Igor's "you should know about music" thread

[DigDog]

well i'm gonna be more lenient on him if he's that old.

I am also not going to pick up this thread for the next 48h likely, had a really full day at work. Me, an entry level worker, did 1h of call training to The MEGABOSS of the superboss section of my company. C-level guy, who wanted to "see what is it that we do". Think owner of the factory goes to talk to the guy who runs the machine.
I was asked to do this by the HR Manager who is currently weighing my request to upgrade my contract.

I may be too early but i think today was a good day.

 

[Muse]

IIRC, he's 88 or something.

He'd be younger than my dad if my dad was still alive but older than my mom by 16 years.

Proving you're coke fried.

You got me confused with someone else.

 

[Torn Mind]

Proving you're coke fried.

I was born the day John Kennedy did his heroic deed on PT-109, middle of World War II.

I got you confused with MtnMan, I think. XD

You still are an octogenarian, though.

 

[Muse]

I got you confused with MtnMan, I think. XD

You still are an octogenarian, though.

Not yet, and why would you be gloating, you sick fuck?

 

[Torn Mind]

Not yet, and why would you be gloating, you sick fuck?

My apologies for the misunderstanding. I've always held a considerable deal of respect for elders; I've always hated even seeing the insults like "Ok, boomer".

 

[DigDog]

Let me see if i can throw in a bit more content in this thread.
I'm currently stuck waiting for my current house lease to expire, anyone at all from spareroom dot com to reply to my fucking emails, and my HR to approve my permanent move to WFH, which would save me a shitton of money.

I also feel that i've failed at veering off from "really you should listen to ALL music". I guess you do need an extensive education inclusive of stuff-that-isn't-good to really gets what's good.

Rock

I honestly think that modern rock has substantially improved over the boring stuff we had in the last 50 years. I mean, some of that stuff is great, yes. Queen have a whole bunch of music that is really good because it's extremely creative rather than formulaic; now, you gotta understand that "formulaic" isn't a bad word when it comes to Rock, which is essentially a slight variation of the Blues format. Change the rhythm and drop the blue notes, done.
Blues had some songs that have shockingly bad structure, some being RIFF - RIFF - RIFF - RIFF - RIFF. Ofc there is some historical value to them but god, creativity zero. These were times where people were astounded that they could even record music, so obviously they were not particularly pressed to spice it up.
With Queen you really have to pick & choose, only really A Night At The Opera is perfect, but ALL of their discog has good stuff in it - 7 Seas Of Rye, the Highlander stuff, Break Free, Hammer To Fall, etc. Probably start with the Live At Wembley.

Anyway, i think there's a lot of bands that have made very interesting music, be it Muse, The Darkness & the various Justin Hawkes collaborations & side projects, The Killers, the particularly good bar band Tragedy, The Strokes, of which i would recommend First Impressions Of Earth, such an amazing album.
I'm not gonna get a section on Rap because i have zero understanding of that style but i can squeeze in here Gnarls Barkley's first album.

.. i suppose you could try to find the albums by unapologetically Italian italian band Elio E Le Storie Tese; this is what happens when you get 5 rock musicians who all have Masters Degrees in music.

Of the classic stuff, i would recommend Creedence Clearwater Revival. The guy had a talent as a songwriter and the audio recording is out of this world for when they were released. Just grab some Greatest Hits. Mike Oldfield is interesting, if a bit pretentious. You could look into some Deodato, or even some Meco.
Absolutely DO listen to Slanted & Enchanted by a bunch of kids who had never played before. The rest of the overly long discography is optional.
Deep Purple probably did their best non-Made In Japan work with House Of The Blue Light. (but you would need to find the S-CD version)
All of Dire Straits is worth is, but Alchemy is the best.

For Bowie, i strongly recommend these albums. I think Bowie - who had many talents, from being absolutely awesome as a person, to being killer chic - had a great way with using complex chords and make them sound like something else. The early stuff doesnt do this well, but much of the later stuff does.
1. Ziggy - the Live at the Hammersmith. You would be blessed if you could find the version NOT remastered, because yes, this wise and beautiful woman destroyed it worse than George Lucas destroyed the first Star Wars with the additional CGI scenes.
2. The Man Who Sold The World 3. Station To Station 4. Low 5. Never Let Me Down
Plus feel free to grab the Absolute Beginners single, any songs you like from the Labyrinth soundtrack, and the absolutely fantastic - BOTH OF THEM - albums with Tin Machine.
I would also recommend the Iggy Pop album Blah Blah Blah, which is *so much* Bowie's work, that Iggy resented him. Not that he has any right, as Iggy sucks balls without Bowie.

