The Wrong Piano
John Coltrane's centennial turns out to be a week rather than a night, and the birthday show in New York is already sold out. Today's record is Keith Jarrett's "The Köln Concert," and Sekou tells how the wrong piano ended up on that stage.
LioraColtrane's centennial is not one concert. It's a week, and the birthday night in New York has sold out. Today's record is Keith Jarrett in Cologne. And later, the wrong piano. It's Monday. Let's go.
LioraIt's Monday, September 21st. This is The Daily Quintet. I'm Liora. Five stories from the world of jazz, in about ten minutes. Here we go.
One. The Lead: Coltrane's centennial is a week, not a night: Jazz at Lincoln Center runs six Coltrane
LioraJohn Coltrane turns 100 on Wednesday. The centennial is not one night.
Start in New York. Jazz at Lincoln Center bills a John Coltrane Centennial Celebration at Dizzy's Club, six straight nights, Tuesday through Sunday, at seven and nine, with Sunday moving to five and seven thirty. The pianist Geoffrey Keezer curates it.
The program is built on records. "Crescent." "John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman." "Blue Train." "Expression."
Wednesday, the birthday itself, is the Hartman night. The singer Jose James fronts it, with Ron Blake on saxophones and Rudy Royston on drums. That night is sold out. The page says availability is limited and sends you to the phone.
The other nights are open, at sixty dollars with fees, or thirty for a student seat.
LioraThen Philadelphia. Jazz Philadelphia's own page says he found his voice there and launched a musical revolution. Wednesday, WRTI runs a twenty six hour Coltrane marathon, and the Sun Ra Arkestra plays Coltrane for Ars Nova Workshop at eight.
Los Angeles still has Wednesday night at the Hollywood Bowl, with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. It prints no ticket price.
Two. Listen to This: Keith Jarrett's "The Köln Concert" on ECM, recorded January 24th
LioraToday's record is the one tonight's story made.
"The Köln Concert," Keith Jarrett, on ECM, catalog 1064/65. The label's own page says it was recorded on January 24th, 1975, and released that November, produced by Manfred Eicher. One man, one piano, four tracks, all of them his.
Here is the tip. Put on Part One and let it run. ECM's page gives you the date, the room and the producer. It says nothing about what was on that stage. Sekou has that part.
The label sells the CD for eighteen ninety in euros. ECM's own site says its shipments to the United States are suspended, and points buyers to its US store run by UMG.
LioraNow the release desk, and it belongs to the lead. "Dedicated To You," the Branford Marsalis Quartet with Dianne Reeves, on Blue Note, dated September 18th on the label's own shop. New readings of the six standards from the 1963 album "John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman." Marsalis on Coltrane: "He came up like Picasso. He knew the tradition and then saw how to expand it."
Cologne, 1975. Keith Jarrett found the wrong piano on the stage, and an eighteen-year-old promoter pulled his car door open in the rain to beg him to play. Sekou has the story.
Three. The Bridge: Cologne, 1975. Keith Jarrett asked for a concert grand and found the wrong piano on the
LioraOne true story from this music's history, every day. Sekou tells it, I ask the questions. Sekou, where are we?
SekouCologne. Friday, January 24th, 1975. The opera house. Tonight the opera is Alban Berg's "Lulu." When it's over, the stage goes to a jazz pianist.
The promoter is Vera Brandes. She's eighteen. She booked her first tour, for the saxophonist Ronnie Scott, on the phone in her father's dental office.
The pianist is Keith Jarrett, twenty-nine. Solo, improvised, no rehearsal. He usually takes a day off between concerts. For Cologne, he made an exception.
The night before, he played Lausanne, in Switzerland. Brandes had bought him a plane ticket. He cashed it in. So Manfred Eicher, who founded his label, ECM, drives him through the night in a small Renault. Jarrett reaches Cologne exhausted, with a bad back.
He had asked for a specific piano: a Bösendorfer Imperial, a concert grand nearly ten feet long. The opera house had agreed to supply it.
LioraDid he get it?
