Nearly 50 years ago, a famous young pianist keith jarrett We arrived in the West German city of Cologne (better known as Cologne in English). Having just returned from a 500-mile road trip from Switzerland where he had given a concert the previous day, he had little time to recover before taking the stage at the Cologne Opera House at 11:30 that evening. . To be precise, that night was the only time the cultural institution had for jazz musicians in August. Due to a mix-up of our orders at the restaurant where we had tried to have dinner beforehand, we were barely able to eat anything by showtime. And his back was acting weird.
But all those hardships were of no use to the dire measures awaiting Jarrett at the Opera House. He had requested a Bösendorfer 290 imperial grand piano, but a series of mistakes led staff to set him up with an older, weaker-sounding baby grand piano from the same manufacturer.
Unable to procure a replacement piano, concert organizer Bela Brandes, a teenager, called in a tuner to do his best to get the piano back into playable condition, allowing Jarrett to continue the show. I persuaded him. In the end, all the seats were sold and the recording engineers were preparing their equipment. In the worst case scenario, you’ll probably end up keeping a separate tape for archival purposes.
As for the event, a concert was rather the best-case scenario. “What Keith Jarrett did beautifully was take this broken piano and play music that only that piano could play,” said YouTuber David Hartley. video above. “He didn’t run away from the piano’s flaws. Instead, he embraced them and put them into the music. This is the essence of improvisation.” A classical musician with a set set of pieces would do the same. Although he should have been completely unable to work under these conditions, Jarrett ended up putting on a fairly successful show, recording and releasing a highly successful album.
Since its release in November of the same year, cologne concert became both the best-selling solo jazz album and the best-selling piano album. For decades, the song has been easy to find in the record collections of people who don’t own other releases from ECM, the German jazz and avant-garde label with which Jarrett has long been associated, and who like Nicolas Roeg It was heard on the soundtrack of a movie by a famous author. And Nanni Moretti. Today, this quote still supports many proverbs, such as necessity being the mother of invention, playing the hand you’re dealt, and never waiting for ideal conditions. If you listen hard enough, you might even realize that something terrible is waiting for you.
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Neuroscience and jazz improvisation: How improvisation shapes creativity and what’s happening in our brains
The Universal Spirit of Bill Evans: Advice and Creative Process for Learning to Play Jazz
Listen to comedian H. Jon Benjamin’s experimental piano jazz album — Who Can’t Play the Piano?
Based in Seoul, Colin Mbemust write and broadcastIt’s about cities, languages ​​and cultures. His projects include the Substack newsletter books about cities and a book Stateless City: A Stroll Through Los Angeles in the 21st Century. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter. @Colinbemust.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
