Keith Jarrett – First half of the 1970s
Introduction
The remarkable story of an album that almost didn’t exist: The Köln Concert, the best-selling solo album in jazz and the best-selling piano album of all time.
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer. He played with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the (19)70s he has led his own group and performed as a solo artist. He plays jazz, fusion, and classical music.
In 1973 he began giving solo piano concerts, which made him extremely popular. The concerts were unpredictable and completely improvised from beginning to end. These concerts were regularly recorded and released. In 1975 Jarrett visited Cologne.
Keith Jarrett – Cologne 1975 advertisement
Cologne, 1975
The story of Keith Jarrett in Cologne in 1975 cannot be told without paying attention to Vera Brandes. In early 1975 she was only 18 years old, yet she had already been organizing concerts in and around Cologne for almost four years. In 1974 she was responsible for the New Jazz in Cologne series, for which she booked Keith Jarrett for a unique solo piano concert at the Kölner Opernhaus.
ECM must also be mentioned. Manfred Eicher founded the record label in 1969 under the name Edition of Contemporary Music. Initially a small label, it made its first breakthrough with the signing of Chick Corea. His first album for the label, Return To Forever, was a major success, but as a label ECM remained fairly unknown. Keith Jarrett released solo piano albums for a small, select audience.
When Keith Jarrett arrived late at the venue on January 24th, 1974, he was tired and had back pain from the 600 km ride in Eicher’s Renault R4, which had taken them from Zurich, Switzerland to Cologne, Germany. Brandes had arranged plane tickets for the both of them, but Jarrett chose to sell them for cash.
Jarrett had requested a Bösendorf 290 Imperial grand piano. The staff at the Cologne opera house found a Bösendorf piano backstage and assumed it was the right one. That piano was placed on stage, but it was primarily used for rehearsals and was not meant for professional performances. The mistake was discovered, but far too late. Additionally, thre piano was in desperate need of tuning. That could be arranged, but the fact remained that this was not the piano Jarrett had asked for.
Jarrett refused to play, but the 18-year-old Brandes managed to persuade him anyway. She booked a restaurant where Eicher and Jarrett could eat, and everything was set in motion for the concert and the planned recording. The booked restaurant was overcrowded, so the food arrived late. To make matters worse, the meal didn’t sit well with Jarrett – very poorly, in fact.
Everything seemed to indicate that this was not going to be a good night for a concert, let alone a recording. But Jarrett stepped onto the stage and played the piano in a way that was not natural for him, allowing the piano to sound as good as possible.
Everything was wrong. It was the wrong piano, we had bad food in a hot restaurant and I hadn’t slept for two days, and we almost sent the recording engineers home. Manfred said, “Why don’t we record it anyway since they’re here?”
But I knew something special was happening once I started playing. I remember going on stage thinking there’s no place I’d rather be than sitting at the piano – finally! Sometimes when your resistance is low ideas come, and the piano being a different instrument than I would normally play, I played it differently.
Keith Jarrett
Against all odds, something extraordinary happened that night on that stage in Cologne. Later, on their way to another appointment, Eicher and Jarrett listened to the recordings and quickly realized that the tapes had captured something special.
Keith Jarrett – The Köln Concert
The Köln Concert
Throughout 1975 Eicher worked on the recordings from the night of January 24th, 1975 and turned them into a double live album: The Köln Concert. The album was released on November 30th, 1975 and proved to be an instant success – much to the surprise (and disbelief) of Eicher and Jarrett. It would eventually sell over 4 million copies, becoming the best-selling solo jazz album of all time and the best-selling solo piano album of all time. Strange how things go…
Review
I have known The Köln Concert for decades, but until recently I had never really listened to it. I did so for this article, and indeed, there is ‘something’ there. It is hard to explain. Perhaps because the album is a combination of jazz and blues with (minimal) classical elements. The fact that the album contains a unique concert with unique performances, which would never be performed again, gives the music a kind of tension that is difficult to grasp.
Preferably listen to this album in its entirety, undisturbed, with headphones on. It is a magical experience.
Keith Jarrett – The Köln Concert – Inside gatefold
Songs
All music written by Keith Jarrett.
- Part I
- Part II a
- Part II b
- Part II c
On the album the titles of the pieces are preceded by the text KÖLN, January 24, 1975.
Musicians
- Keith Jarrett – piano
After The Köln Concert
The success sparked renewed interest in the Keith Jarrett albums previously released on the ECM label. The success would follow Jarrett for the rest of his career. Because of that he had mixed feelings about the album.
I have a complex relationship with The Köln Concert. I realise how, first of all, I didn’t play the piano nearly as well then, so if I listen as a pianist I hear these put-together-sections that are creating themselves, and there is nothing like it in the discography. It was a moment in time and I had the wrong piano and I don’t exactly like my actual touch, my dynamics at all, but there were ideas floating around in my head and I was young and it has these colours and voicings that at that time people were not playing.
So what happens around the time of releasing an album has lots to do with how it was received, but in the here and now its life span seems to go on and on.
Keith Jarrett, 2010
In closing
What do you think of The Köln Concert? Let me know!
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