If Keith Jarret were a photographer
I still get goosebumps when I remember the first time I listened to Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert and reached only the fifth minute, where THAT note happens.
One note, from which I almost fainted.
I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, rewinding the recording by a few, or even several dozen seconds, and returning to that moment which, for me - despite being at the very beginning of the concert - is its climax, most beautiful moment.
In fact, I still get goosebumps every time I listen to this album and hear THAT single note. I know it by heart, and yet it has never bored me.
How is it even possible that, out of the entire concert lasting over an hour, the thing that makes the biggest impression on me is a single, solitary (though preceded and followed by a long, improvised “monologue” by the artist) note?
I am fully aware that this one sound, if taken out of the context of the entire concert, would have no significance at all, would be completely defenseless, and would mean little, if anything.
On the other hand, the monologue that precedes it, and the one that follows, would be deprived of the charm they now possess (at least for me).
How many times have I listened to this album just for that one note!
The whole concert (which contains many, many delights) is divided for me into “before” and “after” THAT note. Many times I listened only up to the moment it sounded, then went back to the beginning just to hear it once more.
It is an exclamation point, an underscore, a highlight.
It constitutes a separate statement, which neither gets lost in the sequences of hundreds of piano keystrokes, nor overshadows the rest. Within this note lies a significant fragment of the story Jarrett is telling in this highly emotional, improvised way.
It is an integral part of that story, and both - the note and the concert - would be incomplete if forced to exist without each other.
However, that one sound and the entire concert form an inseparable whole for me, but their relationship says something deeper about the nature of experience and perception.
Would you also notice that one note?
Many people who know this album, and whom I’ve asked, didn’t even notice it. Including those who have an extraordinary musical sensitivity. They didn’t have a clue what I’ve been talking about.
It’s an example of how meaning arises in the relationship between the part and the whole, and also how subjective that perception can be.
Meaning emerges in the interaction, in the tension between detail and context. Often it does not exist on its own. It arises only in the relationships between elements, in the attention we give them, in how we read them within that broader context.
If Keith Jarrett were a photographer, that note would probably be the one element of a photo that makes you never forget it.
It would be a detail that holds your attention longer.
It would be the cherry on top of a balanced composition - or the disruption of that composition.
A combination of colors, which you can’t tell if it’s accidental or staged.
The emotion of the person in the photo - or your emotion as you look at it.
It could be perfect harmony, or an intriguing juxtaposition.
It would be a question we ask ourselves when looking at a photograph, one that makes us return to it from time to time in order to find an answer.
Or maybe you would be returning, and I wouldn’t notice it at all.
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