How Limitation Can Spark: Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert

Keith Jarrett arrived in Koln, Germany to discover the grand piano he’d requested for his concert wasn’t there. By mistake, a baby grand sat on stage at the opera house, in a condition a lot worse than just out of tune. The pedals didn’t work. And it had poor bass and a tinny upper register.

He refused to play. And the 1975 concert was sold out.

Jarrett had driven 350 miles in five hours from Zurich, in excruciating back pain that had made him lose the last few nights of sleep, to arrive at this musical impasse.

The organizer—a 18-year old promoter, Vera Brandes—begged him to reconsider, saying all these people have come to hear you play. Please play for them.

Reluctantly, he agreed.

The resulting concert to 1,300 people, where Jarrett played in the middle keys to avoid the damaged upper and lower registers, and where he often stood up and pounded on the keys to produce enough volume, is regarded as one of the greatest jazz recordings of all time, and is the best selling piano album. It’s 66 minutes long in four improvised parts, and it’s sold almost 4 million copies.

What happened here?

For Jarrett, he couldn’t do what he’d prepared to do. In an improvised art, he had to go even further into improvisation. The tools themselves had to be reimagined: the broken piano. His damaged body. 

What came out of it isn’t wholly jazz. It’s hard to peg. 

We often have trouble thinking of bonsai outside its tradition. Without the whole thing, it’s nothing. Then, some might consider tradition an obstacle to expression. I don’t see that, but I do think it might be too complete. For some expressions.

Expression in art is usually enhanced when limitation of some sort is embraced. Or an obstacle overcome.

If you took only a part of bonsai tradition, and did something with what remained, you might create your own limitation. And you might make something really cool. You’re still using tradition, just not all of it. You’re truly using it. As a springboard to something else.

Jarrett combined jazz with a half a piano and created something wholly new. So what could you do with a tree? And half a tradition?

Image links to Part II of Jarrett’s 1975 Koln concert.