Category Archives: Uncategorized

“Köln Concert” live performance by Thomas Enhco and Maki Namekawa in Paris

Two pianists, Thomas Enhco and Maki Namekawa, will perform the Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett at the Cité de la Musique in Paris on April 4-7, 2023. The four concerts are apparently sold out, but a waiting list is available.

“Deux pianistes inspirés venant de sphères musicales différentes – Thomas Enhco et Maki Namekawa – s’emparent de The Köln Concert, mythique album live de Keith Jarrett, et restituent l’incroyable luminosité de cette musique en liberté, entre jazz et classique.”

“Le 24 janvier 1975, en tournée en Europe, Keith Jarrett fait étape à l’Opéra de Cologne. Très fatigué, ayant mal au dos, il doit de plus jouer avec le piano en piètre état mis à sa disposition. Résultat : un concert magique, entièrement improvisé, durant lequel va s’écouler une musique épurée mue par une ferveur intense. Publié en 1975 par le prestigieux label ECM, l’enregistrement du concert va rencontrer un succès démesuré, devenant l’un des disques de jazz les plus vendus, et rester dans les annales. Jeune pianiste français, qui oscille entre jazz et classique, Thomas Enhco s’allie ici avec Maki Namekawa, jeune pianiste japonaise, dont le répertoire s’étend du classique au contemporain, pour interpréter dans son intégralité cet album unique à l’éclat inouï.”

Thanks to Daniel for the information.

“Köln 75” film in pre-production

An upcoming film, Köln 75, directed by Ido Fluk, was briefly mentioned in a recent piece by NPR.

“Köln 75” tells the true story of Vera Brandes, who, in 1975 and at the age of 17, staged the famous Köln Concert by jazz musician Keith Jarrett, which became the top-selling jazz solo album of all time.

It was first announced in an article by Variety a few months ago. It will feature John Magaro as Keith Jarrett.

Thanks to Jamie for the information.

Update (January 19, 2024). The film is now called The Girl from Köln according to IMDb. Thanks to Nate for the information.

Bassist Gary Peacock has died, aged 85

It has unfortunately been confirmed that Gary Peacock has died, aged 85.

This is what ECM Records shared a few hours ago:

Gary Peacock (1935-2020)

Bassist Gary Peacock has died, aged 85. An inspired contributor to music over the last half-century, he was already featured on ECM’s third album, “Paul Bley With Gary Peacock”, issued in 1970.

Manfred Eicher: “I’ve lost a life-long friend, and a musician whom I had admired greatly since the first time I heard him. We were so pleased and proud to be able to feature him so early in our programme. Along with Scott La Faro, Steve Swallow and Charlie Haden, Gary was one of the bassists I most appreciated, and I loved his playing on Albert Ayler’s ‘Spiritual Unity’ and Bill Evans’s ‘Trio ‘64’. We started working together more closely with ‘Tales of Another’, in retrospect an influential album. It laid the groundwork for one of the longest-lasting groups in jazz…”

Born in Burley, Idaho, Peacock studied piano, vibraphone and drums before settling, at the age of 20, on the double bass, the instrument with which he would leave his mark on jazz history. He honed his playing while stationed with the US army in Germany, participating in many jam sessions in clubs around Frankfurt and Dortmund. By the early 1960s, Peacock’s imaginative, alert, and elegantly singing bass was heard across the full spectrum of creative jazz in New York – from the trios of Paul Bley and Bill Evans to the groups of Tony Williams, Lowell Davidson and Albert Ayler. Gary was steadfast in his view that creativity could not be limited or defined by an idiom or a style. The point of music-making, he insisted, was to locate and follow the freedoms that each context revealed, a mindset that made him the ideal bassist for the trio with Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette, where he was equally happy to mine the chord changes of jazz standards for fresh information or to abandon the security of song forms altogether.

The Jarrett/Peacock/DeJohnette trio had been assembled originally for Gary’s “Tales of Another” in 1977. This album of Peacock pieces was effectively Gary’s “comeback album”, recorded after an extended period in Japan, where he had met Masabumi Kikuchi, an important ally, and immersed himself in Eastern culture. A nonpareil improviser – no one was more committed to the notion of playing in the present moment – Peacock was also a composer of strikingly original tunes. Some of them, like “Moor”, “Vignette”, “Gaya”, December Greenwings” and “Requiem”, their themes concise as haikus, were returned to frequently throughout his long artistic life, and covered by many musicians.

Gary’s ECM recordings as a leader – primarily produced in Oslo – include “December Poems” (mostly solo bass, plus duets with Jan Garbarek), “Voice from the Past – Paradigm” (with Garbarek, Tomasz Stanko and Jack DeJohnette), and “Guamba” (with Garbarek, Palle Mikkelborg and Peter Erskine), as well as duo albums with Ralph Towner (“A Closer View”, “Oracle”), and collaborative recordings with John Surman, Paul Bley and Tony Oxley (“Adventure Playground”, “In The Evenings Out There”). “Shift In The Wind”, featuring Gary’s trio with Art Lande and Eliot Zigmund, was produced in New York.

In the 1990s it was Gary who brought about a reunion of the Paul Bley trio with Paul Motian for the New York-recorded album “Not Two, Not One”, leading to tours and, eventually, the Swiss concert recording “When Will The Blues Leave”. Collaboration with Marilyn Crispell – another long-term association – was initiated with the album “Nothing Ever Was, Anyway”, an exploration of the music of Annette Peacock. In his last years Gary was enthusiastic about his trio with Marc Copland and Joey Baron, particularly enjoying the way the sound of his bass and the sound of the group meshed and resonated in the acoustics of the Lugano studio on the album “Tangents.”