Latest news with #Brandes
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Yahoo
Several people knew missing Gulfport teen was being held captive before her murder: Documents
The Brief Documents obtained by the Tampa Bay Times show that six people saw or knew 16-year-old Miranda Corsette was being held captive before her death. Steve Gress, 35, and Michelle Brandes, 37, are charged with Corsette's murder. Investigators say Corsette met Gress on a dating app before being tortured and dismembered. GULFPORT, Fla. - In the week before 16-year-old Miranda Corsette was killed, six people saw or knew the teen was being held captive and tortured but never called 911, according to a search warrant affidavit obtained by the Tampa Bay Times. Big picture view Steve Gress, 35, and Michelle Brandes, 37, are charged with Corsette's murder. In the 25-page affidavit, it says that three people, including Gress' mother, later admitted to police that he'd sent them photos of the girl that showed her nude, bruised and in increasingly worse physical condition. Dig deeper Later in the affidavit, a woman interviewed by police who lived in the first floor apartment with Gress and Brandes told police how the two suffocated the teen girl and how the three of them drove the girl's body to Brandes' mother's house, where Gress and Brandes dismembered her. "She had called me, my tenant, and she says there's something going on down there. There was arguing and fighting and, you know, they would do that," said David Horton, who owns the duplex where the couple lived. PREVIOUS: Missing Gulfport teen killed, dismembered after meeting man on dating app: Police The affidavit shows Gress told police in jail that "this was never supposed to happen" and blamed Brandes for causing Miranda's death. Later, it says Brandes depicted Gress as the main aggressor and told detectives she feared being beaten by him and therefore was too afraid to tell police. What they're saying "This is a horrific crime. We are still investigating it. We want to assure that we bring justice to Miranda. The investigators are looking at every piece of evidence that we can find," St. Pete Police Chief Anthony Holloway said in March. Follow FOX 13 on YouTube The Source Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Jordan Bowen. STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA: Download the FOX Local app for your smart TV Download FOX Local mobile app: Apple | Android Download the FOX 13 News app for breaking news alerts, latest headlines Download the SkyTower Radar app Sign up for FOX 13's daily newsletter
Yahoo
30-03-2025
- Yahoo
14 People Who Died In The Most Horrifying, Disturbing, And "Please Don't Let This Happen To Me!" Ways
might sound like something out of a Final Destination movie, but tragically, it's very real. In 2007, 24-year-old Humberto Hernández was walking down the sidewalk with his wife in Oakland, California, when an SUV lost control and slammed into a fire hydrant. The impact ripped the 200-pound hydrant clean out of the ground, launching it into the air like a missile. In a freak and horrifying stroke of bad luck, the cast-iron projectile struck Hernández in the back of the head, killing him instantly. Adding another tragic layer: His wife witnessed the entire thing. Motorcycle Officer Eddie Bermudez, who investigated the death, said it was 'a million-to-one chance" and that if Hernández had been one step forward or one step back he wouldn't have been hit. Officials later determined the force of the water pressure under the hydrant was largely responsible for sending it skyward with the force of a bullet; it traveled a significant distance before coming to a stop. 2009, John Edward Jones, a 26-year-old medical student and dad to a baby girl (with another on the way), went spelunking in Utah's Nutty Putty Cave, a system known for its narrow, twisting tunnels. He'd caved as a kid, but this time — while searching for a particularly tight section called the Birth Canal — he made a catastrophic mistake. He entered a shaft headfirst, thinking it led to a wider passage. It didn't. It was a dead-end chute, only 10 inches wide. And he was now completely stuck. For 28 hours, rescue crews tried everything to get him out, but the angle was so steep and his position so precarious that nothing worked. Rescuers talked to him the whole time, trying to keep him calm, but after more than a day upside down, his body gave out and Jones died from cardiac arrest. They were never able to remove his body. Authorities later sealed Nutty Putty Cave permanently, entombing Jones where he died. one of the most disturbing consensual acts ever recorded, Armin Meiwes posted an online ad looking for a "young well-built man who wanted to be eaten," and got a response from Bernd Jürgen Brandes, a 43-year-old engineer from Berlin. (How did his ad get a response? I can't even get anyone to reply to my ad trying to unload my old dresser for free!) The two met on March 9, 2001, at Meiwes's home. The evening began with Meiwes (consensually!!!) attempting to sever Brandes's penis for them to eat together (yum?), but the endeavor proved more challenging than anticipated. After several attempts, they managed to remove the organ, which they tried in vain to eat both raw (too chewy) and cooked (they burnt it). They ultimately fed the severed penis to Meiwes's