Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis invokes tale of legendary keyboards player's famous 1975 concert in inspirational speech about weathering the hardships of cost-of-living crisis
September 22, 2022 10:11
The Chief Rabbi has urged British Jews to be like a jazz pianist in a Rosh Hashanah message to communities.
In the colourful letter, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis advised congregants to emulate Keith Jarrett, the legendary jazzman who produced one of the world’s greatest musical performances while improvising on a broken piano.
Mr Jarrett had taken one look at the dilapidated instrument provided for his concert at the Cologne Opera House in 1975 and told the organisers he was pulling out.
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis
He was, however, persuaded to play. Despite being in agony from backache and suffering from sleep deprivation, he gave a performance that was to become the Köln Concert, the bestselling piano album of all time.
In his Rosh Hashanah message for 5783, Rabbi Mirvis has invited Jews to take inspiration from the American maestro as we face a cost-of-living crisis, the aftermath of a global pandemic and war in the Ukraine.
The Chief Rabbi drew on the economist Tim Harford’s book Messy: The Power of Disorder To Transform Our Lives, in which he tells the remarkable story of Mr Jarrett’s triumph over adversity in January 1975 at the Cologne Opera House. With an audience of 1,400 people, Mr Jarrett discovered that the grand piano he had been expecting to see on stage was not grand — and barely a piano.
Jazz star Jarrett
