JAN GARBAREK, ARILD ANDERSEN & EDWARD VESALA: TRIPTYKON

Jan Garbarek's fourth solo album (and third on ECM label). After two quartet releases, and one quintet (same Garbarek's quartet plus Bobo Stenton on keyboards) and two brave and hungry ECM avant-garde albums, Garbarek changed his band's format to trio. Guitarist Terje Rypdal is gone and Finnish drummer Edward Vesala came instead of Jon Christensen.

As a result of personal and band format's changes, this album's music is quite different. Free jazz of 60s influence is still really strong, but guitar-less trio with more straight ahead and heavy drummer recorded a collection of impressionist pictures instead of previous energetic and sometimes even sharp free-jazz. Important new element in Garbarek's music is huge doze of Nordic folklore, mixed with imaginative free-jazz. Some compositions contain strong (Nordic folk's) melodies and whole music, even if still dark in a moments, are far not so explosive and sharp, as before.

Innovative (for a moment of release) combination of musical elements and great musicianship make both this album another great turn in Garbarek earlier career. Listening to this album one can easily understand where from later Garbarek's world fusion compositions were started. Happily, this album is still very artistic,innovative and inspired, nothing like many later conformist Garbarek's releases.

I'll be short this time, because frankly I didn't enjoy this album, or if I did, only mildly for brief moments. I do feel a bit bad to give a low rating for an album that is considered "highly recommended" (All Music Guide gives 4½ stars). Now I also wonder if I sincerely liked Garbarek's next album Wichi-Tai-To (1974) worth four stars, or did I give some objective extra for it; probably I did a little, but obviously I find Wichi-Tai-To more interesting, much more accessible and diverse.

Here, as the cover design screams out, the Norwegian saxophonist-flautist is accompanied by his countryman Arild Andersen on double bass and the Finnish percussionist Edward Vesala, whose drumming is heavier compared to Garbarek's former drummer Jon Christensen's style. No wonder when you remember that a few years prior Vesala had played in APOLLO, the Finnish one-timer heavy prog band.

The music on Triptykon was, I believe, mostly done by improvising. At least it sounds like that, and most of the tracks are credited to the whole trio. The legendary free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler is a good comparison. There are no clear melodies one would remember afterwards. Instead Garbarek's saxes wail in a raw and expressionistic manner. The music's atmosphere is rather bleak and introvert all through the album. Even the flute sounds unpleasant here. On later decades Garbarek would become one of my biggest jazz favourites with his Scandinavian, airy and elegant style referred as "fjord jazz". but this early album represents the kind of [free] jazz I can't really get into. Hence only two very *SUBJECTIVE* stars.