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The discussion of Terje Rypdal's Odyssey got me to listen again to it after many years. I first heard it in the 1977 when I was I was a teenage high school student in Wichita Kansas combing the local record stores for anything that had that spacey 70s extended Miles groove jam thing going on. Odyssey is a little restrained compared to Miles, unsurprising for an ECM release I guess, but I'm still enjoying it. The spacey and sparse soloing and use of bits of noise and distortion over a repetitive bass isn't that far from modern electronica in some ways. The trombone is a nice touch, not enough rock bands with a trombone : ) ECM dropped the most "masturbatory" track from the CD reissue. "Rolling Stone" is 23 minutes of soloing, stabs of Miles' kind of organ here and there, and some string synth over the same basic bass riff. Unsurprisingly, it's out there on the blogosphere along with a live recording of the same band in 1974 performing the same songs on the Odyssey album. I haven't heard all of it yet, but what I have heard is my kind of music. There's no accounting for taste. http://silveradoraremusic.blogspot.com/2009/01/terje-rypdal-entire-odyssey-album-with.html Rypdal's two earlier ECM albums, "Terje Rypdal" from 1971 and "What comes after" from 1973 have a very similar feel to Odyssey. He has an album from 1968 that's not on ECM called "Bleak House" that is very different, it's basically a rock and roll record, but not a bad one. He hadn't developed his singular style of playing then. Per, I'm jealous, I would have loved to see the Odyssey band live. It's funny the loudest band I ever heard perform was the Phillip Glass Ensemble! Absolutely deafening! I've heard that Miles wanted Rypdal in his 70s band at one point. Rypdal's 2006 album Vossabrygg is another one I like, an homage to Miles of sorts, and surprisingly similar to Odyssey considering the passing of 30 years time. I'd say Odyssey is one of the more important albums in Rypdal's catalog and shows the deep influence that Miles Davis had on Rypdal's music. It's not ECM, but I like the album Rypdal did with Ronni le Tekro. It's some weird, warped kind of shredding contest. Of all Rypdal's ECM recordings, my two favorites are 1. Waves and 2. Descendre. That opening track on Waves with the cheesy drum machine is just so odd, beautiful, melodic and unique. It's got a strange "lounge" Herb Alpert kind of sound that really comes out of left field, but it has aged really well. Rypdal also does some very interesting Guitar Synth work on Barre Phillips "Three Day Moon" album on ECM. That's a hard one to find, but I think it's in print, at least in Japan. Now that I think about it, it's really amazing that Rypdal never recorded any solo looping work. The sound of his guitar is perfectly suited to looping. Oh well. I'm not a fan of Jan Garbarek, but this early track from his 1971 album "Afric Popperbird" with Rypdal, Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen was a real treat: http://cosmiccheese.blogspot.com/2009/05/jan-garberak-beast-of-kommodo-afric.html -- Art Simon simart@gmail.com myspace [dot] com/artsimon