Terje Rypdal: Bleak House
In 1968, Terje Rypdal was a long way from the iconic status he quickly achieved within the European jazz community. He had just left stints in a pair of rock bands in his native Norway—The Vanguards and The Dream—and was settling into a studio in Oslo to record Bleak House, the guitarist/composer’s first solo album. And at the time, he wasn’t entirely sure what direction he wanted to go in, musically speaking.
Whether that was a result of uncertainty or curiosity or sheer indifference to try to sustain one groove or mode, the record does suffer a bit from this chameleonic spirit. But with this newly pressed edition from Round 2 Records, the reissue arm of Norwegian record shop Big Dipper, needs to be appreciated as a marker in the history of the musician’s now-storied career.
Keep in mind that three years later, Rypdal would unveil a self-titled album of austere, psych jazz that would not only mark the start of a long-standing relationship with ECM Records but also set the course of the next 40+ years of studio and live work. Before he could get there, though, it seemed he had to shake some sounds out of his system with Bleak House.
The album even starts out with a track that signals his farewell to the psych-prog rock he was known for just a year earlier. On “Dead Man’s Tale,” Rypdal is joined by his former Dream bandmates, drummer Tom Karlsen and keyboardist Christian Reim (the latter who feature throughout Bleak House, and it’s the kind of groovy bluesy apparition that so many bands of the time were invoking, capped off with quaintly broken hearted lyrics. From there, he brings in a big horn section to dabble in blowsy swing compositions that are more in the spirit of Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears than they are Kenny Burrell or Jimmy Smith, and “A Feeling of Harmony,” a bossa nova bauble that closes the album with Rypdal tripling up on guitar, flute and wordless vocals.
Where he truly comes into his own sound is with the marvelous improvisation “Winter Serenade.” Through six minutes of freeform playing, Rypdal and a smaller ensemble (including fellow future jazz giant Jan Garbarek) set the blueprint for the first part of the guitarist’s future work. Building from a quiet foundation of Reim’s strong piano chords and percussive guitar lines, the song slowly takes shape and weight, leading to an explosive middle section that heaves and spits fire before slowly dissipating in its final minutes.
What Bleak House may lack in consistency, it more than makes up for in its substance and its resolute spirit. Rypdal clearly knew where he wanted to go; he just had to work out some of the kinks and fine tune some detail before he could set off in a new direction. Would that all of our rough drafts be as fascinating and reissue-worthy as this.