Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert (1983 Japanese ECM 2LP Gatefold)

Vinyl: EX/EX
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: VG+

Our grading system explained here.
Photo is of the actual item.

A note on this pressing

White ECM sleeves from this era are notorious for picking up toning and discolouration over time. It's the nature of the matte cardboard stock rather than evidence of rough handling. Completely clean examples are genuinely rare. The sleeve here shows the typical age-patina of the format and has been graded accordingly.

The Köln Concert is also worth approaching with a well-maintained setup. As one of the most intimate and dynamically quiet recordings in jazz - solo piano in a near-silent room - it will reveal surface noise that would be completely buried on a busier record. That's not a reflection of the vinyl's condition so much as the nature of the recording itself. If your stylus and cartridge are in good shape, this record will sing.

Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert | 2 x Vinyl LP - 1983 Japanese ECM Gatefold (38MJ 3297/8, Polydor K.K.)

• Keith Jarrett's complete solo improvisation recorded live at the Cologne Opera House on 24 January 1975; the best-selling solo piano album and best-selling solo jazz album of all time.
• All four parts of the concert across four sides — the full concert as originally sequenced on vinyl
  
• 1983 Japanese ECM pressing manufactured by Polydor K.K., gatefold

On the evening of 24 January 1975, Keith Jarrett walked on stage at the Cologne Opera House and improvised for approximately 66 minutes. The concert had been organised by Vera Brandes, at 18 years old Germany's youngest concert promoter. She had sold out the house — around 1,400 people — and rented the opera venue for the first time it had been used for a jazz performance, underwritten by a loan from her mother. Jarrett had driven from Zurich to Cologne in Manfred Eicher's Renault 4 rather than fly, arriving late and tired. He had not slept properly in days. His back pain required a brace. The piano on stage was not the Bösendorfer Imperial 290 he had specified but a smaller rehearsal instrument that had not been tuned and whose pedals stuck. After playing a few notes and demanding a replacement that could not be found, Jarrett was ready to leave. Brandes persuaded him to stay. ECM engineer Martin Wieland had set up two Neumann U 67 microphones and a Telefunken M-5 tape machine to capture the performance.

What Jarrett played that night worked in part because of the piano's limitations rather than despite them. Unable to rely on the bass and upper registers, he built the performance on the middle register and on ostinato left-hand patterns — according to Eicher, the instrument's shortcomings drove Jarrett toward a different approach than he might otherwise have taken. Part I runs for around 26 minutes and develops from a single vamp through increasingly elaborate melodic excursions. Part II was divided for the vinyl format into three sections: IIa, IIb and IIc, the last of which draws on Jarrett's earlier composition "Memories of Tomorrow." The whole concert is present across the four sides of this double album. The record was released on ECM in November 1975 and sold in quantities no one at the label had anticipated; it remains the best-selling solo piano recording and the best-selling solo jazz album ever made. This 1983 Japanese pressing is manufactured by Polydor K.K. in a gatefold sleeve.