I have to say, i hold in really high esteem the first Guns & Roses album. I also like the double Use Your Illusion 1&2 album, but it does suffer from a bit of bloat. Once you've had your fill, you can leave it.

Zappa has a HUGE discography. While i really do like him, i think he is either underrated by those who don't listen to him, or grossly overrated by those who do. I would strongly recommend Hot Rats and Apostrophe, but the rest of his immense discography is .. unfocused. Sure he's got a few good songs, but his albums are all over the place. TONS of shit.

I also hold a special place in my heart for a band called The Dead Milkmen. They too have a discog that has some amusing songs and a lot of shit, but they somehow farted really hard one day and out of their ass appeared a golden turd, an album so good i cannot imagine how these 5 idiots put it together.

But the band, THE band who made everything else feel boring, is The Pixies.
They have four albums - Surfer Rosa, Doolittle, Bossanova and Trompe Le Monde, and you should listen to all of them. Ignore Indy Cindy, and everything else that frank black has done since, EXCEPT the fantastic Teenager Of The Year.
Dont think of the pixies as "indie". Indie stuff sucks. You can like Waiting Room by Fugazi, but good luck making it through a full album. Dinosaur Jr, Smashing Pumpkins, they got maybe a couple nice songs but can't hold a candle to the pixies.

Metal

So .. i like metal. I may be biased versus a lot of this stuff because, abandoning the precept that music must be "nice" allows you to move in far more interesting directions.
While a lot of it is just noise and the fact that humans like easy repeating rhythms, some is actually pretty interesting. I would make it a point to start from Sabbath, specifically the first two albums. Not that the rest doesnt have good stuff in it, but the first two have a atmospheric quality, almost concept albums, while the following are only just regular music.
Try to get a hold of a non-remastered version of The Randy Rhoads Tribute, which is an absolutely brilliant live album. The records Diary of A Madman and Blizzard Of Ozz are also good, but they suffer from so so production and rushed writing. No Rest For The Wicked is good for a few days, when it was released it was revolutionary, today it's meh.
Do i need to tell you you should listen to Metallica? I dont think i do.
Personally i would rate Justice over Master, then Ride and then everything else. Not that Hit The Lights isn't good, but in perspective, Justice is the best one. Their cover of Whiskey In The Jar has some fucking amazing audio though.
Pantera is worth in full. You may not be in love for long, but it's a nice ride.
Spultura made the amazing Chaos AD, it's raw, brutal, and memorable.
I think Powerslave is just better than any other Maiden album.

I loved the first two Bolt Thrower Albums, they have since developed a pretty solid following but i find what else they have done to be lacking any soul.
Ministry has the amazing The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste, and while Psalm 69 has the song "Jesus Built My Hotrod" - in itself a clone of a song on the amazing Butthols Surfers album Independent Worm Saloon - the rest isnt great.
I have to say, i really really like the first two Dethklok albums. I think Brendan Smalls is really talented, if you accept that this is comedy music. And, to be fair, a lot of metal sound better when you stop taking it so seriously.
.. which brings me to MANOWAR, the greatest band in the world, or at least that's their image. I would strongly recommend the albums Triumph Of Steel, Louder Than Hell, and somewhat less Kings Of Metal. The rest of the discog has some pretty stronk stuff so it's worth having a dig through, and make your own "Greatest Hits" folder, but nothing, nothing can beat the 28 minute long Achille's Agony And Extasy In Eight Parts metal- retelling of the war of Troy.

Revocation is the band i would point to when it comes to technical death metal, and specifically Existence Is Futile, but this genre has so many bands to choose from that i would do you a disservice if didnt just let you look around.
Almost across to punk is the incredible album Ooh Crickey, It's Lawnmower Deth, by (obviously) Lawnmower Deth. Again, if you are allergic to fun, this isn't for you.

i will briefly interspace this with

Punk

Because while i have a lot of feelings for punk, i have a difficult time to point you towards any punk albums of substance.
I hereby declare that i do not believe The Sex Pistols were in any way involved in writing the music for their albums, while instead they were shadow-written entirely by Malcolm McLaren. Dude, you don't pick up the guitar and in six weeks write that kinds of riffs. Ironically, the Pistols turned out to be a much more commercial operation than any other punk act.
Probably Ween fits in with Punk. Is it rock music? Is it even music? What is Ween?
DRI have ONE good album - Dealing With It - and the rest is shit. The singer even admitted to admiring Britney Spears. *sigh*
Two bands that are very similar stylistically are Bad Releigion and NOFX. They are both talented and have really high quality lyrics. I guess Rage Against The Machine solved the issue of having politics in music, by making the words dumb.
I would recommend of BR not Generator but Recipe For Hate, and of NOFX The Longest Line & White Trash, although their discog is full of good stuff.


