Köln 75: The Making of the Hit ECM Live Album

ECM Records is known as an incredibly artist-friendly label. The Köln Concert is a major reason why they can afford to be so supportive. Keith Jarrett was well known for his previous releases and his sideman recordings with Miles Davis, but few A&R execs would have recognized the double live album’s commercial potential. Yet, it became the best-selling solo jazz album of all time and a perennial catalog seller for ECM. There were no standards, no arrangements, no sidemen, and no pre-planning. It was just Jarrett freely improvising on the piano. That might sound simple, but the events leading up to the solo concert are quite chaotic in director-screenwriter Ido Fluk’s mostly fact-based Köln 75, which opens today in New York.

Initially, Fluk’s film largely follows Vera Brandes, a German teenager who becomes an unlikely jazz promoter. Frankly, she and her friend Isa seem like rather shallow leftwing activists, but at least they like jazz. However, British tenor saxophonist Ronnie Scott finds Brandes rather charming. However, instead of anything untoward, the old gent propositions her to book a German tour for him, because he couldn’t imagine anyone “saying no” to her. Of course, old Ronnie’s instincts prove as sharp as ever.

Soon, Brandes is secretly running a considerable jazz promotion business, at the inevitable expense of her high school studies. She even hires her deadbeat older brother, to keep him from tattling to their emotionally abusive parents. However, she maybe bites off more than she can chew when she books the Köln Opera House, at great personal out-of-pocket expense, for a solo Keith Jarrett concert.

The film really gets going when it shifts its focus to Jarrett, as he suffers through a series of European engagements with his record producer, Eicher, who is also acting as a de facto manager. John Magaro is shockingly good portraying Jarrett, capturing his cerebral intellect, eccentric prickliness, spiritual depth, and the taxing physical pain he suffered. Instead of playing jazz cliché hopscotch, he really humanizes and embodies Jarrett’s artistry and anxieties.

It is also very cool to see Eicher getting his due credit and significant screentime in the film. Alexander Scheer’s quietly sympathetic portrayal makes it easy to understand why artists who sign with Eicher stay with ECM for years or even decades. Plus, Michael Chernus really elevates the fictional (but true-in-spirit) jazz journalist Michael Watts. He also archly delivers several of Fluk’s tongue-in-cheek jazz lessons, while nicely serving as a foil to open Jarrett up for audiences.

In contrast, the segments focusing on Brandes often hit an off-key, melodramatic note. Some of her scenes are also rather creepy, since the twenty-nine year-old Mala Emde is supposedly playing a sixteen or seventeen year-old teen. Frankly, Ulrich Tukur’s portrayal of her domineering father is less sympathetic than his performance as a Stasi spymaster in The Lives of Others—and considerably less credible. However, Daniel Betts is roguishly sly and yet assuredly proper as good old Ronnie Scott.

Sadly, Fluk and the producers obviously were unable to clear the rights to the Köln Concert or any music recorded by Jarrett or produced by Eicher. Frustratingly, that leads to surreal anti-climax, when Nina Simone’s “To Love Somebody” plays over the very same Köln Concert the film spent nearly two hours building towards. Nevertheless, the film treats jazz musicians and their music with respect and sensitivity. Frankly, it will probably sell more copies of The Köln Concert, which is a good thing. Affectionately recommended for the richly complex portrayals of Jarrett, Eicher, and Scott, Köln 75 opens today (10/17) in New York, at the IFC Center.