Fifty years ago today, 18-year-old Vera Brandes organized a concert for jazz pianist Keith Jarrett In Cologne, West Germany, who continued to create 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 director Ido Fluk and producer Sol Bondy from One Two Films made a movie, entitled “Cologne 75”, which dramatizes the events up to the concert, with a world premiere at the Berlinal next month. Amount Talked to Brandes about her memories from the night. The film’s poster is revealed exclusively below.
“Cologne 75” starts with Brandes meeting 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 the random meeting, she becomes a music promoter, although she has to lock horns with her father. Her fifth concert means that she takes a huge chance: she book Cologne’s opera house with 1,400 places for a concert with improvised music by Jarrett.
Everything does not go according to plan. She discovers that the piano delivered by the opera house is not what Jarrett had asked for and is reconciled with a broken pedal, so he refuses to play. But Brandes is determined that the show must continue and find a piano tuner who says he can repair the wrong piano.
John Magaro as Keith Jarrett, Alexander Scheer as Manfred Eicher, Mala Emde as Vera Brandes in “Cologne 75”
With the permission of one two movies
After watching the movie, with Mala Emde and John Magaro in the lead roles, Brandes tells Variety: “I loved it. The pace is breathtaking. Mala just plays amazing. I think she really grasped it. I got tears in my eyes to see So many people be so dedicated and committed to reliving this moment. “
When he looks back on that day, Brandes remembers his feelings. “I was incredibly relieved that it eventually happened for hours and hours did not look like it would. But when I heard the first tones I knew it would be a fantastic concert. Over the years I have realized that I can hear in the first moments of a gig if this will be special, and musicians tell me they have the same thing: they always know when they go out and they grab their instruments and play the first tones, about This will be one of these very, very special evenings, which does not happen that often. ”
Vera Brandes
With the permission of Vera Brandes
She adds: “This was unique. You can’t replicate such a night, because the magic and elegance of this whole end was its simplicity and emotional impact. It really wasn’t his intellect that drove this. I mean, yes, in the background. He knew exactly what he did. But he did what he did was an emotional statement and it was due to the very special circumstances of this whole course Piano drama would not solve it. And I always say: the voice who called his son to repair the piano to make it playable … These were the heroes of the night, because without them he would not have been able to do it. “
Brandes credits Gigi Campi, an Italian architect and Jazzimpressario who ran an ice cream bar in Cologne that served as a music place, for building an audience for jazz in the city. “He was the main focus of the culture in Cologne,” she says. His premises happened to be close to WDR’s headquarters, the public broadcasting company. “Everyone involved in culture or politics, you name it, passed his place. You would find Maria Callas and Romy Schneider who stood opposite Gigi at the counter and ate their Italian espresso and listened to Kenny Clark-Francing Boland Big Band.”
She says about her early days as a music promoter: “We were excited about everything. I said yes to everything. Every day, another gig. I was on the road all the time, and it was just a wild, wild, wild, intense time. “
With the permission of one two movies
Asked to mention some of the highlights of her career, she says: “Some bands will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. Ralph Towner and his band Oregon, they were among the artistically most sophisticated improvisers, collective improvisors I have ever worked with . Carla Bley, I did a whole lot of tours. And he was just a fantastic character and a fantastic composer and a fantastic artist. “
After Brandes established herself as a music promoter, she started her own record label. She then left the music industry, went back to school, studied psychology and for 20 years she was head of music medicine research at Salzburg Medical University. But she is still involved in producing music and organizes concerts, she says.
Asked to mention the musicians she is most excited about today, she points out the German pianist Matthias Kirschnereit. “He is considered the best Mozart pianist out there, and he is simply outstanding,” she says. “And if Taj Mahal and his band were to perform, I would fly to the other end of the world to see them.”
