Trailers aren’t necessarily a good indication but doesn’t look very good.
Trailer for movie about Keith Jarrett Koln concert
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
by 13 Comments
Trailers aren’t necessarily a good indication but doesn’t look very good.
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Sorry, Junior. i can’t agree with you. It looks like great fun.
It’s about what went on behind the scenes. and what’s more it puts Keith Jarrett on the map for the youngsters of 2025.
Thumbs up from me!
It’s a remarkable story!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Brandes
There is also a forthcoming film documentary Köln Tracks: the Legend of Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert, director Vincent Duceau and screenwriter Elie Elbaz put forward an interesting idea: that it was the very constraints under which Jarrett was working that dredged up such powerful music from deep inside him. Duceau decided that the piano itself should be at the heart of the film.
There is a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign under way this month, Köln Tracks should be complete by June 2025, with release planned for November 2025 on the 50th anniversary of the album’s release, accompanied by a special concert in Paris.
From The New European.
I’m confused – is this another movie?
KFD – yes a great story. It just seems a bit hammed up. I’ll watch it of course.
It is.
https://www.kolnconcertdoc.com/en
Thanks Hubes that looks interesting. Wonder why Jarrett wont talk about it. Spoke at length and played on camera to Rick Beato. You’d think that now, after all that has happened to him, he’d want his version of things heard.
That idea that Jarrett’s creativity was ignited by the constraints of the instrument has been the standard interpretation of that concert for decades, and isn’t a novel idea. The story of that concert is sweet (I think there was a great Cautionary Tales podcast about it some years back) but it seems a very slim premise for a film.
It was the get to your seats chime that was the hook that got him going wasn’t it?
I think the premise is that it was conceived and driven by a remarkable teenage girl.
Yes, who literally ran after him as he left in a huff at the quality of the piano.
I’m mindful of copying too much from the New European article and it is behind a paywall but I’ll add this from the article.
In their forthcoming film documentary Köln Tracks: the Legend of Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert, director Vincent Duceau and screenwriter Elie Elbaz put forward an interesting idea: that it was the very constraints under which Jarrett was working that dredged up such powerful music from deep inside him. Duceau decided that the piano itself should be at the heart of the film.
“The concert became what it is, not despite the broken piano, but thanks to it. And so the documentary is also a reflection on what constraint is in art, and what it brings, because we’re convinced that this concert wouldn’t have been what it is if Keith Jarrett had played on the initial Bösendorfer Imperial that he expected to play on,” he said.
I think it may be interesting to see both films. Compare and contrast.
“Art is born of constraint and dies of freedom”. Andre Gide
This article from today’s Guardian adds a lot of interesting details.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/feb/10/koln-concert-keith-jarrett-jazz-masterpiece-piano
This quote is excellent.
“One musician who has immersed himself in the events of that day is the British pianist Dorian Ford. After spending years studying Jarrett’s solo improvisations, he was in Cologne to play an improvised set inspired by The Köln Concert on 24 January, its 50th anniversary – not in the opera house, which is undergoing renovation, but in a church around the corner.
“The Köln Concert was totally improvised,” says Ford, “but not what we understand as ‘free improvisation’. It’s tonal and melodic. It has a structure, and it transcends the boundaries of music-marketing. Jarrett described his solo improvisations as ‘universal folk music’: I can hear the sound of rugged American individualists, like Charles Ives and Scott Joplin, but I can also hear hymns, gospel music, country music, honky tonk, anthemic songs, soul, blues, stride, boogie woogie, modal jazz and plenty of classical music. This is not a European culture of deference. This is high-end, elite music, but presented with an audacious, American, heart-on-sleeve populism.”
Looks well worth seeing and a story I’m glad Hollywood aren’t telling!