dog. (Imagine cutting off your penis to eat only for it to become dog food!) As Brandes lay bleeding, Meiwes read a Star Trek novel, periodically checking on him. Hours later, with Brandes drifting in and out of consciousness, Meiwes ended his life by stabbing him in the throat. Over the next 10 months, Meiwes consumed approximately 20 kilograms of Brandes's flesh, storing body parts in his freezer under pizza boxes. Meiwes was arrested in December 2002 after an Austrian student alerted authorities to a new advertisement from Meiwes. Upon searching Meiwes's home, police found body parts and a videotape detailing the entire event. In court, Meiwes said the crime was something he had wanted to do for a long time, adding, "I always had the fantasy and in the end I fulfilled it." He was convicted of manslaughter in 2004 and sentenced to eight and a half years, but given life in prison for murder after a 2006 retrial. 2010, 19-year-old Australian Sam Ballard was hanging out with some friends when a slug crawled across their path. Ballard's friends dared him to eat it, and without much hesitation, Sam swallowed the slug. A few days later, Sam began experiencing severe pain in his legs, so his mom took him to the hospital. Tests revealed that Sam had contracted rat lungworm disease, a rare infection caused by a parasite commonly found in rodents but capable of infecting slugs and snails that come into contact with rat feces. The parasite caused eosinophilic meningoencephalitis, leading to inflammation of Ballard's brain and spinal cord. Sam fell into a coma that lasted 420 days. When he awoke, he could not move his limbs and required constant care. His once-active life was irrevocably changed, and he faced numerous health challenges until — eight years later — he passed away at 28. by cactus shouldn't be an actual way you can go, but sadly, at least for one Arizona man, it was. In 1982, David Grundman decided to go "cactus plugging" — aka, shooting giant saguaro cacti (which can reach heights of 60 feet and weigh as much as 16,000 pounds) for fun. So, Grundman and his roommate took a shotgun into the desert near Lake Pleasant and started blasting away. Grundman shot a 26-foot-tall saguaro, which had stood there for possibly a century. What he didn't expect was that one of the cactus's massive arms — reportedly weighing hundreds of pounds — would snap off and fall on him, crushing him to death. this for dystopian? In 2008, 50-year-old David Phyall was the last remaining resident of a condemned apartment complex in Bishopstoke, England. The building was being cleared for redevelopment, and despite 11 offers of alternative housing, he refused to leave. Why? He believed the government was forcibly uprooting people who had nowhere else to go. So, to make a statement, Phyall staged one of the most extreme acts of protest imaginable: He used an electric chainsaw to decapitate himself. He tied the chainsaw to a table leg, duct-taped the trigger down, and set a timer so the blade would start once he lay down. And it worked. Emergency responders found the saw still humming next to Phyall's decapitated head when they arrived, with blood spattering the walls, floor, and a cabinet. The saddest/scariest part is that this wasn't impulsive (and Phyall wasn't mentally unstable — just deeply disillusioned). He'd left notes, made preparations, and clearly intended for the act to speak louder than words. A coroner later described the scene as the most "gruesome and calculated suicide" they'd ever encountered, adding, "I think he did it to draw attention to the injustice of his situation." 2007, a Sacramento radio station hosted a contest dubbed "Hold Your Wee for a Wii," where participants were challenged to drink a crapload of water without urinating. The prize? A Nintendo Wii. Contestant Jennifer Strange, 28, hoped to win the console for her kids. After chugging nearly two gallons of water (and coming in second), she began experiencing severe headaches and nausea — symptoms of water intoxication, or hyponatremia, where excessive water dilutes essential electrolytes in the body. Tragically, just hours after returning home, she was found dead. The incident sparked outrage and led to a wrongful death lawsuit against the radio station. A recording of the show revealed the DJs joked about people dying from water intoxication, even discussing a case two years earlier where a student died after drinking too much water for a fraternity stunt. A jury awarded Strange's family $16.5 million in damages. 1979, 25-year-old Robert Williams was working at a Ford Motor Company plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, when he became the first person ever killed by a robot. He was retrieving parts from a high shelf when the factory's one-ton robotic arm suddenly activated. The machine didn't have sensors to detect human presence — this was still the early age of automation — and it swung around, striking Williams in the head and killing him instantly. He was found dead 30 minutes later, draped over a shelf. The robot had been operating without any clear safety override, and Williams's family later won a $10-million lawsuit. An interesting story for us to all know, considering our likely deaths in the upcoming AI/robot wars vs. humanity. Interestingly, a study found that between 1992–2017 at least 41 other Americans were killed by robots on the job. And that doesn't include the marked increase in deaths by suicide and drug overdose of people who were replaced by automation. Yikes. might be the freakiest one on the list because it feels like something that could happen to a dumbass like me. Author Sherwood Anderson (known for the short story collection Winesburg, Ohio) was on a cruise to South America in March of 1941 when he decided to unwind with a martini. Somehow, he managed to accidentally swallow the toothpick that speared the drink's olive, and soon began experiencing severe abdominal pain. The captain stopped the cruise in Colón, Panama so that Anderson could be hospitalized, and doctors discovered he had peritonitis — a life-threatening inflammation of the abdominal lining. The cause? The toothpick, which had perforated his intestines, leading to infection. He died March 8, 1941. 1974, Basil Brown, a 48-year-old health advocate from Croydon, England, was a big believer in the benefits of natural foods and supplements. So, in his quest for optimal health, Brown began drinking massive amounts of carrot juice, reportedly downing up to 10 gallons over 10 days. He also ingested high doses of vitamin A supplements, far exceeding the recommended daily allowance. Unbeknownst to him, the excessive intake of vitamin A led to hypervitaminosis A, a condition characterized by toxic levels of the vitamin in the body, which caused severe liver damage, turned his skin yellow-orange, and killed him. Brown's sudden death puzzled those around him, but an autopsy revealed just how much the toxic levels of vitamin A had destroyed his liver. 1872, a London-based man named Henry Taylor was acting as a pallbearer during a funeral procession when he fell victim to a grim twist of fate that no one saw coming. While helping to carry the heavy wooden coffin through a crowded cemetery, Taylor tripped over a gravestone. He stumbled, lost his grip, and the coffin — containing the body of a recently deceased woman — slipped and crashed down directly onto him. The impact was so severe it caused fatal internal injuries. Henry Taylor died right there in the cemetery, crushed by the very coffin he was helping transport. Yes, he literally died at a funeral. An inquest into the happening was organized, and the jury determined it was an "accidental death," and recommended that straps be placed round coffins to prevent more accidents like this from occurring. death wasn't so out of the ordinary, but what happened afterward sure was. In 1928, Charles "Speedy" Atkins died after drowning in the Ohio River. His friend A.Z. Hamock, a mortician, decided to test out a homemade embalming formula that worked a little too well: Speedy's body became perfectly preserved — like a mummy. Hamock was so tickled by the results that he didn't bury his friend. Instead, he kept the body on display in the funeral home. Over the years, thousands of people viewed the body, and Speedy became a local legend — even appearing in parades (dafug?). After Hamock died in the '60s, the body remained at the funeral home until 1994, when its owners decided to give Speedy a proper burial — partly because of increasing public scrutiny about the ethics of keeping a corpse for so long. The service drew over 200 mourners, and Speedy was finally laid to rest as a man — not a curiosity. like to think we're safe in our own homes, but that's not always the case. In 2004, 51-year-old Englishman Ronald McClagish had recently separated from his girlfriend and was living alone. When neighbors hadn't seen him for over a week, they called the police to check in. What they found was straight out of a horror film: McClagish was dead — with his feet sticking out of a bedroom cupboard — while water poured into the room. Investigators soon pieced together what happened. Ronald was believed to be cleaning the cupboard when the adjacent wardrobe tipped and fell, blocking the cupboard door shut and trapping him inside. With no way to escape, McClagish tried to claw his way out. When that didn't work, he tore a pipe from the wall — likely to use as leverage or a tool — but it flooded the cupboard, soaking him continuously. A post-mortem revealed he had asthma and bronchitis, and it's likely the freezing water exposure worsened his condition. He may have survived for several days — unable to move, freezing, and alone. It took two officers to move the wardrobe. Inside the cupboard were clear signs of struggle: claw marks, dents, and the broken pipe. last one goes way back, but it's a wild story, so buckle up. Athenian lawgiver Draco (whose name gave us the word "draconian") is remembered for imposing brutal laws. Steal a cabbage? Death penalty. Fall asleep in temple? Also death. But the way he died was the total opposite of harsh justice — he was literally smothered by love. According to legend, Draco was appearing in a theater in Aegina to a rapturous reception. The crowd wanted to show their appreciation — and in ancient Greece, the way you honored someone wasn't with applause or roses but by throwing your hats, cloaks, and tunics at them. Problem is, they overdid it. The garments piled up on top of Draco — and he suffocated underneath the weight. The lawmaker who codified one of the harshest legal systems in history was killed not by an assassin or political by a crapload of clothes.
Buzz Feed
30-03-2025
- Buzz Feed
14 People Who Died In The Most Horrifying, Disturbing, And "Please Don't Let This Happen To Me!" Ways
1. This might sound like something out of a Final Destination movie, but tragically, it's very real. In 2007, 24-year-old Humberto Hernández was walking down the sidewalk with his wife in Oakland, California, when an SUV lost control and slammed into a fire hydrant. The impact ripped the 200-pound hydrant clean out of the ground, launching it into the air like a missile. In a freak and horrifying stroke of bad luck, the cast-iron projectile struck Hernández in the back of the head, killing him instantly. Adding another tragic layer: His wife witnessed the entire thing. Motorcycle Officer Eddie Bermudez, who investigated the death, said it was 'a million-to-one chance" and that if Hernández had been one step forward or one step back he wouldn't have been hit. Officials later determined the force of the water pressure under the hydrant was largely responsible for sending it skyward with the force of a bullet; it traveled a significant distance before coming to a stop. 2. In 2009, John Edward Jones, a 26-year-old medical student and dad to a baby girl (with another on the way), went spelunking in Utah's Nutty Putty Cave, a system known for its narrow, twisting tunnels. He'd caved as a kid, but this time — while searching for a particularly tight section called the Birth Canal — he made a catastrophic mistake. He entered a shaft headfirst, thinking it led to a wider passage. It didn't. It was a dead-end chute, only 10 inches wide. And he was now completely stuck. For 28 hours, rescue crews tried everything to get him out, but the angle was so steep and his position so precarious that nothing worked. Rescuers talked to him the whole time, trying to keep him calm, but after more than a day upside down, his body gave out and Jones died from cardiac arrest. They were never able to remove his body. Authorities later sealed Nutty Putty Cave permanently, entombing Jones where he died. 3. In one of the most disturbing consensual acts ever recorded, Armin Meiwes posted an online ad looking for a "young well-built man who wanted to be eaten," and got a response from Bernd Jürgen Brandes, a 43-year-old engineer from Berlin. (How did his ad get a response? I can't even get anyone to reply to my ad trying to unload my old dresser for free!) The two met on March 9, 2001, at Meiwes's home. The evening began with Meiwes (consensually!!!) attempting to sever Brandes's penis for them to eat together (yum?), but the endeavor proved more challenging than anticipated. After several attempts, they managed to remove the organ, which they tried in vain to eat both raw (too chewy) and cooked (they burnt it). They ultimately fed the severed penis to Meiwes's dog. (Imagine cutting off your penis to eat only for it to become dog food!) Alexander Heimann / Getty Images As Brandes lay bleeding, Meiwes read a Star Trek novel, periodically checking on him. Hours later, with Brandes drifting in and out of consciousness, Meiwes ended his life by stabbing him in the throat. Over the next 10 months, Meiwes consumed approximately 20 kilograms of Brandes's flesh, storing body parts in his freezer under pizza boxes. Meiwes was arrested in December 2002 after an Austrian student alerted authorities to a new advertisement from Meiwes. Upon searching Meiwes's home, police found body parts and a videotape detailing the entire event. In court, Meiwes said the crime was something he had wanted to do for a long time, adding, "I always had the fantasy and in the end I fulfilled it." He was convicted of manslaughter in 2004 and sentenced to eight and a half years, but given life in prison for murder after a 2006 retrial. 4. In 2010, 19-year-old Australian Sam Ballard was hanging out with some friends when a slug crawled across their path. Ballard's friends dared him to eat it, and without much hesitation, Sam swallowed the slug. A few days later, Sam began experiencing severe pain in his legs, so his mom took him to the hospital. Tests revealed that Sam had contracted rat lungworm disease, a rare infection caused by a parasite commonly found in rodents but capable of infecting slugs and snails that come into contact with rat feces. The parasite caused eosinophilic meningoencephalitis, leading to inflammation of Ballard's brain and spinal cord. Sam fell into a coma that lasted 420 days. When he awoke, he could not move his limbs and required constant care. His once-active life was irrevocably changed, and he faced numerous health challenges until — eight years later — he passed away at 28. 5. Death by cactus shouldn't be an actual way you can go, but sadly, at least for one Arizona man, it was. In 1982, David Grundman decided to go "cactus plugging" — aka, shooting giant saguaro cacti (which can reach heights of 60 feet and weigh as much as 16,000 pounds) for fun. So, Grundman and his roommate took a shotgun into the desert near Lake Pleasant and started blasting away. Grundman shot a 26-foot-tall saguaro, which had stood there for possibly a century. What he didn't expect was that one of the cactus's massive arms — reportedly weighing hundreds of pounds — would snap off and fall on him, crushing him to death. 6. How's this for dystopian? In 2008, 50-year-old David Phyall was the last remaining resident of a condemned apartment complex in Bishopstoke, England. The building was being cleared for redevelopment, and despite 11 offers of alternative housing, he refused to leave. Why? He believed the government was forcibly uprooting people who had nowhere else to go. So, to make a statement, Phyall staged one of the most extreme acts of protest imaginable: He used an electric chainsaw to decapitate himself. He tied the chainsaw to a table leg, duct-taped the trigger down, and set a timer so the blade would start once he lay down. And it worked. Emergency responders found the saw still humming next to Phyall's decapitated head when they arrived, with blood spattering the walls, floor, and a cabinet. The saddest/scariest part is that this wasn't impulsive (and Phyall wasn't mentally unstable — just deeply disillusioned). He'd left notes, made preparations, and clearly intended for the act to speak louder than words. A coroner later described the scene as the most "gruesome and calculated suicide" they'd ever encountered, adding, "I think he did it to draw attention to the injustice of his situation." 7. In 2007, a Sacramento radio station hosted a contest dubbed "Hold Your Wee for a Wii," where participants were challenged to drink a crapload of water without urinating. The prize? A Nintendo Wii. Contestant Jennifer Strange, 28, hoped to win the console for her kids. After chugging nearly two gallons of water (and coming in second), she began experiencing severe headaches and nausea — symptoms of water intoxication, or hyponatremia, where excessive water dilutes essential electrolytes in the body. Tragically, just hours after returning home, she was found dead. The incident sparked outrage and led to a wrongful death lawsuit against the radio station. A recording of the show revealed the DJs joked about people dying from water intoxication, even discussing a case two years earlier where a student died after drinking too much water for a fraternity stunt. A jury awarded Strange's family $16.5 million in damages. 8. In 1979, 25-year-old Robert Williams was working at a Ford Motor Company plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, when he became the first person ever killed by a robot. He was retrieving parts from a high shelf when the factory's one-ton robotic arm suddenly activated. The machine didn't have sensors to detect human presence — this was still the early age of automation — and it swung around, striking Williams in the head and killing him instantly. He was found dead 30 minutes later, draped over a shelf. The robot had been operating without any clear safety override, and Williams's family later won a $10-million lawsuit. An interesting story for us to all know, considering our likely deaths in the upcoming AI/robot wars vs. humanity. Bloomberg / Bloomberg via Getty Images Interestingly, a study found that between 1992–2017 at least 41 other Americans were killed by robots on the job. And that doesn't include the marked increase in deaths by suicide and drug overdose of people who were replaced by automation. Yikes. 9. This might be the freakiest one on the list because it feels like something that could happen to a dumbass like me. Author Sherwood Anderson (known for the short story collection Winesburg, Ohio) was on a cruise to South America in March of 1941 when he decided to unwind with a martini. Somehow, he managed to accidentally swallow the toothpick that speared the drink's olive, and soon began experiencing severe abdominal pain. The captain stopped the cruise in Colón, Panama so that Anderson could be hospitalized, and doctors discovered he had peritonitis — a life-threatening inflammation of the abdominal lining. The cause? The toothpick, which had perforated his intestines, leading to infection. He died March 8, 1941. 10. In 1974, Basil Brown, a 48-year-old health advocate from Croydon, England, was a big believer in the benefits of natural foods and supplements. So, in his quest for optimal health, Brown began drinking massive amounts of carrot juice, reportedly downing up to 10 gallons over 10 days. He also ingested high doses of vitamin A supplements, far exceeding the recommended daily allowance. Unbeknownst to him, the excessive intake of vitamin A led to hypervitaminosis A, a condition characterized by toxic levels of the vitamin in the body, which caused severe liver damage, turned his skin yellow-orange, and killed him. Brown's sudden death puzzled those around him, but an autopsy revealed just how much the toxic levels of vitamin A had destroyed his liver. 11. In 1872, a London-based man named Henry Taylor was acting as a pallbearer during a funeral procession when he fell victim to a grim twist of fate that no one saw coming. While helping to carry the heavy wooden coffin through a crowded cemetery, Taylor tripped over a gravestone. He stumbled, lost his grip, and the coffin — containing the body of a recently deceased woman — slipped and crashed down directly onto him. The impact was so severe it caused fatal internal injuries. Henry Taylor died right there in the cemetery, crushed by the very coffin he was helping transport. Yes, he literally died at a funeral. An inquest into the happening was organized, and the jury determined it was an "accidental death," and recommended that straps be placed round coffins to prevent more accidents like this from occurring. 12. This death wasn't so out of the ordinary, but what happened afterward sure was. In 1928, Charles "Speedy" Atkins died after drowning in the Ohio River. His friend A.Z. Hamock, a mortician, decided to test out a homemade embalming formula that worked a little too well: Speedy's body became perfectly preserved — like a mummy. Hamock was so tickled by the results that he didn't bury his friend. Instead, he kept the body on display in the funeral home. Over the years, thousands of people viewed the body, and Speedy became a local legend — even appearing in parades (dafug?). After Hamock died in the '60s, the body remained at the funeral home until 1994, when its owners decided to give Speedy a proper burial — partly because of increasing public scrutiny about the ethics of keeping a corpse for so long. The service drew over 200 mourners, and Speedy was finally laid to rest as a man — not a curiosity. 13. We like to think we're safe in our own homes, but that's not always the case. In 2004, 51-year-old Englishman Ronald McClagish had recently separated from his girlfriend and was living alone. When neighbors hadn't seen him for over a week, they called the police to check in. What they found was straight out of a horror film: McClagish was dead — with his feet sticking out of a bedroom cupboard — while water poured into the room. Investigators soon pieced together what happened. Ronald was believed to be cleaning the cupboard when the adjacent wardrobe tipped and fell, blocking the cupboard door shut and trapping him inside. With no way to escape, McClagish tried to claw his way out. When that didn't work, he tore a pipe from the wall — likely to use as leverage or a tool — but it flooded the cupboard, soaking him continuously. A post-mortem revealed he had asthma and bronchitis, and it's likely the freezing water exposure worsened his condition. He may have survived for several days — unable to move, freezing, and alone. It took two officers to move the wardrobe. Inside the cupboard were clear signs of struggle: claw marks, dents, and the broken pipe. 14. This last one goes way back, but it's a wild story, so buckle up. Athenian lawgiver Draco (whose name gave us the word "draconian") is remembered for imposing brutal laws. Steal a cabbage? Death penalty. Fall asleep in temple? Also death. But the way he died was the total opposite of harsh justice — he was literally smothered by love. According to legend, Draco was appearing in a theater in Aegina to a rapturous reception. The crowd wanted to show their appreciation — and in ancient Greece, the way you honored someone wasn't with applause or roses but by throwing your hats, cloaks, and tunics at them. Problem is, they overdid it. The garments piled up on top of Draco — and he suffocated underneath the weight. The lawmaker who codified one of the harshest legal systems in history was killed not by an assassin or political by a crapload of clothes.
The Guardian
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘The Köln Concert is the hit he wants to disown': why Keith Jarrett shunned two new films about his unlikely masterpiece
'I went face to face with Keith Jarrett,' recalls Vera Brandes, 'and I said to him, 'Keith, if you don't play this concert, I'll be fucked. And you'll be fucked too.'' Brandes laughs as she recalls this pivotal conversation, 50 years later. It came after a day of chaos where she, an 18-year-old concert promoter, was desperately trying to convince the famously temperamental jazz pianist to play a concert on a substandard instrument. 'To be honest,' she adds, 'I had absolutely not a single clue what those words meant! My English wasn't then as good as it is now. I'd heard Miles Davis using the f-word while talking to his band, which featured Keith Jarrett, a few years earlier, so maybe I was channelling Miles. Keith must have been floored to hear this teenage girl who looked like Brigitte Bardot's little sister using this kind of language!' This much mythologised encounter happened in January 1975, when Jarrett turned up at the Cologne opera house to play the biggest solo gig of his career. Instead of the 10ft-long, half-ton Bösendorfer Imperial he'd been expecting, Jarrett had been given a 6ft baby grand rehearsal piano with a thin tone, a non-functioning damper pedal and no power in the bass register. A furious Jarrett wanted to cancel but – after much coaxing from Brandes, and the diligent work of two piano technicians – he reluctantly stayed to perform a completely improvised one-hour set. Despite the setbacks, the gig was a triumph, and ECM's live recording of the show went on to become the bestselling solo jazz album – and the bestselling solo piano album – of all time, shifting more than 4m copies to date. Half a century later, the story of how Jarrett was forced to adapt his playing for a shonky instrument has inspired dozens of inspirational lectures from business gurus on how to use obstacles creatively. It has also inspired not one but two movies, both due for cinematic release this year: a loosely fictionalised drama, Köln 75, about Brandes and the events of the day; and a forensic, feature-length documentary, titled Lost in Köln, that searches for the iconic piano and negotiates dozens of conflicting accounts of the concert. One person who does not celebrate the concert is Jarrett himself. Aged 79 and recovering from a series of strokes in 2018 that left him partially paralysed, the pianist has long dismissed his best-known work. He's described it as repetitive, and said he'd like to destroy all copies of the LP. 'It must be infuriating for a great musician to be constantly asked about this one gig he did decades ago,' says Vincent Duceau, director of Lost in Köln. 'Like being a great painter who – instead of talking about your most complex work, made at your full capacity – is constantly asked about a little squiggle you drew in the corner of the table. It shows a side of him he doesn't want to show. Of course he doesn't want to cooperate with us, which is fine.' Köln 75 was also made without the cooperation of Jarrett or Manfred Eicher's ECM Records. 'I get why Keith wants nothing to do with us,' says Ido Fluk, the film's writer and director, who draws a Radiohead analogy. 'The Köln Concert is his Creep, his big hit that he wants to disown. That's why the film isn't really about him. It's about Vera Brandes.' Although only 18 when she hired the Köln Opera House for this gig, Brandes was already something of a veteran promoter. Aged 16, while still at school, she met the British saxophonist Ronnie Scott at a jazz festival, and he asked her to book him a two-week tour of Germany. 'I was using the phone line in my father's dental surgery,' she says, laughing again. 'I had to develop this tough front to negotiate with venues. And I realised I was quite good at it.' Within a year, she was booking her favourite jazz acts to play theatres and university venues around Cologne. Her New Jazz in Köln series welcomed the likes of Ralph Towner's Oregon, Ian Carr's Nucleus, Barbara Thompson and a quartet featuring Gary Burton and Pat Metheny. Almost singlehandedly, this teenage fan had made her city a fixture on the jazz circuit. 'This, for me, is the real story behind The Köln Concert,' says Fluk. 