A new book in French about Keith Jarrett’s 1976 Japanese tour, Keith Jarrett, Japon 1976 – L’Ours du soleil (Keith Jarrett, Japan 1976 – The Sun Bear), was published on October 8, 2026 by Arléa. Written by Philippe Séclier, a French photographer and journalist who has already published several books about Pasolini, Sergio Larrain, Marc Riboud, and Tadao Ando, it is a 160-page paperback.

Fifty years after the tour that produced the Sun Bear Concerts, Séclier travelled across Japan looking for the concert halls (some of them gone, others transformed), jazz kissa, collectors, record shop owners, and sound engineers connected to those eight solo concerts given in thirteen days in November 1976. As the publisher writes:

En 1976, Keith Jarrett est au Japon pour une tournée exceptionnelle : huit récitals solo, donnés en treize jours. Cinq d’entre eux formeront les Sun Bear Concerts, dix vinyles publiés par ECM. Six heures et demie, et plus encore, d’improvisation. En enquêtant sur cette étonnante aventure de Keith Jarrett, Philippe Séclier interroge les témoins, les lieux et les traces. Son livre, récit d’un voyage et d’une fascination, approche le mystère d’une musique née un soir pour n’être plus rejouée.

The book opens with a short autobiographical text by Keith Jarrett himself, previously unpublished in French, which originally appeared in Japanese in the program of his April 1981 solo tour of Japan. It can be read in the excerpt published by ActuaLitté, which also reviewed the book.

Thanks to Nabe for the link.

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