Ido Fluk’s "Köln 75" revisits Keith Jarrett’s famous Cologne concert of January 24, 1975, held at 11:30 p.m. in the city opera house. The 66-minute improvisation became one of jazz history’s landmarks and the best-selling solo jazz album ever, but the film does not include a single note from the performance because of rights restrictions.
Instead, Fluk focuses on the people and circumstances that made the concert possible, centering on Vera Brandes, played by Mala Emde. Before she turned 18, Brandes had already become one of Germany’s leading jazz promoters. The film shows her arranging a Ronnie Scott Trio tour from her father’s dental clinic, then becoming enthralled after hearing Jarrett play a solo concert in Berlin. She persuades the Cologne opera house manager to rent her the venue and borrows 10,000 marks from her mother to make the event happen.
Jarrett, portrayed by John Magaro, agrees only if he is given a Bösendorfer Imperial piano. The concert is scheduled to begin after Alban Berg’s opera "Lulu," and Brandes must sell about 1,300 tickets to fill the hall. Everything goes wrong on the day of the performance, with the piano unusable, Jarrett in severe back pain, dinner delayed, and a replacement Bösendorfer too expensive to insure for transport.
The film also follows jazz journalist Michael Watts, played by Michael Chernus, a composite character who serves as narrator and explains Jarrett’s place in jazz history. The review says Fluk, an Israeli-born director who previously made "A Late Quartet" in 2011, uses shifting tones, direct address, and on-screen text to evoke jazz, but the film ultimately feels more like a lively crowd-pleaser than a work with real soul. Still, the review praises Emde’s performance and notes that the absence of the concert itself becomes a strength, turning history into legend.
