Customer Reviews

Blue

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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.

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.

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.

Recently I have been more and more curious about the music from Terje Rypdal. It's not that strange because I'm a Jazz guitarist myself so the exploration of my "colleagues" music is something really natural and interesting for me. But I never encountered Terye's music before and I have to admit that not everything that he did appeal to me. In the end of the 5 or 6 cd's of his that I did buy to explore his universe this is the one that I love the most. This album is based on an interesting electric trio format. Bass, electric guitar and drums plus the addiction of some keyboard parts and textures plyed by Terye himself. The music is an electric Jazz - fusion very lyrical that has a very special sound and balance. It is a "pure" album to me, purity is something that belongs in this music. This music is something that I can listen over and over and never get tired of. Think about a Jazz - fusion electric kind of thing where the main solo instrument is an electric distorted guitar a la Uzeb (a fantastic canadian fusion band now unfortunatly gone). The man is more a lead guitar player than Bill Frisell for example (even if some atmosphere could remind you of Bill's music) and more aggressive than Pat Metheny (but Terye could play delicate too ..). His sound is distorted and wide, with some modulations and ambient effects ... very effected in a sense. The writing is very good to me. This album entertain me even if it's a deep album, with serious music inside (apart from track numer 4 which is more or less noise) . It's a very balanced album that a lot of cats could enjoy. Probably one of the best work from Terye. A very good place to start I suppose.

Terje Rypdal and the Chasers - "Blue" - 1987, ECM Records

Truly a wonderful album full of great compositions, group interplay, and improvisation. "Blue" is the second installment of the Terje's jazz-rock trio with the first being the album simply titled "Chaser," which was released in 1985. To correct Amazon, "Blue" was released in 87 not 86. The album has all of the textural, atmospheric beauty of his earlier works combined with the more hard-edged and in-your-face sound of his jazz-rock music. This is one of my favorite Rypdal albums, but it's not the only album that is worth checking out. I also highly recommend "After the Rain" - 1976, ECM, "Descendre" - 1980, ECM, "Waves" - 1978, ECM, and "Odyssey" - 1975, ECM. All these essential Rypdal albums in my opinion.

The music of Blue spreads across a wide field of styles but the overall mood is an uplifting ambient jazz texture approaching softer rock territories at times and at others loosing its jazzy overtones and becoming more ambient in tone. Song number 5 Og Hva Synes Vi Om Det (please try pronouncing this) if taken out of context could be easily classified as an ambient song by Steve Roach, Alio Die or Vidna Obmana or something along these lines. This album spreads a beautiful light climate around you and allows you to focus on the music or to stay unobstructed in its atmosphere alone.

I remember when I first heard this music while watching a movie called Heat back in 1996, back when I still watched more than a couple of films a year. The entire soundtrack was interesting but when the only song from this album Last Night started playing I knew I needed to listen to more of it right away. I was familiar with Terje Rypdal back then from his work with Jan Garbarek whose albums I have been listening to for 20 years now. Besides Blue (1987) I guess my favorite albums by Terje Rypdal would be Descendre (1980), Odyssey (1975), After The Rain (1976), Skywards (1997) and a very modern classical ambient sounding Lux Aeterna (2002). To me Blue is a little bit less jazzy overall, and its climate is mellower, very diverse and so unique. If you do like this mood and are looking for other great ambient jazz albums I would definitely point you towards Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays' As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (1981) as well as Keith Bjornstad, David Darling, Terje Rypdal and Jon Christensen and their spectacular The Sea (1995), Both the above albums I consider the best releases coming to us from Manfred Eicher and his spectacular ECM. Thank you so much Manfred for finding your niche and for sharing it with us. I have been going through my collection lately to pull out songs dearest to me, usually the ones spirit of which affects me the deepest, or which I consider of melodic beauty. The following ones are my favorite songs by Terje Rypdal: Multer, Avskjed, Descendre, Waves, I Disremember Quite Well, Lux Aeterna 2nd Movement, Men Of Mystery, Skywards, Charisma, The Return Of Per Ulv, Over Birkerot, QED 4th Movement, It's Not Over Until The Fat Lady Sings, Kjare Maren.