The Köln Concert

Jarrett, Keith

album cover

An Evening of Spontaneous Creation

Maybe Keith Jarrett wanted to clear the jazz fusion he'd made with Miles Davis out of his system. Maybe he was tired of the rigid rituals of standard jazz. Maybe he was just restless. Whatever the motivation, in the mid-1970s, Jarrett devoted a chunk of his performance schedule to curious and captivating solo piano recitals. He'd enter the hall, soak up the ambience of the room and its inhabitants, and, with allegedly nothing prepared, play whatever popped into his head. Sometimes he'd drift through ethereal vapors, and discover enchantingly wistful, lace-thin themes. Sometimes he'd go off searching for a lost melody and get lost himself. Sometimes he'd hammer so hard he'd pound the life out of an idea.

The solo concerts opened a window into Jarrett's thought process. When the Pennsylvania native was cooking, as he was during this 1975 performance at the Köln Opera House in Germany, what streamed out was utterly unclassifiable—a few bars of rowdy rock chords interrupted by a fitful blues invention or the music accompanying Sunday services at a backwoods Baptist church. Jarrett would follow the smallest motif until its secrets had been exhumed and spun him elsewhere. Several sections of Köln have subsections, governed by their own thematic logic; part of the wonder of this recording is hearing him develop organizational frameworks on the fly. In real time. Unedited.

The Köln Concert became Jarrett's breakthrough and biggest hit. Its success enabled him to do solo gigs steadily, and for some years, until the formation of his standards trio in 1981, they were his primary performance outlet. Then, in the '90s, Jarrett contracted an immune-system virus, and was unable to perform for several years. Upon his return, he resumed solo concerts; the most moving of the later ones is La Scala, which has a nightmarish quality, like he's recalling the darkest days of his illness.

When Jarrett recalls Köln, however, it is not with fondness. "The wrong instrument was rented," he said in a 2004 interview. For him, the tone of the piano was much too bright. "We ended up with a tape of terrible sounding bad harpsichord. . . . Everybody wanted to get that sound for a while. I can tell you this: I never wanted to get that sound." Despite Jarrett's misgiving, what happened on that piano that night is spontaneous creation. Of the highest order.

Genre: Jazz
Released: 1975, ECM
Key Tracks: "Part IIa," "Part IIb."
Catalog Choice: La Scala.
Next Stop: Bill Evans: Conversations with Myself
After That: Paul Bley: Tears.
Book Page: 393