Terje T'aime

If you're wondering where I've been, the answer is flat on my back after badly injuring my lower spine.

I've been laid up for a few days now in excruciating agony, but I've managed to get a great show in the cloud to honor a great guitar player with whom most people may not be totally familiar.

He is turning 72 today, born as he was in 1947, and as far as I know he still maintains a rigorous touring and recording schedule.

His records on the ECM imprint have been some of the finest and most consistently excellent ones on that incredible label for almost 50 years now.

Is he the Hendrix of Norway? He's been called that, and there are similarities, but Terje Rypdal is one player you could never accuse of being that derivative.

In a 50-year career that spans the most electric fusion to the most pastoral balladry to a whole portfolio of full-on orchestral works, there's no pigeonholing him into whatever extant guitar categories or personalities we would claim as familiar.

I would write more, but I can't stand up much longer in the pain I am in so this will have to do.

We'll showcase his shredding side today, and fire up some Fusion Friday Fare courtesy of some pristine and blazing German radio pre-FM reels of perhaps his greatest Jazz-Rock ensemble, Odyssey.

Terje Rypdal & Odyssey

Post-Aula

Bremen, Germany

3.24.1975

01 Julenissen Er Bla (Santa Claus Is Blue)/Silverbird Is Heading for the Sun

02 Darkness Falls/Cosmic Flight

03 Better Off Without You/Between Seasons

04 Compass/Burning Candle In a Midnite Wind

Total time: 1:19:59

Terje Rypdal - guitar, soprano saxophone & percussion

Sveinung Hovensjo - bass

Brynjulf Blix - organ & keyboards

Torbjorn Sunde - trombone

Svein Christiansen - drums & percussion

sourced from the pre-FM reels of Radio Bremen in Germany

479 MB FLAC/August 2019 archive link

I gotta go rest now, but I'll try to get back for Sunday if I'm physically capable, and a milestone birthday bash you'll all enjoy.

But don't you dare miss out on this insane 80-minute glimpse into the universe of Terje Rypdal, considered Norway's premier guitarist of the last half century and celebrating 72 orbits today!--J.