The triumph and the tragedy of the world’s greatest living jazz musician

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Exactly fifty years ago this week, a young American jazz pianist on tour in Europe arrived at the opera house in Cologne. He hadn't gotten much sleep and was feeling back pain. He was scheduled to perform an improvised set for an audience of 1,400 people at 11:30 at night. A logistical mistake had given him a piano that was intended for rehearsals only, which was a baby grand piano with sticky pedals, poor tuning, and a temperamental high register. And to make matters worse, he had also missed dinner. What followed, however, was a pivotal moment in 20th-century music.

This pianist was already known to jazz fans, but his performance in Germany made him a sensation, making him a name recognized by people who didn't typically listen to jazz. With its clear melodies, catchy hooks and impressive displays of skill, The Köln Concert became the best-selling piano album of all time (four million copies and counting) and earned Jarrett fans from a wide range of musical backgrounds, including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Bruce Hornsby, and even non-jazz enthusiast Adrian Chiles.

As the writer Geoff Dyer has effectively argued, not just for his impressive solo performances, but also for his work as a band leader and interpreter of classical music. However, there's something about the story of The Köln Concert – with its blend of risk-taking, boldness, and an unwavering level of talent – that encapsulates the unique nature and scope of his accomplishments over a long and not always smooth career.

Jarrett was born on May 8th, 1941, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, when it was still an industrial area before it became known as the Rust Belt. His parents were of Slovenian, German, and Hungarian descent. By the time he was three years old, his exceptional talents were already apparent. He had perfect pitch and was already familiar with the piano ("I used to sleep under it", he recalled in the documentary "The Art of Improvisation"). He gave his first piano recital at the age of six, performing pieces by Mozart and Bach, as well as two of his own compositions.

That independent spirit would shape his path. As a teenager, he was invited to study composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, a mentor to Aaron Copland and Daniel Barenboim, among others, but he decided against it, and instead chose to explore jazz. He then attended Berklee College of Music, only to be dismissed. One account claims he was caught playing a prize piano with vibraphone mallets.

It didn't matter. By the mid-1960s, he was making a living from jazz and quickly advancing his career, working with Charles Lloyd and later with Miles Davis, while also leading his own group. This was an artist of incredible versatility – just as at home on the saxophone as he was at the piano – and he had a wide-ranging musical taste. His ability to adapt and change his style was evident in his ethnicity as well. The saxophonist Ornette Coleman reportedly said: “Man, you've got to be black. You just have to be black” – to which Jarrett responded: “I know, I know. I'm working on it.”

Jarrett has never been a music snob. For him, as a product of America's post-war emphasis on meritocracy, if something is good, it stands on its own merit. Listen to his enthusiastic takes on the classic show tunes of the 1920s and 1930s; listen to his Dylan cover, with its smooth, soulful versions of "Lay Lady Lay" and "My Back Pages." But under no circumstances should you listen to his 1968 folk-rock album "Restoration Ruin," in which he plays nearly all the instruments and delivers lyrics as clichéd as: "While the grass is gray/Ferns and bushes sway/For me." Even someone as talented as Jarrett can go over the top.

It was during the 1970s that he really started to forge his own path, teaming up with the esteemed producer Manfred Eicher of ECM Records and embarking on a series of entirely improvised solo performances – or, as he referred to them, “epic journeys into the unknown”. The phrase might have implied a far-out, progressive rock jam, but the music was incredibly beautiful and exceptional. As jazz became bogged down in tedious disputes between traditionalists, fusionists, and proponents of the "free" genre vying to be as unlistenable as possible, Jarrett found a middle ground, skillfully combining his influences into something both dazzling and heartfelt.

It was a reaction, too. “I am,” he wrote in the liner notes for 1973’s Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne, “conducting an anti-electric-music campaign, and this is one of the exhibits.” Unfortunately, he also stated: “Electricity is a part of us and should not be confined to wires.” His distaste for electrification – which he also compared to “eating plastic broccoli” – was proven right by his performances, from the Bremen concert, with its powerful gospel-style music, to the Sun Bear Concerts (1978) in Japan – the most elaborate of the series, showcasing his mastery of classical techniques. They created entire worlds with just the piano.

Many would agree with Hanif Kureishi that The Köln Concert is the high point, "carrying in it the compressed history of everything Jarrett ever knew": the delicate opening (said to be echoing the opera house bell), the bluesy swagger of Part IIa, Part IIb's stormy turn, the fireworks at the end. Occasionally you wonder: is he really improvising on the spot? We can take Jarrett's word for it: "Once Miles Davis asked me, 'How do you play from nothing?' And I said, 'You know, you just do it'." But the experience of listening suggests so too. While the arc of the music is beautifully developed, there are also long periods of slow build-up, moments of anticipation before taking off. Hearing Jarrett navigate these challenges is one of the things that makes his work so captivating.

Jarrett has his critics, naturally. Some think his solo pieces, often built from just a couple of chords, are suspiciously similar to easy listening music. (In The Sopranos, when Tony Blundetto tries to go straight after being in prison, he describes his plan for a massage parlor with Jarrett's music playing.) Others have been turned off by his personality, not just his tendency to be a bit mystical. Jarrett developed a reputation for being short-tempered, frequently stopping performances because someone in the audience dared to cough, while he himself made a lot of noise at the keyboard - stamping, hooting, groaning, and screeching (there used to be a video on YouTube comparing these vocalizations to Eric Cartman in South Park).

"What kind of world asks for a picture?" he grumbled. But he sat back down, picked up right where he'd left off – and ended up playing four additional sets.

Jarrett's biggest challenge has been his health. He didn't feel well that night in Cologne. In the 1990s, chronic fatigue syndrome forced him to take a several year break from performing. He made an impressive comeback, delivering high-energy performances as a soloist and with his Standards Trio for nearly two decades. As Dyer notes, even in his later career, there was never "a period when you would go to hear Jarrett play just because it was Jarrett… You would go knowing there was a good chance of hearing something uniquely memorable." But then, in 2018, came a major setback – two strokes.

Jarrett can't play with his left arm anymore, and hasn't played since. It's a very sad ending, but he seems to be dealing with it in a dry and humorous way. In a 2023 interview with YouTube personality Rick Beato, he watches a video of himself playing incredibly well in the 1980s. "Fun to hear, right?" Beato asks. "Yeah, I think I had more hands," Jarrett replies. "I only had one more, though."

It's worth recalling that, even if he'd stopped working after 1975, he would still have accomplished enough.