SekouNo. On the stage sits the wrong piano, a smaller, older Bösendorfer grand from a rehearsal room. Jarrett said it sounded like "a very poor imitation of a harpsichord or a piano with tacks in it." In Brandes's words, "the pedals stuck. It was unplayable."
Where the right piano was, the accounts disagree. A 1991 biography puts it elsewhere in the city. Brandes and the opera house, fifty years on, say it was in the building the whole time.
As Brandes remembers it, Jarrett plays a few notes. Then Eicher plays a few notes. They say nothing. Then Eicher: "If you don't get another piano, Keith can't play tonight."
She finds another concert grand and is ready to push it over the cobbled streets, until the piano tuner warns her that could destroy it. So he and his son take the small piano apart, fix it, put it back together and tune it, working around the opera.
LioraWas he still going to play?
SekouJarrett is already sitting in a car, about to leave for his hotel. It's raining. Vera Brandes pulls the door open and begs him to play.
In every version she has told, her words are too rough to repeat here. She says she'd heard Miles Davis use them with his band, and didn't know what they meant.
His answer, in every telling, comes down to three words. Only for you.
LioraWhy did he say yes?
SekouBrandes never asked him. Her guess is "mainly personal pride."
He walks on around 11:30, close to midnight, after the opera let out. He's wearing a back brace. Every seat is sold, about 1,400 of them. Eicher's engineer, Martin Wieland, is recording.
His first notes copy the chime that calls the audience to their seats. Jan Fritz, who was nine and in the hall, says "you can hear people in the audience chuckling with recognition."
Eicher said later that Jarrett probably "played it the way he did because it was not a good piano."
Afterward, by her own account, she runs to Wieland: "Did you get that?"
ECM released it that November as "The Köln Concert." It reportedly paid the label's bills for years. ECM's estimate today is about four million copies. Jarrett has said there are "too many extra notes." Asked whether he ever thanked her, Brandes said no.
LioraA piano from a rehearsal room, a tuner and his son, and a teenager at a car door. Only for you. The rest of us have been listening in ever since.
That's The Bridge. Back to today, right after this.
Four. On the Road: The ticket is Chicago, where the Jazz Showcase bills an Al Jarreau tribute with the
LioraTonight, coast to coast.
Tonight's ticket first.
If I had one ticket tonight, it's Chicago, the Jazz Showcase. An Al Jarreau tribute featuring the vocalist Bruce Henry, with Michael Manson on bass, Amr Fahmy on piano and Charles Heath on drums. The club prints one block, eight to eleven. Twenty five dollars, forty five for VIP.
Now the sweep. In New York, Birdland has four sets in two rooms. Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks play the theater at five thirty and eight thirty, twenty four ninety one to forty five seventy six. Nicole Henry at seven is off sale, and Jim Caruso's Cast Party takes the late shift at nine thirty.
Also in New York, Dizzy's Club has the Frank Carlberg Large Ensemble at seven and nine, sixty dollars and fifty five. The house names one player, Carlberg.
LioraIn Minneapolis, the Dakota has Shoshana Bean at seven, from ninety seven fifty seven, filed by the club under Broadway and pop.
Four rooms list nothing tonight: Snug Harbor in New Orleans, Catalina in Los Angeles, Scullers in Boston and MCG Jazz in Pittsburgh. Kansas City's Green Lady Lounge is still closed after a fire.
Five. One More Note: Chico Hamilton is born on September 21st, 1921
LioraSeptember 21st, 1921. Chico Hamilton is born.
Many references give the 20th. The National Endowment for the Arts, which made him a Jazz Master in 2004, prints the 21st on its own file, so the 21st it is.
As a teenager in Los Angeles he played with his classmates Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon and Illinois Jacquet. Then in 1955 he built his own quintet on a front line of cello, flute, guitar, bass and drums.
Start with Mosaic's set of that quintet's complete Pacific Jazz recordings.
Outro
LioraThat's the Quintet. If today's show earned it, follow The Daily Quintet wherever you listen.
The Daily Quintet is an AI-crafted production, researched and checked by humans. Every listing you heard came from the venue or the festival's own organizer.
That's your Monday. I'm Liora. See you tomorrow.