best of the Year awards in Japan, France and the United States, as well as a 2000 Grammy nomination.

Jarrett has garnered many other awards including seven Grammy nominations, several French Grand Prix du Disque and German Deutsche Schallplattenpries awards. In 1989 the French Ministry of Culture elected him an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters, one of the highest honors the French nation can bestow upon an artist. In 1996 he was named a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, joining Duke Ellington as only the second foreign jazz artist to be so honored. He has been voted Pianist of the Year in the Downbeat Readers' Polls (1994, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2001) and in the Downbeat Critics' Poll (1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004).

Jarrett also was awarded the 2003 Polar Music Prize, one of the world's most prestigious music awards, presented by the king of Sweden in a special televised ceremony in Stockholm. In July 2004, Jarrett was awarded the prestigious Leonie Sonning Music prize in Copenhagen and the Miles Davis Prize at the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Jazz Festival.

Gary Peacock, who has inspired several generations of jazz bass players, is not content with the traditional bassist's role of simple time-keeping and harmonic accompaniment. His ability to bring melodic and rhythmic freedom into any musical setting has been his trademark for 45 years in jazz.

Born in 1935 in Idaho, Peacock first played in Los Angeles in the late 1950s with Bud Shank, Barney Kessel, Hampton Hawes and Paul Bley. By the early 1960s, he was in New York playing with Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Sonny Rollins and others. He moved to Japan for several years in the late 1960s to study Oriental philosophy and medicine, before returning to the United States in the early 1970s to resume active music-making and to teach at the Cornish Institute in Seattle. Over the years he also has worked with Sarah Vaughn, Chick Corea, Joe Henderson, Helen Merrill, Michel Petrucciani, Don Pullen, and Bill Frisell, to name a few.

In recent years, Peacock's other major collaborations, besides the trio with Jarrett and DeJohnette, have included duo tours with guitarist Ralph Towner, and work with pianists Paul Bley or Marilyn Crispell, in either duo settings or in trio with drummer Paul Motian.

In the past 25 years, Peacock has played on more than 25 ECM Records recordings.

Jack DeJohnette is considered one of the finest drummers in jazz. His approach to the drums is that of a complete musician, exploring the varied colors and timbres of his varied percussion instruments, rather than simple time-keeping.

Born in 1942 in Chicago, DeJohnette studied classical music and piano for 10 years as a youth. In the mid 1960s he joined Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell as a member of AACM, Chicago's pioneering avant-garde collective ensemble of musicians. In 1966 DeJohnette headed to New York, playing first with Jackie McLean, Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln, before joining the Charles Lloyd Quartet alongside the young Jarrett. By 1967 he was playing with many of the period's greatest improvisers including Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Stan Getz, before joining Miles Davis in 1968 to record the quintessential jazz/rock fusion record, "Bitches Brew," along with John McLaughlin, Chick Corea and Dave Holland.

After a few years with Davis, DeJohnette moved on and began recording with many of the finest players in jazz, as well as leading his own groups. In the 1970s he formed New Directions, featuring John Abercrombie, Eddie Gomez and Lester Bowie, followed by Special Edition and then the Gateway Trio with Dave Holland and Abercrombie, which is still active today.

DeJohnette also has been featured in past years on high-profile CD releases by Herbie Hancock, Betty Carter, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Milton Nascimento, John Scofield and Michael Brecker, as well as on sessions with young emerging players that he feels deserve greater attention. In 1972 he began a 30-plus year recording collaboration with ECM Records, where he has played on more than 40 recordings with varied groups as a leader, as sideman, as well in the trio with Jarrett and Peacock.

In recent years DeJohnette has toured with the World Saxophone Quartet, the Gateway Trio, British saxophonist John Surman and with African musician Foday Muso Suso. Touring and recording projects for 2004–05 include a special trio collaboration with guitarist John Scofield and organist Larry Goldings in a celebration of Tony Williams. There also are upcoming tours with the Latin Project, a septet featuring clarinetist Don Byron and a host of superb Afro-Cuban musicians, plus a trio with pianist Danilo Perez and guitarist/bassist Jerome Harris.

DeJohnette has garnered many awards including France's prestigious Grand Prix du Disque (1979), Album of the Year awards in the 1984 Downbeat Readers' Poll and 1989 Critics' Poll, and Swing Journal (Japan). He has the distinction of having been voted Best Drummer in the Downbeat Readers' Polls for an unprecedented 13 straight years from 1980 to 1992. In 1991 Boston's Berklee College of Music awarded him an honorary doctorate of music. He also was a featured musician in the film "Blues Brothers 2000."

Tickets for Keith Jarrett, are $75, $58 and $38 and may be purchased at the UCLA Central Ticket Office at the southwest corner of the James West Alumni Center, online at http://www.uclalive.org/ and at all Ticketmaster outlets. For more information or to charge by phone, please call (310) 825-2101. UCLA students also may purchase discounted tickets for $25 in advance. Student rush tickets at the same price are available to all students with a valid ID one hour prior to show time.

An internationally acclaimed producer and presenter of music, dance, spoken word and theater, UCLA Live brings hundreds of outstanding and provocative artists to Los Angeles each year. Committed to supporting the development of new work, UCLA Live has presented major and emerging artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Pina Bausch, Kronos Quartet, Philip Glass, Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones and Robert Wilson. Lectures, residencies and extensive outreach programs expand the impact of lively and unparalleled performances from a mix of distinguished masters and innovators.

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