The vinyl I didn't buy

Yesterday I was at my favorite library and was about to buy Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert vinyl. I resisted the temptation and put it down. Here’s the problem: I don’t have a turntable. Part of me is convinced that certain fundamental vinyls are worth having, no matter what. They’re just beautiful artifacts (and TKC happens to be one of the finest). And then there’s the fact that albums such as this one, I feel they really made me, very much like the books I read. The famous Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote: “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” I feel it holds for selected music too.

Last September, I took Serena to see Calibro 35 perform live. She didn’t know them, and she was instantly in awe. At the end of the concert, I suggested we buy their album, right there at the booth (I already owned it in digital). She declined on the grounds that we don’t have a turntable, and I argued that the vinyl would be a memento of the special evening we shared, very much like the catalog we buy when we visit a worthy art exhibition.

In any case, during my walk along the riverbank last evening and this morning’s usual stroll through the town center, I listened to TKC after a long time in its entirety. It’s marvelous as always. There’s that section at about the seven and a half minutes mark that gives me the exact same goosebumps, each and every time.

When I got back, I re-read the story of that evening, when the album was recorded. If you don’t know about it, it’s worth checking out. Suffice to say that the whole thing was forcedly improvised on stage because the piano was the wrong one and in bad shape. Also, Jarrett was tired, suffering from back pain (he was wearing a brace), and hungry. The gem I discovered today is a short 9-minute BBC Witness History podcast episode in which Vera Brandes (the concert promoter) recounts the events of that evening¹.

The Köln Concert became the best-selling jazz solo concert of all time. Not bad for an improvised performance on a bad piano at a concert that was about to be canceled two hours before the start.