Unpublished Newswire

Keith Jarrett, the American pianist and improviser whose solo concerts redefined the boundaries of jazz and may have accidentally given birth to New Age music, was considering not walking onto the stage of the Cologne Opera House on January 24, 1975. It was supposed to be just a man and a Bösendorfer, no music prepared. But the piano wasn’t right. Travel had been hard. His back was in traction. The Italian food he’d eaten earlier wasn’t sitting well. Somehow, he agreed to go on, and despite the obstacles and the drama, the music he recorded that night, released as The Köln Concert, would...