Terje Rypdal

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Terje Rypdal, moers festival 2010

Terje Rypdal (born August 23, 1947 in Oslo ) is a Norwegian guitarist and composer and a member of the Scandinavian jazz scene. With his often distorted electric guitar playing , he has brought sounds into modern jazz that were usually found more in rock . He has participated in numerous formations, his classical compositions include six symphonies, two operas and chamber music works.

Terje Rypdal
Terje Rypdal, Heineken Jazzaldia, 2016

Live and act

As the son of a military band leader and clarinetist, Rypdal took an early interest in music. He received piano lessons from the age of five and switched to the trumpet three years later. At the age of twelve he learned to play the guitar as an autodidact . As a teenager he became a member of the Norwegian instrumental rock band Vanguards , with whom he made it into the local pop charts. Then he discovered the music of Jimi Hendrix and founded the psychedelic rock band Dream in 1967 , where he met Jan Garbarek . Influenced by the music of György Ligeti , he decided to become a musician and composer. During his music studies at the University of Oslo and at the Conservatory, among others with Finn Mortensen , he occasionally became orchestra leader in the Norwegian production of the musical Hair .

At the end of the 1960s, Rypdal turned more and more to jazz, first on his first album under his own name Bleak House (1968, with Garbarek and Jon Christensen , among others ), then in the Garbarek quartet and sextet, as well as in George Russell's big band . An international breakthrough for him in 1969 was the Free Jazz Meeting Baden-Baden of Südwestfunk , produced by Joachim Ernst Berendt , where he appeared in a band led by Lester Bowie and presented his own compositions with smaller combos.

Since his work on Garbarek's first albums on the German label ECM , Rypdal has released numerous albums there, both under his own name and in cooperation, for example with pianist Ketil Bjørnstad , singer Karin Krog , Palle Mikkelborg , Jon Christensen, John Surman , Jack De Johnette , Michael Mantler , David Darling , Barre Phillips and others.

The list of his compositions includes six symphonies, choral and chamber music (such as solo concertos for piano and horn) as well as pieces for mixed ensembles of classical and improvisation musicians. ECM released an album in 1998 that included his Double Concerto / 5th Symphony and in 2000 his Lux Aeterna , an intense, personal tribute to nature, light and mountains from Rypdal's childhood.

The British critic and poetry professor Michael Tucker characterized Rypdal's style as "a mixture of rock and jazz phrasing with a rubato interest in tone colors and dynamics that often smells of the classical world." Director Michael Mann used two pieces from the Blue and Singles Collection for his film Heat with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro .

Prizes and awards

In 1975 he received the German Record Award for his album Odyssey . The Silver Harp of the Spellemann Prize was awarded to him in 1981, the Honorary Prize of the Spellemann Prize 2001. In 1985 he was honored with the Buddy Prize and in 1990 with the Gammleng Prize . The album Undisonus was named Work of the Year by the Society of Norwegian Composers in 1990, the album If Mountains Could Sing in 1995 with another Spellemann prize .

Discography

  • Get Dreamy (The Dream) (Polydor 842 972-2) 1967
  • Bleak House (Polydor / Universal Norway 547 885-2) 1968
  • Terje Rypdal (ECM 1016) 1971
  • What Comes After (ECM 1031) 1974
  • Whenever I Seem to be Far Away (ECM 1045) 1974
  • Odyssey (ECM 1067/8) 1975
  • After the Rain (ECM 1083) 1976
  • Waves (ECM 1110) 1978
  • Rypdal / Vitous / DeJohnette (ECM 1125) 1979
  • Descendre (ECM 1144) 1980
  • To Be Continued (ECM 1192) 1981
  • Eos (ECM 1263) 1984
  • Chaser (ECM 1303) 1985
  • Blue (ECM 1346) 1987
  • The Singles Collection (ECM 1383) 1989
  • Undisonus (ECM 1389) 1990
  • QED (ECM 1474) 1991
  • Unplugged: Mozart and Rypdal (Hans Petter Bonden) (MTG-CD 21111) 1993
  • The Sea (Bjørnstad / Darling / Rypdal / Christensen) (ECM 1545) 1995
  • Nordic Quartet (Surman / Krog / Rypdal / Storaas) (ECM 1553) 1995
  • If Mountains Could Sing (ECM 1554) 1995
  • Skywards (ECM 1608) 1997
  • The Sea II (Bjørnstad / Darling / Christensen / Rypdal) (ECM 1633) 1998
  • Rypdal & Tekrø (RCA 74321 242962) 1997
  • Rypdal / Tekrø II 1997
  • Kartā ( Stockhausen / Andersen / Héral / Rypdal) (ECM 1704) 2000
  • Double Concerto / 5th Symphony (ECM 1567) 2000
  • Selected Recordings (Volume VII of ECM's: rarum series) (rarum 8007) 2002
  • Lux Aeterna (ECM 1818) 2002
  • Vossabrygg (ECM 1984) 2006
  • Life in Leipzig (with Ketil Bjørnstad ) (ECM 2052) 2008
  • Crime Scene (ECM 2041) 2010
  • Odyssey: In Studio & In Concert (3-CD-Box, ECM 2136-38) 1975-76 / 2012
  • Melodic Warrior (with The Hilliard Ensemble ) (ECM 2006) 2013 (rec .: Dec. 2003, Nov. 2009)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b All-rounder Terje Rypdal - 70 years and not a bit quiet (jazzecho.de)
  2. ↑ Bleak House review at www.jazzecho.de ( Memento from November 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Rypdal, Terje
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian guitarist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Oslo