52 Guitars: Week 25
06/21/2014
Terje Rypdal
A Norwegian player whose work is most often something that could be roughly classified as jazz-rock fusion, Rypdal is a long-time ECM artist, going back to the mid-1970s, which really tells you more about him than an attempt to place him in a genre. I'm familiar with maybe four or five of his many releases, and even within those there is a great deal of variety, as will be evident from the clips below. And I didn't even touch his work for orchestra and other ensembles that aren't as guitar-focused.
"The Return of Per Ulv," from If Mountains Could Sing:
The title track from After the Rain:
A basically simple, but wonderfully moody and evocative piece from Chaser: "Ørnen", which Google Translate tells me means "The Eagle." I think a better title would be something having to do with a slow dance in 1959.
I said to someone not long ago that I probably have all the Rypdal I need. But based on my sampling of a number of albums while looking for material for this post, I don't think I do. Here's one more from Chaser, "Ambiguity." It's pretty much out-and-out rock:
I was helping my oldest revise for his "aesthetics" exam last week (it's an obligatory school subject here, one hour per week), and was surprised to see that a lot of that was about various types of jazz.
He had to know a few basic facts about Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, Elgar, Gershwin, and then Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton, and a couple of others. And be able to distinguish ragtime and boogie woogie, and so forth. When I was his age I don't think jazz had quite the same standing in musical history.
Posted by: Paul | 06/22/2014 at 01:28 PM
What most surprised me, though, was the syllabus covering Smetana in preference to Dvorak.
Posted by: Paul | 06/22/2014 at 01:30 PM
I'm not so sure jazz should have quite that standing, but it certainly deserves attention.
Yes, that is strange, considering that Smetana never wrote anything besides "The Moldau." :-)
Posted by: Mac | 06/22/2014 at 02:52 PM
Well, Romantic nationalism was one of the themes, and I think Smetana makes a pretty good specimen from that point of view. But even so.
It was you describing Rypdal as "jazz-rock fusion" that put me in mind of it. Bit of a tangent, I must admit.
Posted by: Paul | 06/22/2014 at 04:03 PM
Dvorak does, too. It is a bit odd, because I don't think many people would consider him on the same level as a composer. Not that Smetana isn't a worthy one, too.
Posted by: Mac | 06/22/2014 at 04:17 PM
Not sure I agree that "Ørnen/The Eagle" would be better named "something having to do with a slow dance in 1959". That doesn't sound quite right to me. Maybe because it reminds me of a big 1959 slow-dancing hit, "Sleep Walk".
“Ørnen/The Eagle” sounds like “Sleep Walk” in some ways, but it's got a very 60s feel, at least to me. It’s also not very danceable.
Posted by: Marianne | 06/22/2014 at 08:56 PM
"Sleep Walk" is exactly what I was thinking of. True, it doesn't sound like 1959--there are sounds in there that nobody could have made in 1959--but to me it has a nostalgic feel. A bit like David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti's somewhat bent '50s-ish sounds. I admit it is a bit too slow for dancing.
Posted by: Mac | 06/22/2014 at 09:53 PM
Well, I see the fourth video, which was working on Saturday, has now been yanked for copyright infringement. I'll either find something else or remove it.
Posted by: Mac | 06/23/2014 at 03:19 PM