Blue [Original recording reissued]

Terje Rypdal | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 30, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B00000DTG8
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #205,908 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF TERJE'S BEST RECORDINGS, August 25, 2003

By 

Larry L. Looney (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blue (Audio CD)

Terje Rypdal's recordings offer the listener an astounding array of styles - ranging from straight-ahead jazz played in small-combo settings to solo outings to mind-bending improvisations to orchestral compositions, and all points in between. His composition and playing and arranging are always tasteful and excellent, and the musicians he selects to execute his works are consistently first-rate. BLUE is no exception, falling into a trio of albums featuring roughly the same personnel, The Chasers - Terje on electric guitar (also adding some keyboard touches on this recordings), Bjørn Kjellemyr on electric and acoustic basses, and Audun Kleive on drums and percussion. The same players appear on Terje's previous album, CHASER, and on THE SINGLES COLLECTION (with the addition of Allan Dangerfield on keyboards). This is one of those delightful instances of musicians being so sensitively attuned to each other that they literally perform as a unit, delivering some astonishingly powerful and well-executed performances.

Opening with the short intro track 'The curse', then moving deftly into the powerful 'Kompet Går', the set takes the listener through a breathtaking experience featuring both hard-edged and gently beautiful arrangements. Terje's guitar is the only 'lead' instrument in a traditional sense, but the basses and drums of his bandmates are equally in play here. Listen to the funk-driven string-snapping and sliding chords produced by Kjellemyr on 'Kompet Går', and the incredibly precise percussive bursts from Kleive on the same track - they set the stage nicely for Terje's entrance. His playing, as always, is stunning - listen to his trademark attack-muting, as well as his amazing innate melodic sensibilities...and turn it right up! This is an album that deserves extra volume - not to blast the neighbors, but to experience the dynamic subtleties involved.

As I mentioned, Terje has produced a lot of variations during his long and distinguished career - this is a great straight-ahead album to initiate new listeners, as well as (speaking as a long-time fan of ALL of his work) one of my overall favorites in his catalogue. Also check out (besides the other two with this band, mentioned above), ODYSSEY and WHENEVER I SEEM TO BE FAR AWAY (great early works), AFTER THE RAIN (a solo effort, where Terje plays everything), WAVES and DESCENDRE (his earliest work with frequent collaborator, trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg), EOS (an incredible duet album with cellist David Darling) and LUX AETERNA (his latest, one of his orchestral outings). His catalogue, almost entirely on Manfred Eicher's ECM label, is (thankfully) large and varied - and all of it very, very good.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing music, February 11, 2002

By 

Wolfgang Klemmer (Santiago, Chile) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue (Audio CD)

If you liked "Chaser", you'll love this one. Terje Rypdal creates amazing music that brings you a colorfull experience when listen. His gitar realy speaks to your spirit. You'll feel like in a voyage, where tension and calm happened in a well balanced mood. It worth to be in a serious CD collection.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Norways Beck or Hendrix., February 17, 2007

By 

P.J. Le Faucheur (Canada (ex- U.K. resident)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue (Audio CD)

Terje Rypdal (i believe it's pronounced 'Tar-yay' or something similar although i've heard some ridiculous interpretations) has been around for decades and his stint with Don 'Sugarcane' Harris in the early 1970s was excellently documented on The Sugarcane Harris "Anthology" CD. On it he played with blinding accurate jazz based solos with imagination & dexterity alongside the brilliant Volker Kriegel & Harvey Mandel.
His solo CD's (mostly on ECM) show him to be a dreamy, evocative player using reverb, legato lines and bluesy overbends to replicate the enchantment of Norways historic beauty, folklore and grandeur. Rypdal is very similar at times to David Gilmour although Jimi Hendrix is named as Terje's inspiration along with Hank Marvin. Jeff Beck must've been inspired by Terje when he performed that haunting tune "Where Were You?" back in the late 80s.
This CD is among my favourites of Terje's and is the one i nearly always return to among the other eight that i own. It's consistant throughout from the 1st tune right to the last.
All the tracks add up to a breathtaking soundtrack of Norway. They're hauntingly beautiful and conjure up vast lakes,big skies and icy blue mountains a la Peer Gynt.
If you don't own anything by Terje then this is the one to start with.