Somewhere in here i should also put the .. pretty damn disturbing album Killing God by dutch solo Ultraviolence. I warn you, this *may* be too much for you. It is for me.
If you are ok with that i may suggest the single, Bolt Thrower cover of World Eater by Animals Killing People, or Graveslime, dissolved after ONE album, allegedly recorded for the sole purpose of having a slow ass grating (and totally fucking epic) version of CHARIOTS OF FIRE.

 

[sdifox]

.. you .. saw them live? In the 60s ?? Muse, how old are you?

He's from the 1860s

 

[nakedfrog]

I'm trying to figure out how to take seriously the opinion of anyone who ranks Justice over Puppets. That's not the only take I disagree with, but it's one of the big ones. But then, you also recommend Pantera, who merit at best a shrug from me.
At least you call out Recipe for Hate, but I'd toss in No Control and Stranger than Fiction. Also good to acknowledge Tin Machine.
And Queen's first two albums merit their own mentions alongside Night at the Opera.
Where the fuck, might I add, is Lou Reed's Transformer?
And how about The Replacements' Let It Be for another punk entry?

 

[Muse]

I honestly think that modern rock has substantially improved over the boring stuff we had in the last 50 years. I mean, some of that stuff is great, yes. Queen have a whole bunch of music that is really good because it's extremely creative rather than formulaic; now, you gotta understand that "formulaic" isn't a bad word when it comes to Rock, which is essentially a slight variation of the Blues format. Change the rhythm and drop the blue notes, done.
Blues had some songs that have shockingly bad structure, some being RIFF - RIFF - RIFF - RIFF - RIFF. Ofc there is some historical value to them but god, creativity zero. These were times where people were astounded that they could even record music, so obviously they were not particularly pressed to spice it up.
With Queen you really have to pick & choose, only really A Night At The Opera is perfect, but ALL of their discog has good stuff in it - 7 Seas Of Rye, the Highlander stuff, Break Free, Hammer To Fall, etc. Probably start with the Live At Wembley.

Of course, I was aware of Queen from the time they hit FM radio big and it was impossible to not be impressed. They were different, soulful, made you think. I didn't go buy their albums, however. During the pandemic I somehow thought I should have a look, dive into them some way and try to get at the reason they are so on the map. I bought the Greatest Hits 3 CD set. Haven't really gotten into it with thoroughness. Other artists I have done this with during the pandemic are Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Chuck Berry, and recently two of the absolute best albums of Frank Sinatra, who I had never liked, but my God, these are so so great! Classic Sinatra and Only the Lonely (Ronstadt said she used to listen to that one every night with her boyfriend before they went to bed... it was Frank's personal favorite among all his albums).

 

[Muse]

I'm trying to figure out how to take seriously the opinion of anyone who ranks Justice over Puppets. That's not the only take I disagree with, but it's one of the big ones. But then, you also recommend Pantera, who merit at best a shrug from me.
At least you call out Recipe for Hate, but I'd toss in No Control and Stranger than Fiction. Also good to acknowledge Tin Machine.
And Queen's first two albums merit their own mentions alongside Night at the Opera.
Where the fuck, might I add, is Lou Reed's Transformer?
And how about The Replacements' Let It Be for another punk entry?

DigDog's writing here is voluminous and full of questionable assertions. Dissecting them with any kind of thoroughness would seem to be tiresome and difficult. You know, with music seeing the forest for the trees is not easy for a lot of people.

I'm no kind of expert, but I'm educated and very good at producing a weekly 3 hour radio show that's extremely eclectic and well worth listening to, with the help of a music library that's been building for 60 years and has over 120,000 distinct articles (LPs, 7", 10", 12", CDs, compilations, digital stuff too).

 

[DigDog]

Transformer is with all the other Art Rock albums, in the garbage bin.

