Cologne 75 is now playing in theaters and tells the true story of one of the most famous concerts in music history. This article explains how much truth there is in the movie.
How did a teenager end up orchestrating one of the most successful concert recordings ever? This true story is told in the turbulent tragicomedy Cologne 75, which has been playing in German cinemas since March 13. However, the story of Vera Brandes, who lured musical genius Keith Jarrett to the Cologne Opera House in 1975, sounds almost too good to be true.
This article explains:
- The true story of Vera Brandes and Keith Jarrett’s “The Cologne Concert”
- Which character was invented for the film
- How the fake piano came on stage
The true story of Cologne 75: Keith Jarrett and Vera Brandes
The real Vera Brandes (played by Mala Emde in the film) was Germany’s youngest concert promoter at 18 when she saw pianist Keith Jarrett (John Magaro from September 5) perform. What was special about his art was that he went on stage without sheet music or a plan and improvised his concerts at the grand piano, making each performance unique. The teenager wanted to bring this experience to Cologne and chose the Cologne Opera House, of all places, where no concert of this kind had ever been held before.
An important character was invented for the film
Brandes was faced with the task of selling the 1,400 tickets at a price of 4 DM each, as Jazzwise revealed. The story of the concert is told in two ways in the film. On the one hand, it describes Vera’s attempts to organize and promote the concert.
On the other hand, we get to know the music critic Michael Watts (Michael Chernus), who accompanies the gifted musician and his manager Manfred Eicher (Alexander Scheer) on a road trip to Cologne to get his interview. The character of the journalist is fictitious, but Jarrett and his manager did actually make the journey in one car, as Eicher explained to Jazzwise on the occasion of the concert’s 50th anniversary:
We drove to various concerts in a small Renault R4 that I had at the time.
Her journey took her, as in the film, from Zurich to Cologne, only without intrusive journalists in the back seat. They had the plane ticket that the promoter had provided for Jarrett paid out. Here, too, the film’s description corresponds to the real background.
There really was the wrong piano on the stage
The central stumbling block in the film is the piano. When Jarrett arrives for the sound check on the day of the concert, he notices that a detuned rehearsal piano is on stage and not the Bösendorfer 290 Imperial he requested. Vera Brandes told the story in 2015 on WDR3 as follows:
Jarrett played a few notes on the instrument and then walked around it three times. Then Eicher did the same, and after a very long time he said that Jarrett would certainly not play a concert on this grand piano. And if I didn’t magically produce a playable instrument on stage, I would have to cancel the concert.
“If you don’t happen to have 45,000 marks in a savings account, you better leave it alone”
In the film, Vera, her brother and their friends call each other through the phone book to find a replacement. They do indeed come across an Imperial, but they are advised against the move because it could damage the piano. This is essentially the same account as given by Brandes:
Then I organized a few people and wanted to bring this grand piano to the opera. And just then the tuner came and said something I will never forget: ‘Unless you happen to have 45,000 marks in a savings account, you better not do it. If you roll a Bösendorfer across the Neumarkt in this weather, it will never play again.’
Much like in the movie, Keith Jarrett called the whole concert into question, as he told Jazzwise:
It was the wrong piano, we had bad food in a hot restaurant and I hadn’t slept for two days.
Brandes was still able to persuade Jarrett, with a power of persuasion that she described in the interview as “not suitable for young people”.
The “Köln Concert” was a triumph
On January 24, 1975, Keith Jarrett sat down at the (wrong) piano in front of a sold-out house at the Cologne Opera. The concert was subsequently sold as an album entitled “The Köln Concert”. To this day, the recording is considered the best-selling jazz record by a solo artist and the best-selling album by a piano soloist.
The film is told with a few meta-elements, for example to help the audience understand the significance of Keith Jarrett within jazz history. Apart from a few minor dramatizations, however, the events largely took place as shown in Cologne 75.
