{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Infobox album | name = Restoration Ruin | type = Album | artist = Keith Jarrett | cover = Restoration Ruin.jpg | alt = | released = 1968<ref name="Discogs_Restoration">Discogs [https://www.discogs.com/Keith-Jarrett-Restoration-Ruin/master/292854 Keith Jarrett: Restoration Ruin] accessed June 2020</ref> | recorded = March 12, 1968<ref name="KJ discography">Keith Jarrett discography [https://www.jazzdisco.org/keith-jarrett/discography/#680312 Restoration Ruin] accessed June 2020</ref> | venue = | studio = Atlantic, New York City, US | genre = Folk rock | length = 29:33 | label = Vortex Records | producer = George Avakian | chronology = Keith Jarrett | prev_title = Life Between the Exit Signs | prev_year = 1968 | next_title = Somewhere Before | next_year = 1969 }}
'''''Restoration Ruin''''' is an album by Keith Jarrett on which he performs multiple instruments (including piano, organ, guitar, soprano saxophone, harmonica, recorder, bass guitar, drums, tambourine and sistrum), and sings his own lyrics. Recorded and released on the Atlantic Records subsidiary Vortex in 1968,<ref name="Jarrett discography">[https://www.jazzdisco.org/keith-jarrett/catalog/#vortex-lp-2008 Keith Jarrett discography] accessed April 5, 2010</ref> the album remains unique in Jarrett's catalogue, displaying a sound largely influenced by folk and progressive rock. It can be seen as the first part of an experimental period which explored neither traditional jazz nor classical music. Here Jarrett overdubs himself on various instruments, similar to the tribal ''Spirits'' (1985) or especially the free funk ''No End'' (2013, recorded in 1986). "Sioux City Sue New" was released as a 45 rpm single, backed with "You're Fortunate."<ref>[http://www.45cat.com/record/nc606232us 45cat]</ref> In 1999, Collectables Records reissued the album paired with the Art Ensemble of Chicago's ''Bap-Tizum''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/restoration-ruin-bap-tizum-mw0000667741 |title= Keith Jarrett/The Art Ensemble of Chicago: Restoration Ruin/Bap-Tizum |last=Unterberger |first=Richie |website=AllMusic |access-date=January 15, 2022}}</ref>
== Reception == {{Music ratings | rev1 = ''AllMusic'' | rev1Score = {{rating|2.5|5}}<ref name="Allmusic"/> |rev2 = ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' |rev2score = {{Rating|3|4}}<ref name="Penguin">{{cite book|last1=Cook|first1=Richard|author-link1=Richard Cook (journalist)|last2=Morton|first2=Brian|author-link2=Brian Morton (Scottish writer)|year=2008|title=The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings|edition=9th|publisher=Penguin|page=767|isbn=978-0-141-03401-0}}</ref> | rev3 = ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' | rev3score = {{Rating|2|5}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Larkin |first1=Colin |title=The Encyclopedia of Popular Music |date=2011 |publisher=Omnibus Press |isbn=9780857125958 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_NNmFiUnSmUC&q=cowboy&pg=RA3-PA2005-IA45 |access-date=1 May 2019 |language=en}}</ref> }} In his quite enthusiastic Jarrett's biography Ian Carr states: {{blockquote| As a bit of juvenilia, this is an impressive achievement in terms of instrumental competence, but as art it is disastrous. Although Jarrett has perfect pitch, he could not at this point sing very well at all and the lyrics—written by him—are often ludicrously banal. George Avakian, the producer of this album, says that it was Jarrett's idea, not his, and comments: "I was so embarrassed about it and that's one of the reasons Nesuhi [Ertegun] didn't want to keep Keith—because he hated that album."<ref name="Carr_Biography">Carr, Ian. Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music (New York: Da Capo, 1992), {{ISBN|9780306804786}} p. 44-45.</ref> }} The AllMusic review by Richie Unterberger awarded the album 2½ stars, and states, "''Restoration Ruin'' is a real oddity in the Jarrett catalog: a vocal album on which he plays all the instruments. And not a jazz vocal album, either, but a folk-rock one in which he alternates—quite literally, track to track—between sub-Dylan outings and more folk-Baroque ones that echo the late-'60s work of artists like Love and Tim Buckley".<ref name="Allmusic">Unterberger, R. [{{AllMusic|class=album|id=r141483|pure_url=yes}} Allmusic Review] accessed April 5, 2010</ref> The authors of the ''Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings'' commented: "The pieces are all very short, sometimes almost perfunctory, but there is no mistaking Jarrett's gifts and, as an exercise in instrumental eclecticism, it is a much more appealing and convincing performance than the later ''Spirits''."<ref>{{cite book | last1=Cook |first1=Richard |last2=Morton |first2=Brian | title=The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | publisher=Penguin Books | year=2006 | pages=696 }}</ref>
==Track listing== All compositions are by Keith Jarrett. # "Restoration Ruin" – 2:20 # "All Right" – 2:47 # "For You and Me" – 2:40 # "Have a Real Time" – 2:51 # "Sioux City Sue New" – 2:50 # "You're Fortunate" – 2:21 # "Fire and Rain" – 2:50 # "Now He Knows Better" – 2:58 # "Wonders" – 4:02 # "Where Are You Going?" – 3:53
==Personnel== *Keith Jarrett – vocals, guitar, harmonica, soprano saxophone, recorder, piano, organ, electric bass, drums, tambourine, sistrum *Unidentified string quartet (tracks 1,3,5,9)
== References == {{reflist}} {{Keith Jarrett}} {{Authority control}}
Category:Atlantic Records albums Category:Keith Jarrett albums Category:1968 albums Category:Albums produced by George Avakian Category:Vortex Records albums