 

[Torn Mind]

I detect the taint of being "excessively educated" in music.

Blues may be "simple" but it hits people in the soul and it is the basis that evolved into rock.

 

[Muse]

He's from the 1860s

What do you get when you cross Putin with a pidgeon?

sdifox... he's not above shitting on anybody.

 

[Muse]

I detect the taint of being "excessively educated" in music.

Blues may be "simple" but it hits people in the soul and it is the basis that evolved into rock.

There's an old song I've played on my show a few times titled "it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it."

 

[Torn Mind]

There's an old song I've played on my show a few times titled "it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it."

In my listening to music, some songwriters have a "signature" to their sound that is very much uniquely theirs regardless of conformance to form or not.

Mozart has proven nigh impossible to replicate, especially by the very pianists trained to play his music. If anything, a modern musician actually has a better chance to write of plausible cadenza to his concertos than anyone that get popped out of a conservatory. A Yasunori Mitsuda,, JoJo(Joanna Levesque), and Mariah Carey are far closer to actually writing like Mozart.
Mozart's K.545 piano sonata was Mozart writing to teach students, thus it is hardly a limit pusher and actually full of rhythmic clichés had used in the past elsewhere, but even that is a tall order for many mere mortals to try an replicate.

Elton John has that too, it's "wordy".

Dianne Warren has a proficiency in writing sappy tunes that are a hit, such as "I Get Weak" or " I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing".

 

[Muse]

In my listening to music, some songwriters have a "signature" to their sound that is very much uniquely theirs regardless of conformance to form or not.

Mozart has proven nigh impossible to replicate, especially by the very pianists trained to play his music. If anything, a modern musician actually has a better chance to write of plausible cadenza to his concertos than anyone that get popped out of a conservatory. A Yasunori Mitsuda,, JoJo(Joanna Levesque), and Mariah Carey are far closer to actually writing like Mozart.
Mozart's K.545 piano sonata was Mozart writing to teach students, thus it is hardly a limit pusher and actually full of rhythmic clichés had used in the past elsewhere, but even that is a tall order for many mere mortals to try an replicate.

Elton John has that too, it's "wordy".

Dianne Warren has a proficiency in writing sappy tunes that are a hit, such as "I Get Weak" or " I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing".

Elton John and Bernie Taupin were a great pair.

Mozart was mentored by Franz Joseph Haydn. I played the first movement of Haydn's 2nd String Quartet in Eb a couple days ago on my show and must say it sounded wonderful. Such beauty, such calm and confidence in this time of constant conflict sounded so soothing to my ears.

 

[Torn Mind]

I have eaten up the free Youtube Music trial to give Keith Jarrett a listen(iirc, DigDog mentioned it before in a Mozart piano concerto thread).

Thoughts are:
1. The 1st movement Allegros for the 20th, 17th, and 21st are on the slow side. My idiosyncratic opinion is that the interpreter is trying to "Dreamlover"(a Mariah Carey song) every movement in the concerto because he holds to preconception that Mozart is all about beauty and not particularly extraverted, which could not be further from the truth.

2. The Andantes for the same concertos are a more compelling listen, especially the one for the 20th. The 17th's has a couple moments where his scales run harshly into the next note. The 21st's tempo is at the upper limit of tolerable speed.
3. The 20th's final movement is given the same slower treatment as the others, and thus is not very enthralling. The 17th's last movement has a bit more pep to it but somehow manages to feel lackadaisical despite proper tempo. The 21st's third movement suffers the same fate as the 20th's. Lots of air to appreciate the beauty, not a lot of thrill.

Cadenzas: While somewhat respectable regards to developing things in a "reasonable manner", Jarrett falls into the same trap as his peers when writing, which NO SENSE OF "BREATH CONTROL", the custom tune just drones endlessly without the regular subtle breaks that emulates a singer's pause.

Cliffnotes: Jarrett manages to kill the mood of the beginning and the end, but is at home in the center.

Something like the Bruatigam interpretation breathes much more life into the 21st piano concerto:

 

[DigDog]

I detect the taint of being "excessively educated" in music.

Blues may be "simple" but it hits people in the soul and it is the basis that evolved into rock.

i hope im not going over your head.
I didnt say blues was bad, i haven't said any of the music is bad, actually i clarified that a lot of the music is .. well, it's ok, but that's not the point of this thread.

The point is - how to be a musical snob. No other way to describe it.

For example - you imply that blues is good, and i would say "yes, but is the blues you are thinking of, as good as Live At Cook County Jail" blue cover?

See, if i had a son and my son had never listened to blues in his whole life, and he came to me and said "Dad, there's this box of dusty of records, it says BLUES on it, should i listen to them?" i would just hand him that BB King album and tell him not to waste his time and listen to this one instead. It's *the peak*, the perfect representation of the genre.

.. i have to disagree with you on Jarrett. I find him, rigorous. Which is a far cry from his other works, and surprising to say the least. Or maybe my idea is that mozart shouldn't be stuck in the 18th century. You do have to accept that there is *some* jazz influence in his playing, that's the whole point of the record. what was i thinking

 

[Torn Mind]

.. i have to disagree with you on Jarrett. I find him, rigorous. Which is a far cry from his other works, and surprising to say the least. Or maybe my idea is that mozart shouldn't be stuck in the 18th century. You do have to accept that there is *some* jazz influence in his playing, that's the whole point of the record.

I really couldn't detect much jazz influence in the 17th, 20th, or 21st(haven't gotten to the rest). Given that Mozart came from a world where improvisation is the norm, nothing in the three I've heard so far felt it had the spontaneity of improvisation.

18th century listening etiquette is nothing like modern approach to classical music. People could make noise and get excited, and Mozart enjoyed those moments he managed to pull that off.

Thus, the music then was designed to stimulate in a manner more similar to modern music, where people may very well be a hair drunk at the place and yelling when the "big moment" comes in a song.

My jab at pianists not taking a breath is something I've held long before this record, primarily when hearing Perahia's take on the 21st concerto's cadenza. His take was even worse in terms of musicality, but anyway, the key flaw of being trained as a pianist and not a vocalist is the unawareness to "give breath breaks in the tune" because one is not really physically limited on a piano like a singer's voice is. Mozart, however, managed to emulate the singer on instruments.

Another thing of Mozart is that he instills a "phantom syncopation" even in measures where there is no obvious syncopation; this is something many other musicians cannot pull off successfully.

Interestingly, Jarrett has an idiosyncrasy in which he is intolerant of audience noise. I believe that filtered into his Mozart interpretation. He's going for his idealistic vision of Mozart, but something in opposition to what Mozart would have liked.

Jarrett is highly intolerant of audience noise, especially during solo improvised performances. He feels extraneous noise affects his inspiration and distracts from the purity of the sound. Cough drops are routinely supplied to Jarrett's audiences in cold weather, and he has been known to stop playing and lead the crowd in a group cough.[48] He has also complained onstage about audience members taking photographs,[49] and has performed in the dark to prevent this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Jarrett

I mean, it just feels to me that Jarrett wound up emulating Karl Bohm's footsteps in taking the faster parts more slowly, but with very articulate phrasing. Bohm's Figaro obviously doesn't catch my favor very much although I respect his ability to bring very clear phrasing at his slower temp.

 

[DigDog]

I really couldn't detect much jazz influence in the 17th, 20th, or 21st(haven't gotten to the rest). Given that Mozart came from a world where improvisation is the norm, nothing in the three I've heard so far felt it had the spontaneity of improvisation.

I'm not sure why the whisky was taking but someone yday i felt that just saying "he's rigorous" wasn't enough. I've gone back with a clear mind and listened to the K.488 and really cannot see what you mean about trying to make the music sound "dreamier" than it's meant to be.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I'm no kind of expert, but I'm educated and very good at producing a weekly 3 hour radio show that's extremely eclectic and well worth listening to, with the help of a music library that's been building for 60 years and has over 120,000 distinct articles (LPs, 7", 10", 12", CDs, compilations, digital stuff too).

If you don't mind, what would be the top ten songs you would recommend to someone who listens to music casually? Youtube links preferred!

 

[Torn Mind]

I'm not sure why the whisky was taking but someone yday i felt that just saying "he's rigorous" wasn't enough. I've gone back with a clear mind and listened to the K.488 and really cannot see what you mean about trying to make the music sound "dreamier" than it's meant to be.

I haven't formed an opinion on the K.488 yet, that's I why I specified the 17th, 20th, 23rd. I have listened to the 17th, 20th, and 21st first because I've listened them ad nauseum to a bunch of interpretations compared to the latter Mozart ones. Sometimes a pianist can catch lightning in a bottle and his particular rules simply "works" with one movement or even just a particular section of the movement. I generally don't like Barenboim, but his take on the "Presto" of the 17th concerto is best in catching the "opera buffa" aspect of that section. His style doesn't do well with the rest of the work. I don't really love Perahia much, but he manages to do the 13th piano concerto's movement.

So for the K.488 and K.595, K.271, I have no response as of yet. Jarrett's approach may work well with those works better. Plus, my reaction will be much more closer to a newbie's because I intentionally avoided listening to those works for the most part.

"Dreamlover" is a ballad-style song of moderate tempo. Mariah Carey's songs with C+C Music Factory are much more lively than the most of the ones she made with Afanasieff, which includes Dreamlover. The point is that at least as far as I perceive, the slower tempos show that the first movement Allegros wind up turn livelier parts of the work into something more reflective. Every note is heard with clarity. This works in the more lyrical sections within the movement, but is lacking when there is meant to be a climax, such as the recapitulation of the 20th, and the entirety of the melisa-rich 21st's first movement.



I just don't hear anything Jarrett does in the 17th, 20th, and 21st that really deviates from the Bohm approach for the first movement. Again, the for the 2nd movements, I don't really have any big quips with Jarrett's interpretation.

Bohm does something similar to Jarrett's concerto approach with the 40th symphony:

vs the likes of Karajan

I understand plenty of people like a slower approach to Mozart' Allegros but other's are better sampling a few other interpreters before taking the plunge.

 

[DigDog]

I understand plenty of people like a slower approach to Mozart' Allegros

i won't lie, i only follow you up to a point, e.g. i get the gist of your opinion, but only so much.
Firstly, i don't really know the song dreamlover, or anything by M.C.
I'm also not particularly fussed about changes in performance in these pieces, maybe because they don't really touch me. I can be absolutely fastidious with performances of the Mister Crawley or Highway Star solos, down to extremely minute details; for example

i find this solo terribly bad

but this one excellent

The only classical piece where i feel the same way is Der Holle Rache (and only just *that* bit). It's both terribly difficult to pull off the notes, but at the same time keep the angry diction and tone of voice that the piece dictates. There's many famous singers who can sing the notes, but they don't feel in any way threatening, or "furious".

 

[Torn Mind]

At least my opinion for the K.271, Jeunehomme, is going to be positive. He "gets it right" for the whole of that particular work and doesn't present the flaws that are present in the 17th, 20th, or 21st. It's actually engaging because the tempo doesn't make the notes "drag".

It's usually a good sign if the music makes me respond kinesthetically, where my fingers get the instinct to want to move along, which happens here, but did not in the others.

 

[DigDog]

At least my opinion for the K.271, Jeunehomme, is going to be positive. He "gets it right" for the whole of that particular work and doesn't present the flaws that are present in the 17th, 20th, or 21st. It's actually engaging because the tempo doesn't make the notes "drag".

It's usually a good sign if the music makes me respond kinesthetically, where my fingers get the instinct to want to move along, which happens here, but did not in the others.

i dare ask, have you hear the Koln Concert? (not available on youtube)

If not, then i have two advice.
1. know that (wikipedia quote)
"At Jarrett's request, Brandes had selected a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial concert grand piano for the performance. However, there was some confusion by the opera house staff and instead they found another Bösendorfer piano backstage – a much smaller baby grand piano – and, assuming it was the one requested, placed it on the stage. The error was discovered too late for the correct Bösendorfer to be delivered to the venue in time for the evening's concert. The piano they had was intended for rehearsals only and was in poor condition and required several hours of tuning and adjustment to make it playable. The instrument was tinny and thin in the upper registers and weak in the bass register, and the pedals did not work properly.[13] While Brandes made an attempt and procured another grand piano up to Jarrett's standards to be delivered as an emergency, the piano tuner who had meanwhile arrived to fix the baby grand warned her that transporting a grand piano without the proper equipment at low temperatures in the middle of a rainstorm would irreparably damage the instrument, forcing Brandes to stick to the small one."
2. this is likely one of the top 10 greatest pieces of music ever put on record. I genuinely mean that.

Jarrett is a wise and beautiful woman - the kinda guy who would cancel a performance for some microscopic nitpick - and here he was essentially in mental agony. He somehow pushed past this and both managed to improvise in a sublime way, but also taking into account the "bad" sound of the piano he had, and managing to pull creativity out of hardship.