The Sun Bear Concerts is a boxed set of solo piano recordings made by Keith Jarrett while on tour in Japan in November of 1976. The first of the eight concerts that comprise the collection took place fifty years ago tonight, November 5, 1976, in Kyoto. Five of the tours eight concerts appear on the recording, and took place in Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Sapporo and Tokyo over a two-week span. The collection was released as a ten-LP set on the ECM label in January 1978.

Upon its release, DownBeat Magazine assigned the album its highest rating, and one reviewer said “Nowhere else in his collected works does music seem more effortless and splendid. From the opening phrase onward, it unfolds like an idyllic dream on the border of consciousness, and like the best of dreams – or narratives – you never want it to end. It is, to my mind, one of the few real self-contained epics in Seventies music.”

Here is a link to the first improvisation from the Kyoto concert that took place half a century ago:

"KYOTO, NOVEMBER 5, 1976, PART I"