How a total disaster became the world’s best-selling piano album

Comments · 1.8K

• EN

  @enricomarconi8358 · 2 years ago

  the opening notes (G-D-C-G-A-D) is the bell at he Köln Opera House telling the people to go back to their seats as the concert is about to start. That's why you hear people laughing on the recording...

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• PU

  @PunkTiger · 2 years ago

  To be fair, I think the piano tuner should get part of the credit. He got the piano in a somewhat playable condition instead of the unplayable mess it was in.

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• KA

  @katiefrisk980 · 2 years ago

  “mom can we have bosendorfer grand piano?”<br>“we have bosendorfer at home”

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• BO

  @boulejazz · 2 years ago

  I attended a Keith Jarrett concert at Royce Hall UCLA around this time. Keith started and then abruptly stopped after playing for a minute or so and turned to the audience and shouted &quot;Does anyone have a piano tuning wrench?&quot; After the laugher died down... amazingly, someone came up with a tuning wrench and Keith struggled to tune a few bad notes. Still unsatisfied, he strutted on and off the stage several times and after a long 10 minutes, the stage crew rolled a new concert grand on stage. Then...Keith played non-stop for over an hour...so exquisitely...Listening to the Koln album brings back that wonderful memory.

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• IF

  @if6was929 · 2 years ago

  A jazz musician (sorry, I can&apos;t recall his name) met Keith Jarrett for the first time, &quot;I thought you were black?&quot; Keith replied, &quot;I&apos;m working on it!&quot;

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• RO

  @robinblankenship9234 · 2 years ago

  Let it be known far and wide and this concert, this album, this genius was salvaged by the PIANO TECHNICIAN. THE PIANO TECHNICIAN.

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• MA

  @martinrickler7403 · 2 years ago

  For me, this story is a spiritual metaphor for life. You take what you have and do the best you can with it.

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• ST

  @stevenslater2669 · 1 year ago

  I recall seeing Itzhak Perlman perform with a broken string. He started playing when the string snapped. He paused for a moment and you could practically see him transposing and rearranging the piece in his head before continuing. His performance was magnificent.

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• DA

  @davidrick959 · 2 years ago

  I have been listening to this album since it was first released, but never knew the entire story behind it: broken piano, exhausted artist. What I learned much later is that, with all the commotion, the recording engineer had no opportunity to set proper levels before the concert. He basically stuffed a couple of AKG 414&apos;s in there and crossed his fingers. You can hear the preamps distorting in places. In the end, none of that mattered; we are transfixed simply by hearing a supremely gifted artist at an inspired moment in what was to be a long and storied musical career.

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• GE

  @geneard639 · 2 years ago

  Only a Master Pianist can take a wrecked piano, and play it in such a manner that no one in the audience knows its wrecked and will even say &quot;Its a Masterpiece!&quot;. Kudos to Mr. Jarrett.

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• LA

  @LambentOrt · 2 years ago

  He played on a broken piano?!!! And he was hungry and in pain too?!! Wow 😮 wouldn&apos;t have known that from the recording at all. Keith truly is one of the GOATs.

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• GI

  @giorgiodelpalatinato6718 · 2 years ago

  You&apos;ve missed out on one deciding topic: This was one of the most popular LPs amongst audiophiles!<br>Every guy interested in high end stereo equipment had this record. The German label who has recorded this concert was selling on the technical quality of the recordings, not on the artistic one.<br>That was a period before CDs, when most of the recordings were technically still pretty poor.<br>ECM got it right here with the technical and the artistic part - and that was the reason for this enormous success!

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