How a total disaster became the world’s best-selling piano album

Keith Jarrett's cologne concert started out as a disaster but it went on to be the bestselling solo Jazz album of all time and the bestselling solo piano album of any genre the concert took place on the 24th of January 1975 at cologne's Opera house now even without any of the drama that would later unfold the concert was already taking place under unusual circumstances it was organized by the concert promoter Vera branders who was then only 177 years old and given the opera house was staging an opera earlier that evening the only time they had available for Keith Jarrett was the starting time of 11:30 p.m. Jarrett was already well known to European audiences partly through touring with Miles Davis but also having recorded previous concerts in Europe so although the opera house was trying to Branch out into new ideas Jarrett was by no means an unknown figure usually during this tour Keith Jarrett was performing every other night in order to allow time for traveling between concerts but as this was was the only night the opera house had available it had to be scheduled the day after another concert in lazan the record label requested that Keith Jarrett be given a flight to Cologne to make transport easier however he exchanged his ticket for cash and instead hitched a ride with his producer man Freda for the 500 mile trip they cashed in the ticket and they drove with an old Rena 4 all the way from Switzerland so Keys was completely exhausted by the time they got here Not only was he exhausted from not having slept at all but he had such bad back pain that he needed to wear a brace but the real drama unfolded when he arrived at the Opera House Keith had requested to play on a flagship bosorer Imperial piano however when he went out to try the piano this was not the one given to him so they looked in the whole Oprah and they found this tiny little boen dorer that was completely out of tune the upper and the lower octave was wrecked the black noes in the middle didn't work the pedal stuck it was unplayable Keith Jarrett ref refused to play and Vera the concert promoter was completely unaware of what had happened because she arrived at the opera house at the same time as Keith the piano was on the stage already and Keith played a few notes and then AA played a few notes they didn't say anything then after a long silence um Manfred came to me and said if you don't get another piano Keith can play tonight Vera hardly contacted everyone she could think of in Lo that might be able to supply her with the grand piano needed for that evening and she did eventually find one but when the piano tuner arrived and heard about her plan to transport this piano he told her it was an even worse idea than trying to use the broken one that they already had Vera begged Jarrett to perform on the broken piano knowing that given the way things have been organized it would have been impossible to refund the audience for their tickets Jarrett reluctantly agreed and the piano tuner got to work desperately trying to salvage this piano into something usable meanwhile Vera booked a table for Jarrett and his producer at a nearby Italian restaurant knowing that a bit of downtime and something to eat was well needed to prepare for the concert but even this went wrong unfortunately the waiter messed up their order and so it took ages for their food to arrive and when it finally did it was time for them to leave for the concert Keith Jarrett yet again refused to play but as he found out the recording Engineers were ready to go he thought it might be worth going ahead just so that he could have a record of it we went to probably tell the engineers that they could leave because it was just everything was wrong except they sold it out we thought we'll we should send the engineers home and then at the last minute no it's okay we'll just keep we'll leave they're here already they're set up and we'll just have it recording for ourselves this recording will go on to be the bestselling solo piano album of all time so what is it that makes this performance and this recording so special well of course it's the music the entire concert was improvised and I don't mean he was improvising over some well-known Tunes I mean he sat down and improvise the entire concert the concert is in two parts and in four sections part one is all on its own and part two is divided into these three sections what Keith Jarrett did so brilliantly was to take this broken piano and use it to play music that only that piano could have played he didn't hide away from The Faults of the piano instead he embraced them and put them in the music this is the very essence of improvisation the concert starts out with just four notes a gentle and reluctant opening whilst Keith is getting to know the piano before listening to what it gives back to him and then exploring these ideas further I don't think that people recognize what's happening sometimes as an audience member but if they knew that um that we were all being surprised at the same time including me by the sounds and and having to adapt to them then um Beginnings would be even more interesting another great example is how audible these broken pedals are in part two you might think that if the pedals are broken then you should avoid them or try and play as quietly as possible but Keith really Embraces these broken pedals and almost uses them in a percussive [Music] way when I was younger I often used to think what are these great musicians thinking about as they play because of course when you're first starting out learning an instrument there's so much to think about but of course they're not thinking about anything they're listening in a state of flow almost like a great conversation and I doubt there are many better examples of being a great listener than this cologne concert okay so Keith Jarrett's musicality is incredible and the story behind the concert is completely unique but none of this explains why this record has been so successful I don't think listeners are buying it to hear a broken piano one of the things that makes this album so special is that it's a live recording it's an opportunity for The Listener to EAS drop on a particular moment in time even the packaging with the photo of Keith Jarrett playing which is actually from another concert and the titles of the improvised pieces make no attempt to turn them into definitive works but rather just parts from this concert another thing that sets This Record apart is that it was recorded in Europe and Europe has traditionally played a minor role in jazz development at least compared to the cultural home of jazz that America is but this performance having been recorded in Europe offers a unique perspective on jazz on the one hand it's a solo piano performance recorded in an opera house a very Western sort of classical musical idea but then there's Keith playing an improvised performance on a broken piano late into the night which is much more fitting with the tradition of jazz and so it came to be that this record is almost a cultural crossover between these two musical Traditions especially given the time it was recorded which was 1975 a time when jazz fusion was very popular and and this record is a fusion between these two musical Traditions it's also remarkably simple and accessible just look at the packaging a simple black and white photo with minimal text for a Pianist and concert promoter this performance started out as more of a disaster than they could have possibly imagined but Keith Jarrett and his incredible skill as an improviser meant that he was able to turn this into a truly unique piece of art

Channel: David Hartley

Views: 637,728

Keywords: keith jarrett, koln concert, cologne concert

Id: wIXMkZAcgRo

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 01 2024