{"id":478780,"date":"2026-06-02T07:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T07:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/478780\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T07:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T07:25:15","slug":"i-told-keith-jarrett-if-you-dont-play-im-going-to-be-fked-and-you-will-be-fked-too-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/478780\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I told Keith Jarrett, If you don\u2019t play I\u2019m going to be f**ked. And you will be f**ked, too\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vera Brandes was just 18 when she experienced the most fateful night of her life. It was 1975 and the precocious German<\/a> jazz promoter had booked Keith Jarrett into Cologne\u2019s opera house for a sold-out midnight performance. Almost 1,500 people were awaiting the pianist. <\/p>\n

And then Jarrett walked. <\/p>\n

\u201cI saw my brother driving my father\u2019s car away, with Keith Jarrett in it,\u201d Brandes says. \u201cI didn\u2019t know Keith had asked him to drive him away. I ran downstairs, opened the car door and spoke to him. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy English wasn\u2019t very good, but I had heard Miles Davis speak backstage, and there was one word he used constantly. I didn\u2019t even know what it meant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to Keith, \u2018If you don\u2019t play tonight I\u2019m going to be truly f**ked. And you will be f**ked, too.\u2019 He stared at me, then finally said, \u2018Okay\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The K\u00f6ln Concert, as it became known, made music history when the recording of Jarrett\u2019s improvised set became the bestselling solo jazz album and bestselling piano recording of all time. It seems scarcely possible that its beautiful, pounding melodies didn\u2019t exist until he sat down at the piano on the opera-house stage.<\/p>\n

Brandes has a theory. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis situation was really a service to others,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s a component of the music that\u2019s deeply spiritual. He\u2019s playing because there is a sold-out house. He\u2019s playing because there is an audience that is expecting this. He\u2019s playing because there\u2019s a young girl who\u2019s going to be completely ruined by him not doing this. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Keith Jarrett\u2019s K\u00f6ln Concert: An epic journey into the unknownOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it was this one time in his life when he jumped that fence. And maybe God, the universe, the angels, the audience \u2013 whatever you believe in \u2013 thanked him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Half a century later, K\u00f6ln 75, a new comic drama featuring Mala Emde as Brandes and John Magaro as the musician, revisits Jarrett\u2019s extraordinary performance by focusing on the person who made it happen. Ido Fluk\u2019s film, which was nominated for four Lola awards, Germany\u2019s version of the Oscars, including best picture, follows the teenage Brandes as she defies a conservative figure in her life to organise the concert.<\/p>\n

I gave the film-makers complete freedom. I didn\u2019t want to interfere. That\u2019s how I worked as a music producer<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Vera Brandes<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can tell from the film that there was a monster ego in my family: my father,\u201d Brandes says. \u201cHe was multitalented, highly intelligent, a sportsman, a sailor, a painter, a musician. He played piano and organ. He was very well read and scientifically interested in many things. <\/p>\n

\u201cBeing close to such a dominant male figure felt normal to me. I never saw him in any other way than exercising his determination and authority. So dealing with strong personalities was normal. I was scared of my father. I wasn\u2019t scared of Miles Davis and jazz men, because they took me seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandes was 15, she says, when she first met Ronnie Scott. The British saxophonist, who hosted Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie, among many others, at his legendary London club, was so impressed by her acumen and enthusiasm that he asked her to book his upcoming tour of Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis confidence in me changed everything. His world was full of passion: real artists, a lot of love and humour,\u201d she says. \u201cThe way they interacted, there was always a joke around the corner. There was such sincere appreciation for each other\u2019s talent and genius. It was a real exchange: artistically, socially, humanly. It felt like a community, very different from the world I came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the early 1970s Jarrett was already feted as one of the most gifted and unpredictable presences in modern jazz, though he was hardly a household name. A prodigy from Pennsylvania who had passed through Art Blakey\u2019s Jazz Messengers and spent a guiding stretch with Charles Lloyd\u2019s quartet, he gained wider visibility as a member of Davis\u2019s electric bands. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Sunken Treasure: Keith Jarrett\u2019s \u2018The K\u00f6ln Concert\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Yet even among these free-form coalitions, surrounded by amplifiers and funk rhythms, he seemed a restless presence, sternly resistant to the electric piano as he carved out a parallel identity as an acoustic improviser of impactful intensity.<\/p>\n

