Es sind zwei neue Filme über das „Köln Concert“ in der Pipeline:
“I went face to face with Keith Jarrett,” recalls Vera Brandes, “and I said to him, ‘Keith, if you don’t play this concert, I’ll be fucked. And you’ll be fucked too.’” Brandes laughs as she recalls this pivotal conversation, 50 years later. It came after a day of chaos where she, an 18-year-old concert promoter, was desperately trying to convince the famously temperamental jazz pianist to play a concert on a substandard instrument.
“To be honest,” she adds, “I had absolutely not a single clue what those words meant! My English wasn’t then as good as it is now. I’d heard Miles Davis using the f-word while talking to his band, which featured Keith Jarrett, a few years earlier, so maybe I was channelling Miles. Keith must have been floored to hear this teenage girl who looked like Brigitte Bardot’s little sister using this kind of language!”
He played a couple of notes and said: ‘Unless we get another piano, this concert is not happening’
This much mythologised encounter happened in January 1975, when Jarrett turned up at the Cologne opera house to play the biggest solo gig of his career. Instead of the 10ft-long, half-ton Bösendorfer Imperial he’d been expecting, Jarrett had been given a 6ft baby grand rehearsal piano with a thin tone, a non-functioning damper pedal and no power in the bass register. A furious Jarrett wanted to cancel but – after much coaxing from Brandes, and the diligent work of two piano technicians – he reluctantly stayed to perform a completely improvised one-hour set.
Despite the setbacks, the gig was a triumph, and ECM’s live recording of the show went on to become the bestselling solo jazz album – and the bestselling solo piano album – of all time, shifting more than 4m copies to date.
Half a century later, the story of how Jarrett was forced to adapt his playing for a shonky instrument has inspired dozens of inspirational lectures from business gurus on how to use obstacles creatively. It has also inspired not one but two movies, both due for cinematic release this year: a loosely fictionalised drama, Köln 75, about Brandes and the events of the day; and a forensic, feature-length documentary, titled Lost in Köln, that searches for the iconic piano and negotiates dozens of conflicting accounts of the concert.
[…]
Brandes recalls the chaotic hours before the concert. “For starters, Keith had played a gig in Switzerland the night before,” she says. “I’d actually bought him a plane ticket, but, unbeknown to me, he’d cashed that ticket in at Zurich Airport for 375 deutschmarks and got a lift in Manfred Eicher’s tiny Renault 4, to save money. So, after an eight-hour drive, Keith was exhausted and had a bad back. When I showed Keith and Manfred the piano, they walked around it a few times, played a couple of notes and said, ‘Unless we get another piano, this concert is not happening.’”
[…]
Why did the headstrong Jarrett eventually concede and play the show? “I think there are several reasons,” says Brandes. “First of all, Manfred Eicher had already paid Martin Wieland to record it, with two microphones, to take advantage of the unique acoustic of the opera house, so maybe there was pressure. But I think it was mainly personal pride. If Keith had cancelled he would have been in despair, sitting in his hotel, with 1,400 angry punters outside the theatre. He’s not the kind of performer who cares about his audience – he’s driven only by a love of his own art. But I think he would have been angry at himself if he’d failed to take on the challenge.”
Hier lang für den ganzen Artikel:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/feb/10/koln-concert-keith-jarrett-jazz-masterpiece-piano
Der zweite Film hat eine Website:
https://www.kolnconcertdoc.com/en
Und auch da gibt’s natürlich einen Trailer:
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #162: 8.4., 22:00; # 163: 13.5., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba