As you might have noticed, i have not been in a particularly good mood today. Without taking any pot shots at anyone else, i was grumbling as i moved about the house this morning and early afternoon.

Of course, i took on a task to worsen my mood. i don’t know if you might have tried this, but if not, avoid at all costs re-gripping a putter with a wood shaft with a leather grip that has been in place for oh, about thirty years. About that long ago, Maureen and i went to a golf store to buy her father a left-handed wood mallet putter with the Saint Andrews logos. In the course of the purchase, Maureen picked up a wood shafted putter and walked over to the indoor putting green and sunk about thirty putts or so with no misses. Done. We walked away with two hundred smackers worth of putters. Ray loved his and Maureen’s putting has become legendary, so it was worth it, but i was gulping at the time.

Needless to say, today it didn’t feel like the two hours plus i spent on a task it takes me about ten minutes with newer metal and graphite shafts. i will find out if it was worth it when we play on Tuesday. i’m betting if she misses some putts it will be my fault for putting on the new grip.

So i come into the house for more chores.

And then, came peace and calm.

As i do all too rarely, i pulled out a two record LP, which was Maureen’s before we got married. i now claim it. i had never heard of Keith Jarrett, much less had a clue Kõln was a city in Germany. That’s where Jarrett sat down at a grand piano before about a gazillion Germans in 1975. The Americanization of Kõln is Cologne and the performance was in the Kõln Opera House, and the gazillion was really about 1400  people jammed into the venue late, late at night.

There are a huge number of piano players in  this world. Good ones. i think favorites are a personal choice. My favorites do not keep me from listening and enjoying other pianists (there is a great joke about this only eclipsed by the story of Maureen trying to tell the joke, which i undoubtedly will post here later). Bill Evans immediately comes to my mind. Then there is Ray Bryant, still the one i could listen to all the time. George Winston’s new age stuff is relaxing, and Granny Prichard and Aunt Gussie (she and her children preferred her to be called Barbara) who could play…what should i call it? honky tonk gospel piano, which i loved.

But Jarrett and the Kõln concert is something else. i put it on and i am entranced. Chores, television watching, book and blog writing, reading stop. Stop. i listen. i am calm. i am at peace. i am entranced.

i am not providing a link here. You can find it easy enough and there is a free copy to listen to on youtube. That is for you to decide.

But it the midst of all that is going on in this world, i find Keith Jarrett and the Kõln concert something to take me away with artistry.

And make me smile in peace.