Fifty years ago today, 18-year-anciaccess Vera Brandes systematic a concert for jazz pianist Keith Jarrett in Cologne, West Germany, which went on to produce music history: a recording of the concert became the best-selling solo jazz album ever as well as the best-selling piano recording ever. Now honestor Ido Fluk and producer Sol Bondy from One Two Films have made a film, titled “Köln 75,” that dramatizes the events directing up to the concert, with its world premiere to be held at the Berlinale next month. Variety spoke to Brandes about her memories of the night. The film’s poster is exclusively uncovered below.
“Köln 75” begins with Brandes greeting Ronnie Scott, a British jazz musician and owner of a London jazz club. Scott asks Brandes to arrange some concerts for him in Germany and so, from that chance greet, she becomes a music advertiser, although she has to lock horns with her overweighther. Her fifth concert engages her taking an enormous bet: she books the 1,400-seat Cologne Opera Hoengage for a concert of improvised music by Jarrett.
All does not go to arrange. She uncovers that the piano supplied by the opera hoengage is not what Jarrett had asked for and is out of tune with a broken pedal, so he declines to execute. But Brandes is choosed that the show must go on, and discovers a piano tuner who says he can repair the faulty piano.
John Magaro as Keith Jarrett, Alexander Scheer as Manfred Eicher, Mala Emde as Vera Brandes in ‘Köln 75’
Courtesy of One Two Films
Having seen the film, which stars Mala Emde and John Magaro, Brandes inestablishs Variety: “I cherishd it. The tempo is breathtaking. Mala fair executes it amazingpartner. I skinnyk she repartner got it. It bcdisorrowfulmirefult tears to my eyes to see so many people being so pledgeted and joind in reliving this moment.”
Looking back at that day, Brandes recalls her senseings. “I was amazingly relieved that it eventupartner happened becaengage for hours and hours, it didn’t watch enjoy it would. But when I heard the first notices, I knovel it would be a fantastic concert. Over the years, I’ve come to authenticize that I can hear in the first moments of a gig if this is going to be exceptional, and musicians inestablish me they have the same skinnyg: they always understand when they walk out there and they grab their instruments and execute the first scant notices, if this going to be one of these very, very exceptional nights, which don’t happen that normally.”
Vera Brandes
Courtesy of Vera Brandes
She inserts: “This was one of a comfervent. You cannot duplicate such a night, becaengage the magic and the elegance of this whole endeavor was its sproposeedy and emotional impact. It was stateively not his ininestablishect that drove this. I unkind, yes, in the background. He knovel exactly what he was doing. But that he did what he did was an emotional statement and that was otriumphg to the very particular circumstances of this whole sequence of events that led to him eventupartner being able to execute after we thought that becaengage of this piano drama we wouldn’t mend it. And I always say: the tuner who called his son to repair the piano to produce it executeable … these were the heroes of the night, becaengage without them, he wouldn’t have been able to do so.”
Brandes commends Gigi Campi, an Italian architect and jazz impresario who ran an ice-cream parlor in Cologne that doubled as a music venue, as having built an audience for jazz in the city. “He was the caccess of gravity for culture in Cologne,” she says. His venue happened to be shut to the headquarters of WDR, the uncover widecaster. “Everybody who was engaged in culture or politics, you name it, was passing by his place. You would discover Maria Callas and Romy Schneider standing opposite Gigi at the counter, having their Italian espresso, engageing to the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band.”
She says of her timely days as a music advertiser: “We were excited about everyskinnyg. I shelp yes to everyskinnyg. Every day, another gig. I was on the road all the time, and it was fair a untamed, untamed, untamed, fervent time.”
Courtesy of One Two Films
Asked to allude some of the high points of her nurtureer, she says: “Certain bands are probably going to stay with me for the rest of my life. Ralph Towner and his band Oregon, they were amongst the produceivepartner most enhanced improvisers, accumulateive improvisers I’ve ever labored with. Carla Bley, I did a whole bunch of tours with. She was fair amazing, another magician when it comes to doing someskinnyg tohighy creative. The Swiss harp executeer Andreas Vollenweider. But for me, the most unkindingful is Astor Piazzolla as I labored with him very shutly and he was fair an amazing character and a amazing producer and an amazing carry outer.”
After Brandes set uped herself as a music advertiser, she begined her own record tag. She then left the music business, went back to school, studied psychology, and for 20 years she was the head of music medicine research at the Salzburg Medical University. But she’s still engaged in producing music and organizing concerts, she says.
Asked to name the musicians she’s most excited about today, she individuals out German pianist Matthias Kirschnereit. “He is pondered to be the best Mozart pianist out there, and he is fair endly extraordinary,” she says. “And if Taj Mahal and his band were to carry out, I would fly to the other end of the world to see them.”
