Keith Jarrett
The Koln Concert

In life, magical moments happen, moments when the tension in the air is felt as much from the notes as from the silences.

Seconds, minutes, and hours kissed by God, by Fate, or whatever you want or think somehow rules or watches over our poor human affairs.

Which sometimes are not poor, but indeed seem to be evident proof of the existence of some god.

That evening, Keith, turned a page.

He did what very few are capable of doing in the history of music.

He decided, probably unconsciously, that in his field nothing would be the same again.

And surely this is not the first jazz solo piano album that has thrilled that strange and enthusiastic crowd who had been enjoying African-American music on vinyl for decades.

Bill Evans, Ellington, Monk, Jarrett himself, just to name a few, had already faced the "intimate face to face" with their instrument. Naked. Without a net.

And there are wonderful records to remember. Beautiful, inspired, relaxing, exciting.

But none like this one.

From this moment, the very Jarrettian concept of extemporaneous composition, as a school, as a method to accompany the more classic and heterogeneous concept of improvisation, has changed itself and the history of music.

Since then, no solo piano record can avoid being measured against this one, consciously or not, willingly or not.

Steve Kuhn knows this well, as do Paul Bley and Abdullah Ibrahim.

And all of them produce, especially and also lately, splendid, highly evolved products.

But they are all children, legitimate or not, of that night in Cologne when everything changed.

And it was enough to put those holy hands on the keyboard, rest them and let them go, let that divine mix of heart, brain, and hands, form a trio with just one instrument.

And there is the soul, the unfathomable soul, as a co-author of it all. Of the melancholic moments, the almost danceable and apparently (but never) easy moments, the obsessive ones to which Keith would later, always, habituate us.

He himself would often return to the territory of extemporaneous composition, often with superb results (Paris and Vienna are at least on par), proving that there are many students around, even good ones, but there is only one Master.

And to think that, in his own sad little island, there are some pretentious types (to quote Jacovitti) who criticize Jarrett's "solo piano," and others who even tend to diminish the historical role of this divinely blessed album.

It makes one want to quote another remarkable figure, another who, this time with just the instrument of voice, turned a quite significant page. One too often quoted wrongly: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." In this case, they don't know what they think and say.

Immerse in the era: early seventies. Wandering around one's city. Having even vague knowledge of the character: after all, he played with Miles, they say he's crazy but he's brilliant, let's hope he's not unlistenable.

Staring at this very white cover in the shop window, with a man with a big afro bowing over the piano.

Enter, ask. Discover it's a triple vinyl. Spend what it's right to spend.

Go home, dim the lights. Prepare a little drink and maybe some incense.

Place the first vinyl on the turntable and set the needle on it.

Dash to the sofa and sit in front of the speakers before the first note.

Hear it, the first note, and understand everything immediately and definitively.

Understand, from one note, that God, that evening, was around.