Later recordings may have made Jarrett a major star, but his albums for Vortex and Atlantic from 1969 to 1974 contain some of his freshest and most winning playing. The Mourning of a Star, made in 1971, continued the red-hot trio album tradition set by Life Between the Exit Signs and Somewhere Before--a tradition with stunning personal combinations of the Bill Evans and Charles Lloyd approach to music making. Aided by Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, Jarrett re-wrote the boundaries of what a modern jazz trio could and should be doing, as is demonstrated on the first track here, "Follow The Crooked Path (Though It Be Longer)", a tune with a manic rush of melody followed by all three musicians playing passages on steel drums as well as their regular instruments (Jarrett also manages a lyrical passage on soprano sax). Made at a time when jazz's boundaries were expanding at an incredible rate and the whiff of excitement could be sensed in a young musician's responses to these possibilities, this record is disparate, rather undisciplined but so full of ideas that the listener is apt to get as excited at the possibilities as the musicians themselves. --Keith Shadwick