One snowy night in January 1975, Vera Brandes, an 18-year-old German music promoter, looked out of a window into the parking lot of Cologne’s opera house and saw something appalling. Two hours before he was due to step on stage, the 29-year-old pianist Keith Jarrett was poised to drive away, skipping the sellout gig she had organised — and of which he was the star.
One can understand why. Jarrett had been presented at the sound check with a rehearsal piano that was out of tune and with sticking keys. The piano tuner was on his way, but Jarrett was not convinced they would arrive in time. Plus, the musician had back problems and hadn’t slept the night before, in part because he’d been ferried from gig to gig in a tiny Renault 4 during a far-from-glamorous European tour.
The gig that Jarrett would eventually play would make jazz history: the recording of it, The Köln Concert, went on to sell more than 4mn copies, becoming the best-selling solo jazz record of all time. The story of how Brandes pulled it off is now the subject of Ido Fluk’s lovely new film Köln 75.