We primed ourselves for Terje Rypdal’s Rochester appearance by listening to his 1975 album, Odyssey, the one with him smiling, sitting in the back of an open van with his guitar and equipment. We grabbed front row seats in the Xerox Auditorium, right in front of a an orange-red, Fender Strat with a whammy bar on a stand between stereo Vox amps. Terje performed most of his 2010 recording, “Crime Scene,” with Bergen Big Band (a thirteen piece horn section with two bass clarinets plus drums) set up stage left and his core band (Hammond B3, electric piano, addition guitar, bass, drums and Palle Mikkelborg on trumpet bathed in reverb) stage right.
The 20 piece band came out first and then Terje, 38 years after Odyssey, with the support of a cane. Terje’s trademark sound has a distinct mood that has not changed since the seventies and his score for big band has only made it darker and richer. We felt like we had entered a dream state and I kept finding that my mouth was hanging open. This wild music is strangley comforting. We caught both performances and plan on hearing again tonight at the church.
I’m keeping track of this year’s Jazz Fest over here.
3 Comments
I saw the late show – pretty wild stuff. Big, big sound, very rock-ish, sort of a 70s jazz fusion thing.
Too seventies for me- I had those albums back then and didn’t see any growth or progression since then in last night’s performance. Very self-indulgent with a lot of incoherent soloing. Too bad.
Goes 2 show , 3 sides to every coin.