50 years ago, the jazz musician Keith Jarrett played the unforgettable “Cologne Concert” in the sold -out Cologne Opera. Even today, the live recording published via ECM Records with over four million copies is the best-selling solo jazz board ever. The recording was created under adverse circumstances: the support wing was far too small for the 1,400 people comprehensive. The high and depths could not be played on the grand piano, the keys in the middle clamped. Jarrett played the concert of his life with broken pedals on January 24, 1975. art
Today Keith Jarrett and ECM Records are distance themselves from this recording, the management of the music rings was also not interested in a film about the 66-minute concert (it was exactly 66 minutes and 5 seconds). But that doesn't matter because director Ido Fluk in “Cologne 75” The focus on the person, without whom the concert would never have taken place: the 18-year-old from her Jazz passion Vera Brandes. In your strong film with a very own good rhythm you also learn something about the history of jazz.
To realize her dream, Vera Brandes has to run again and again.
From the beginning, the director makes it clear: this is not a film about Keith Jarrett and his work of art, but about what was necessary to enable art. We first get to know Vera Brandes at the age of 50 (played by Susanne Wolff). Her father (Ulrich Tukur) gives a speech at her birthday party. His daughter is the greatest disappointment of his life. Brandes snap your finger once and suddenly you are in a recording studio, where music journalist Michael Watts (Michael Chernus) tells us about famous false starts in music. Bob Dylan simply laughed away a screwed start when “Highway 61” was recorded, others argued. Vera Brandes also admits a false start: “Let's do it again. Younger.”
As if we see Vera now as a teenager (well: Mala Emde). In the 1970s she likes to shed off school, hears the avant-garde band Can or in the LSD frenzy the polic rock band Floh de Cologne (“assembly line”). Together with her best friend Isa (Shirin Lilly Eissa), she is demonstrating for the right to abortion. But only on the side. Because when she met the musician Ronnie Scott (Daniel Betts), he unexpectedly asks you to book a tour for his band. She is just 16 years old (in fact she was only 15) and finds her new destination …
From rebellious teenager to the concert organizer
Ido Fluk (“The Ticket”) stages “Cologne 75” with rhythmic precision. It connects scenes through individual keywords and pays attention to a clear visual language. Sit Vera and her brother Fritz (Leo Meier) with her father at the dining table, then the picture is symmetrical. The unemployed “losing son” Fritz keeps curled up at the breakfast table, while the father, a dentist Dr. Brandes, talks to success in life with an upright body. For him there are only winners or losers in life.
Her parents' music and no-frills and no-frills are facing the exciting, colorful music world- although director Fluk deliberately continues to build overlaps again and again. Because there is her own telephone connection there, the spirited student secretly uses her father's sterile practice to book her first tour for the Ronnie Scott Trio. The hated place becomes a source of joy. Incidentally, which musician she looked after after the first success is only told briefly in the form of nightly poster campaigns.
Vera shows Keith and his friend Manfred (Alexander Scheer) the concert location, but he is very impressed at first.
After all, we want to get to the title -giving event quickly. On the jazz days in Berlin, Vera Brandes has her first musical encounter with Keith Jarrett (John Magaro). While the Ramones started in America, everything in Berlin revolved around jazz. And in the middle of it is Miles Davis! We see Michael Watts in the audience, who breaks out the fourth wall: “I will still become part of this story.” We will later get to know the musician Jarrett, which is mild with his own demons, as a person.
But first of all, the artist belongs to the stage. Illuminated by two headlights, you only see a dark figure with crooked back. His hands, now in large recording, move carefully and with great elegance over the buttons, the face plays the music that he creates at the moment. The camera by Jens Harant (“The silent classroom”) catches Vera Brandes' motionless face, then Jarrett, then Brandes again. With luck she has a tear in mind.
The magical moment of the concert
Watts later explains what is important with jazz. “Nothing is specified. In addition to the musician, the moment and the piano. ”This magic, which Brandes also speaks in interviews, you can feel impressive film again and again in Fluks. It is not only an important building block to bring the music a little closer, but to support the rapid and exciting second part of the story. This is exactly what Brandes wants to put on a large stage and has chosen the Cologne opera. But here there is an adversity to the next, and the young woman even goes into a serious pact that further increases the pressure on success. How Vera Brandes sets everything in motion and runs plenty to realize her dream becomes a moving story.
Conclusion: “Cologne 75” is not a classic music film, but a fascinating portrait of women behind one of the greatest jazz concerts of all time. With dynamic staging, a rousing main character and a feel for the magic of the moment, Ido Fluk succeeds in a film that should not only inspire jazz fans. Only his fascination for the myth of jazz is somewhat exuberant in places – but that is exactly what makes its charm.
We saw “Cologne 75” as part of the Berlinale 2025, where it was shown as the Berlinale Special Gala.