Racial Ambiguity in the Age of the Popular Counterculture: Keith Jarrett
It was not an assumption Jarrett or his record companies did much to quell, as he was often photographed on the covers of his releases, such as Treasure Island and his own wildly successful LP, The Köln Concert.
Later in his career, in an interview with Terry Gross for National Public Radio's Fresh Air, Jarrett recalled that he might have benefitted from the ambiguity around his race, and he told stories of Black jazz musicians joking that they didn't believe he was actually white. He also recalled being the subject of protests at a music festival one time by some Black activists who charged that he was appropriating Black music and culture for profit. The mystery around his racial identity played a part in his image as one of the biggest jazz stars of the 1970s and granted him some license to explore musical styles historically associated with African-Americans, including gospel music and funk as well as jazz.
