“really beautiful, the purity and atmosphere he creates”
“really beautiful, the purity and atmosphere he creates”
Free Variations on Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert 
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In 1975, Keith Jarrett walked onto the stage of the Cologne Opera House without any preconceived music and improvised what became the bestselling solo piano album of all time. Fifty years later, to the day, in Cologne, Dorian Ford performed his homage to a sold-out audience, among them listeners who were there in 1975.
Moved by the reaction, Dorian is returning to the piece every year. Köln Concert 52 continues that journey. His free variations are a living, improvised response that keeps the spirit of the original while finding new music within it. They draw those who have loved the Köln Concert for decades alongside a new generation discovering it for the first time.
“Never before has a concert and its aftermath moved me as much as Köln Concert 50. My head just won’t let go.”
Klaus Erich Haun, audience member at the original 1975 concert and at Köln Concert 50
“…quite stunning in its execution and intensity.”
Paula McAdam, jazz critic, Liverpool International Jazz Festival 2025
https://youtu.be/bF1uh9nPat8
Film by Paul Cox. Dorian Ford interviewed by Breandáin O’Shea for Deutsche Welle. 30 January 2025. Music: Keith Jarrett, Landscape for Future Earth. Performed live in Cologne by Dorian Ford.
Free Variations on Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert 
Celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary, Dorian reaches back through time to have an intimate conversation with Keith Jarrett’s iconic improvised 1975 Köln Concert.
Blending his passion for Jarrett’s brilliant original with his own improvisations, Dorian’s riffs and grooves re-ignite the spark of genius of the young Jarrett.
For lovers of jazz and classical music this captivating concert is a celebration not to be missed.
Visit the Köln Conversations website
10 December 2025
Free to listen on this website – go to the Listen button below (or can a smart speaker find it?…).
This album features both solo and ensemble recordings from the last 40 years. There’s an aesthetic cohesion to the collection, and I would define that aesthetic with one word from the music lexicon: jazz.
01 December 2025
Press release for Köln Concert 51.
Sunday 25 January 2026 at 6.30pm
The Hex Hall For All, Acland Burghley School, London NW5
This performance follows the triumph of Köln Concert 50, which Ford performed in Cologne in January 2025 on the exact anniversary of the original concert; the event sold out, drew audience members from the 1975 performance itself, and received major acclaim in the press. In the months that followed, this important and exciting tribute was staged at the Liverpool International Jazz Festival and the Aberdeen Jazz Festival, building on its earlier success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024, where critics hailed it as “one of the true glories of the Festival.”
Köln Concert 51 continues this artistic journey — not as a recreation, but as a living improvisational response to a piece that has shaped half a century of musical history.
03 March 2025
Dorian Ford’s reinterpretation of ECM’s best selling album of all time and the best selling jazz solo album ever was quite stunning in its execution and intensity. He fully channelled the vibe and I felt it. I was totally engrossed from start to finish.
In awe of how someone can play such an intricate jazz meets classical rendition like that with such clarity and nuance. I’m not sure how a piece of music can have so much tension and yet be so beautiful at the same time. Dorian Ford captured just that, impeccably. Those standing ovations said it all. Bravo and thanks Dorian Ford. You nailed it.
Review for Liverpool International Jazz Festival.