"Keith Jarret, for his concert at the Cologne Opera in January 1975, had a direct link with the heavens."
Interview by Julien Bouisset
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Keith Jarrett, in 1986, at Juan Les Pins. MALANCA ETTORE/SIPA
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Interview At just 17 years old, Vera Brandes orchestrated Keith Jarrett's concert in Cologne in 1975. Despite a substandard piano and the artist's exhaustion, "The Köln Concert" was born, a legendary jazz album that sold over 4 million copies. On the occasion of the theatrical release of "Au rythme de Vera," a film that retraces this story, an interview with this visionary German.
Cologne, January 24, 1975. Backstage at the Opera, a 17-year-old German student and self-taught producer is restless. Vera Brandes has been organizing a concert for Keith Jarret, one of the most daring pianists of his time, for several weeks. But the exhausted musician is threatening to cancel. The piano is bad. The tuning is shaky. The conditions are appalling. That evening, however, this genius will write a page in the history of jazz. The improvised, ecstatic, and painful concert will become "The Köln Concert," the best-selling solo piano album of all time.
In "Au rythme de Vera," in theaters this Wednesday, June 25, 2025, Ido Fluk clings to the energy of this visionary teenager, while narrating her doubts, her intuition, and the electric tension of these suspended melodies. It was she who negotiated, convinced, and improvised the logistics in a still-rigid Germany. Keith Jarrett, despite the exhaustion, the cold, and his back pain, will let himself be swept away by the breath of the moment. Who better than...
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