Terje Rypdal was ECM guitarists

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Matthias wrote:
"For that matter Terje Rypdal isn't in the best of health either though I'm

not sure of the details.  One track on Odyssey sounds to me like he might 
be
playing a fender bass VI which is more of an early electric baritone, he
plays a really long solo that gets lower and lower,  out of range of normal
guitar. "



God, I loved that track.   I haven't checked because I impulsively sold 
all of my jazz albums 
when punk and new wave hit (I've done this over and over in my 
life............selling whole record collections 
of material I'm no longer listening to in order to buy new albums (CDs)  
of music that I'm suddenly in love with)
but I think that track was called   "Better Off Without You".

When Rypdal plays a descending distorted langorous passage that goes lower 
and lower 
until it hit impossibly low notes for a guitar,  it was the first time I'd 
ever heard 
some play a Fender Bass VI as a guitar and NOT a bass.

My first band,  the Concave Image (blush)  that I formed as soon as I 
owned a 
snare drum (didn't even have a kit yet) had a bass player,  David Handloff 
, who 
played a beautiful white Fender Bass VI with a gorgeous red pick guard.

I had no idea what that instrument could do.  It was an oddity to me then 
and sounded very weird on 'Just Like Me'  by Paul Revere and the Raiders.
God,  how could we be so naive in those days.

Anyway,  it was one of the first times in my life that I left the Rock 
/Soul/Funk paradigm 
and realized that instruments could be recontextualized to sound 
differently.

It led me to use a Electro Harmonix Micro POG and a mini BASS MUFF on a 
baritone ukulele 
or a strumstick and make them sound like GOD!!!!!!!!

Thanks for mentioning that record.  I just loved Odyssey.

I was just thinking what Eberhard Weber, Terje Rypdal,  Jon Christiansen,  
Jan Garbarek and many of the 
other ECM stable musicians would sound like if they got into live looping 
stuff.
They were already investigating the notion of trance in a delicious blend 
of European classical 
music with a black American improvisatory approach.

I loved how Jon Christiansen (one of the single most influential drummers 
in my own career) 
played jazz but only used 8th and 16th notes instead of swung notes ala 
the black 'swing' tradition.
The only other guy I can think of who used the exact same approach was 
Ginger Baker, before him.
He was more 'rock'  but they both eschewed 'swing' in their improvisations 
and the whole 
world became a lot bigger for me as a drummer.