Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away

Description

Following on from the release of Terje Rypdal's widely acclaimed new album Conspiracy, ECM now reissues four Rypdal recordings from the 1970's – albums which helped to establish the Norwegian guitarist as a truly original force in creative music.

Terje Rypdal / Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away.

Terje Rypdal: guitars; Sveinung Hovensjo: bass guitars; Pete Knutsen: Mellotron, electric piano; Odd Ulleberg: french horn; Jon Christensen: drums, percussion; Helmut Geiger: violin; Members of Sudfunk Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mladen Gutesha (1974)

Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away is, by common consensus, one of Terje's early masterpieces. Rypdal has said that he sometimes felt conflicted in his early years, pulled in different directions by the urges to compose orchestral music and to develop an improvising language as a guitarist drawing upon the sonorities of rock rather than jazz.

The demands of the mediums could seem contradictory. Not on Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away, however. "Terje Rypdal pursues his own way with purity, clarity and inspirational complexity," the reviewer in the Los Angeles Free Press declared. "He touches you on an improvisational level and a compositional level. I never heard an electric guitar sound so natural in an orchestral setting before."

An important contributor here was Mladen Gutesha, the Saravejo-born conductor and arranger who worked on several ECM sessions which framed improvisers with string players, including Keith Jarrett's In The Light, Luminessence and Arbour Zena, and Nana Vasconçelos's Saudades.

On the title piece of Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away (subtitled "Image for Electric Guitar, Strings, Oboe and Clarinet"), the players of the Sudfunk Symphony convincingly echo the yearning quality of Terje's singing electric guitar, with moving results.

Among the pleasures of this group of Rypdal reissues is the presence throughout of drummer Jon Christensen. Terje and Jon, lifelong friends, played on dozens of albums and in many groups together. Christensen always alluded to the trio with Terje and Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg – as heard on Descendre - as a particular favourite of his, an ideal instance of an interactive small group that could move in multiple directions.

As drummer in the trio he could from moment to moment underline the melodic jazz phrasing of Palle Mikkelborg or rock out with Terje, find ways to combine their different time feelings, or strike out on his own. The three musicians could create highly atmospheric ensemble music, drifting clouds of sound – sometimes with both Terje and Palle playing keyboards – or develop freely contrapuntal ideas. The very open pieces that Rypdal wrote for this trio - such as the superb "Circles" – allowed maximum room for expression.