'There's a whole village that helps to create every work of art. Think of the people who erected the scaffolding that Michelangelo stood on as he painted the Sistine Chapel. My film is about this gutsy teenager who created an entire scene. We tell her story as a series of chaotic events, in the style of 24 Hour Party People. And Vera's been a pivotal figure in German music ever since – a producer, promoter, record label boss and now a music therapist. Even today, if you talk to anyone involved in German jazz, she is a goddess. Without Vera, there's no Köln Concert.' One musician who has immersed himself in the events of that day is the British pianist Dorian Ford. After spending years studying Jarrett's solo improvisations, he was in Cologne to play an improvised set inspired by The Köln Concert on 24 January, its 50th anniversary – not in the opera house, which is undergoing renovation, but in a church around the corner. 'The Köln Concert was totally improvised,' says Ford, 'but not what we understand as 'free improvisation'. It's tonal and melodic. It has a structure, and it transcends the boundaries of music-marketing. Jarrett described his solo improvisations as 'universal folk music': I can hear the sound of rugged American individualists, like Charles Ives and Scott Joplin, but I can also hear hymns, gospel music, country music, honky tonk, anthemic songs, soul, blues, stride, boogie woogie, modal jazz and plenty of classical music. This is not a European culture of deference. This is high-end, elite music, but presented with an audacious, American, heart-on-sleeve populism.' Ford doesn't think the piano actually sounds that bad, and the technicians had clearly addressed most of its problems. 'The one thing is it sounds a little tinny, and he has to hit it hard. If you listen to Jarrett's solo concerts from Bremen or Lausanne, recorded 18 months earlier, they're technically superior in many ways. But the Köln piano lends a mystical, magical edge.' Brandes recalls the chaotic hours before the concert. 'For starters, Keith had played a gig in Switzerland the night before,' she says. 'I'd actually bought him a plane ticket, but, unbeknown to me, he'd cashed that ticket in at Zurich Airport for 375 deutschmarks and got a lift in Manfred Eicher's tiny Renault 4, to save money. So, after an eight-hour drive, Keith was exhausted and had a bad back. When I showed Keith and Manfred the piano, they walked around it a few times, played a couple of notes and said, 'Unless we get another piano, this concert is not happening.'' She spent feverish hours trying to obtain a concert grand from the local university, and was even preparing to push it over the cobbled streets of Cologne, but the piano-tuner warned her this risked destroying the instrument. 'So we had to trust the piano-tuner and his son. They managed to take the baby grand apart, fix it, reassemble it and tune it. Somehow they did all of this on either side of an opera show that was happening before the concert! By 11.30pm, they had got it into shape.' Brandes remembers a hip, young, bohemian audience turning up to this late show: 'We sold all 1,432 seats, which was astonishing.' Jarrett did no rehearsal, and bootleg recordings suggest that it was unlike any of the other solo shows he played on this 13-date European tour. One audience member, a nine-year-old Jan Fritz, had come from Bremen, 300km away, with his father. He remembers that the opera house played a four-note jingle on the tannoy before concerts, instructing patrons to take their seats. 'The first few notes that Jarrett plays in the concert basically repeat that chime, and you can hear people in the audience chuckling with recognition,' he says. 'What's amazing is that he continues to develop this chime throughout, like a sonata. He's responding to something he'd just heard, and composing as he goes along, which I still find remarkable. On the long drive home, I could still sing that theme.' Why did the headstrong Jarrett eventually concede and play the show? 'I think there are several reasons,' says Brandes. 'First of all, Manfred Eicher had already paid Martin Wieland to record it, with two microphones, to take advantage of the unique acoustic of the opera house, so maybe there was pressure. But I think it was mainly personal pride. If Keith had cancelled he would have been in despair, sitting in his hotel, with 1,400 angry punters outside the theatre. He's not the kind of performer who cares about his audience – he's driven only by a love of his own art. But I think he would have been angry at himself if he'd failed to take on the challenge.' Köln 75 premieres at the Berlin film festival this month. Lost in Köln is out later this year. Dorian Ford is touring the UK with his Köln Concert.