Returning to Europe as a solo act, Jarrett began to attract a cult following for performances that dispensed with set lists, billowing into spontaneous explorations at the keyboard. <\/p>\n

His recordings for ECM, the beautifully produced German label, suggested a musician reaching beyond conventional jazz tracks towards the rhapsodic. Critics admired the audacity, if not always the results. Brandes, however, was already a huge fan.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeith Jarrett played Cologne in 1972,\u201d she says. \u201cHe played as part of Miles Davis\u2019s quintet with Chick Corea. He played a fantastic solo. I was smitten.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandes had founded her audacious New Jazz in Cologne concert series in 1974. Jarrett\u2019s was the fifth in the sequence. It was an unprecedented affair.<\/p>\n

The album carries the story of that day: reflection, vulnerability and transcendence<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Vera Brandes<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was certainly not like jazz was the centre of public attention,\u201d Brandes says. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes this so unusual, you know. Keith Jarrett was playing in many places on that tour, but in clubs for 150 people. He played another city in Germany, Freiburg, for 100 people. This was the biggest concert he played until that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 70, Brandes still looks jittery when she considers the challenging circumstances, events that the movie reframes as a high-stakes, chaotic thriller.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing that isn\u2019t accurate is the suggestion that I was involved with drugs,\u201d she says. \u201cI was interested in altered states of consciousness, yes, but from music. I didn\u2019t take drugs. Otherwise the spirit is very true. <\/p>\n

\u201cI gave the film-makers complete freedom. I didn\u2019t want to interfere. That\u2019s how I worked as a music producer. Not by controlling musicians but supporting them with appreciation and guidance. It\u2019s about love for creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

That love went a long way in 1975. Jarrett had been promised a B\u00f6sendorfer Imperial piano but found only a ramshackle baby grand with a broken pedal. Broke from touring, he had accepted a lift and was suffering from a severe backache by the time he arrived in Cologne. <\/p>\n

It is now a bit of a blur for Brandes, who somehow turned it around. Two technicians worked tirelessly to get the piano into shape. Brandes took Jarrett to an Italian restaurant for dinner and made sure he got a nap.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the tour we did to promote the movie in Germany, I learned things I had completely forgotten about,\u201d she says. \u201cHe apparently didn\u2019t start playing until far after midnight. The concert was supposed to start at 11pm. So people have been waiting for probably an hour and a half. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd because he was so tired he asked the technician at the opera house to turn the heating on to maximum. By the time he was playing it was 27 degrees. In January. It was like in a sauna, with 1,427 people packed inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jarrett had a reputation for scolding the audience, or even leaving the stage, if the audience made too much noise. Happily, the 18-year-old promoter was entirely unaware of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came back after resting, had dinner and went on stage. Thank God!\u201d she says. \u201cI thought once he started, that was it. I had no idea he might walk off mid-performance.\u201d <\/p>\n

Oddly, the soundtrack to the film features neither the titular album nor any of Jarrett\u2019s other recordings. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think if they had seen the movie they would have given us permission,\u201d Brandes says. \u201cThey didn\u2019t want to take the risk. I perfectly understand. It\u2019s like jumping from a 10m board into a pool and you do not know if there is water inside or not. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was happy to take the risk. I think the finished film allows for an understanding of how German society developed afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jarrett, who unofficially retired from performing after a series of strokes in 2018 left him partially paralysed on the left side, is not a fan of his bestselling album. He has said he\u2019d like to destroy all copies of it. Brandes feels differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is permanently criticising himself,\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019s a perfectionist. And I think that, because of the circumstances of the concert, that inner critic of Keith Jarrett got tired. And what emerged was playful, childlike and in love with life, despite all the setbacks. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe album carries the story of that day: reflection, vulnerability and transcendence. It\u2019s elegant, tender, playful and incredibly soulful. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt became a standard because it combines emotional depth with artistic brilliance. It\u2019s been used at weddings, births, funerals. People feel it even without knowing anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

K\u00f6ln 75 is in cinemas from Friday, June 5th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vera Brandes was just 18 when she experienced the most fateful night of her life. It was 1975…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,292,61,60,206399,34511],"class_list":["post-478780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-germany","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-keith-jarrett","tag-miles-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}