His back hurt and his piano was substandard. But the musician’s improvised 1975 show entered jazz history. Now two films are celebrating that mesmerising night – and the sweary teen promoter who made it happen
‘I went face to face with Keith Jarrett,” recalls Vera Brandes, “and I said to him, ‘Keith, if you don’t play this concert, I’ll be fucked. And you’ll be fucked too.’” Brandes laughs as she recalls this pivotal conversation, 50 years later. It came after a day of chaos where she, an 18-year-old concert promoter, was desperately trying to convince the famously temperamental jazz pianist to play a concert on a substandard instrument.
“To be honest,” she adds, “I had absolutely not a single clue what those words meant! My English wasn’t then as good as it is now. I’d heard Miles Davis using the f-word while talking to his band, which featured Keith Jarrett, a few years earlier, so maybe I was channelling Miles. Keith must have been floored to hear this teenage girl who looked like Brigitte Bardot’s little sister using this kind of language!”
