Customer Reviews

Odyssey

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It was on "Odyssey" that Terje's unique voice hit its stride. This is one of the most unique, original albums ever made. Dark, mysterious, intelligent, virtuosic music indeed - and Terje's guitar is relentlessly soaring and crying as if it were an anguished human voice. There's never been a guitarist like Terje Rypdal.

it is simple, If "Rollin Stone" is not on cd FORGET IT! The piece is the reason for getting album! How they would excluded it is beyond me. Real downer. It would be like getting "Electric Ladyland" and finding out "Voodoo Child" was excluded!

"Odyssey" was a recording that Norwegian guitarist Terje Rypdal made with his road band. While it is usually categorized as fusion jazz, it utterly unlike the virtuostic overplaying typical of that genre. If it is reminiscent of anything, it is some of the work of Miles Davis, in that musician's downplaying of "chops" in favor of spare soloing inside fairly skeletal frameworks.

These pieces tend to be built on similar lasts: a repeated bass vamp; organ or synth laying down chords; drums essentially for coloration; and a kind of counterpoint or call-and-response between Rypdal's biting electric guitar tone and Torbjorn Sunde's trombone.

Contra to one of the previous reviews, the 26 minute "Rolling Stone," the most rock-oriented track on the original 2-disk lp, is not included on the single disk CD for reasons of space.

Norway is apparently not the first place you think of for fusion, but Terje Rypdal, given there is little competition, is Norway's best-known fusion musician. In 1975, he released Odyssey, which is quite a bit mellower and more ambient than his previous offering, Whenever I Seem to Be Far Away (which had energetic fusion with Mellotron on one half, and an orchestral side-length piece on the other half). Well, the Mellotron disappeared on Odyssey (the Mellotron belonged to Popol Vuh (as in the Norwegian band that was later called Popol Ace, and not the German group) keyboardist Pete Knutsen), and instead Terje Rypdal started using a Solina String Ensemble himself on top of his guitar. He also had a bunch of Norwegian musicians helping him, as usual, with drums, trumpet, bass, and organ, and this time he really created a spacy album. Starts off with "Darkness Falls" which is basically a solo guitar piece from Rypdal. "Darkness Falls" has a repeating bass line, some nice use of trumpet, and some great use of that Solina. "Adagio" is a real stunning piece for me, with spacy organ from Brynjulf Blix and Solina from Rypdal. The second half is more great spacy guitar work from Rypdal. "Better Off Without You" sounds like electric piano being used, can't tell, but it's another piece that simply blows me away. In fact there's parts of this album I have a difficult time even calling it fusion, but closer to ambient, like on "Adagio" or "Better Off Without You", with prog rock leanings at time, almost like if Pink Floyd wanted to emphasize the ambient side of their music. The rest of the album continues in the same vein, but be careful: you are much better off with the double LP set than the CD reissue. For some reason or another the folk at ECM thought it would be a great idea to leave off "Rolling Stone". They probably used the excuse of "it won't all fit on one disc". True, it won't fit all on one disc, but try making it a double CD set, that way there they can include everything. After all, no one would want Pink Floyd's The Wall, The Who's Tommy, Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway or any of those other great double albums if songs had to be omitted to fit on all one disc (that's why many of those titles ended up as a two-CD set to include everything). Odyssey is obviously nowhere as well known as those classic rock albums, but that's still no excuse.

So get the LP so you can get everything, it's some great and interesting music, although it's not the most in-your-face album, it's a mellow album, without ever diving into that dreaded Fuzak territory. Want some interesting spacy fusion? Give this one a try!

Rypdal is one of the most underappreciated guitarists of the 70's through 90's, perhaps due to the scarcity of the ECM label in the U.S. This is one of his best, and if you can only get one Rypdal album, get this one. The driving guitar of Hendrix, the mood of the Doors, and the style of Pink Floyd's Echoes-era music.

Terje Rypdal is to the guitar as Caruso is to the voice.Dark, mournful guitar leads against a background of swirling arrangements not unlike waves crashing on the beach. This is arguably Terje's finest work of the 70's, and one of his most stiking ensemble recordings.For the uninitiated, if you like Pink Floyd or Rush, the music here would not be out of place in your collection, but would challenge the listener to more daring interplay between the instruments of the basic "rock band" line up- guitar,bass, keys and drums.

"Odyssey" released in August of 1975 was a very successful release for Terje. It established him as a new voice in jazz-fusion guitar. I do feel, however, that this is not one of his best albums. The compositions are interesting, but unfortunately Terje's playing and in particular his guitar tone really ruin these songs for me. He hasn't achieved the soaring lead tone yet that all who are fans of his later work would recognize. What we have here is a tone that doesn't have any sustain and that's more harsh than smooth. I'm glad that I own this album, as now I have about 14 of his albums, but it's not an album that I'm going to listen to all the time.

For essential Rypdal try these following releases:

After the Rain (1976, ECM)
Waves (1978, ECM)
Descendre (1980, ECM)
Eos (1984, ECM)
Blue (1987, ECM)

All of these albums have great compositions and great playing. These albums are also highly recommended by many Amazon reviewers.