ARILD ANDERSEN / LANDLOPER ECM2826
Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, an ECM recording artist since 1970, presents his first-ever solo album. Characteristically broad in its musical scope and creative range, Landloper was recorded primarily at Oslo’s Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene. Choice of repertoire in this recital reflects on Arild’s musical journey, and, alongside original compositions, new light is cast upon some free jazz classics, traditional folk music, and more. Throughout, Andersen’s performances combine his masterful bass playing with real-time creation of electronic loops that bring an atmospheric dimension to solo playing as well as fresh opportunities for improvisational interaction.
The set from Oslo includes: Arild’s pieces “Dreamhorse”, “Landloper” and “Mira”; “Old Stev”, a Norwegian traditional; the jazz standard “A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square”; Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”, Charlie Haden’s “Song for Che” and a spectral fragment of Albert Ayler’s “Ghosts”.
“Dreamhorse” is a piece whose theme, Arild recalls, first emerged during an improvisation at the Kongsberg Festival in 1994, one of the first occasions where he’d played solo. It was subsequently further developed and performed in many different contexts: there is a trio version, for instance, with Tommy Smith and Paolo Vinaccia on Live At Belleville. In the Oslo concert Andersen created three loops, “first by tapping the strings to establish a rhythm, then adding harmonics, and then the deep bass notes. And then I improvise on top of that.”
The use of electronics in tandem with the bass is a concept that Arild has been exploring intermittently for decades. “It was actually Paul Bley who got me started in the early 1970s: ‘You have a pick-up on the bass? You could transform the sound electronically.’ And I started with a Roland echo machine, just making short loops for effects. In the 80s I got into it more deeply when Bill Frisell turned me on to the Electro-Harmonix 16 Second Digital Delay, which opened up a lot of looping possibilities being explored at the time by artists from Jon Hassell to Brian Eno...” Andersen’s current set up, used at the Victoria Nasjonal Jazz Scene, includes a Gibson Echoplex Pro Plus loop machine and a TC Electronic M 2000 signal processor. “In the live improvised context it’s very much like playing with someone. I’ll press a button, listen to what comes out, and see what I can play against it.”
“Ghosts” introduces the album’s first medley, with subtle playing of Ayler’s theme, using the bow up near the bridge and bringing out luminous harmonics. For Andersen the tune carries memories of his work with Jan Garbarek and Edward Vesala in the Triptkyon trio of the early 1970s. “Ghosts” segues into “Old Stev”, traditional Norwegian folk music that Arild learned in his Sagn project with singer Kirsten Bråten Berg, and from there it’s a logical step to title piece “Landloper”, conveying images of wanderers and vagabonds. This too is a piece with roots, first appearing on the 1980 recording Lifelines (with Kenny Wheeler, Paul Motian and Steve Dobrogosz…)
“A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square”, written by Manning Sherwin for the musical New Faces in 1940, has long since been adapted as a jazz standard. Arild revisited it at a tribute concert for his late comrade Jon Christensen, where he played together with Jon’s daughter, singer Emilie Stoesen Christensen, after establishing a chordal arrangement with double stops on the bass.
In astronomy, “Mira” is the name of a pulsating red giant star of variable appearance that expands and contracts periodically. Arild Andersen’s “Mira” also takes different shapes and forms, and was last heard as title track of his 2014 trio album.
The aching melody of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman”, introduced on The Shape of Jazz to Come, has inspired a thousand cover versions. Andersen has admired the tune since the early 1960s, and notes that the version here, “with an extended bridge”, is influenced by Karin Krog, with whom he once played it. Guitar-like strumming announce another famous theme associated with Ornette, Charlie Haden’s elegiac “Song for Che”, which concludes the recital. The tunes ideally illustrates both the power and the singing quality that are hallmarks of Arild’s bass playing. “I didn’t originally plan it that way, but when I look at the track selection and see Ayler, Ornette and Haden side by side, it’s a nice tribute to music I have listened to all these years and been affected and inspired by.”
The live set is preceded by a piece recorded at Arild’s home and which effectively serves as an overture to the project: “Peace Universal” written by drummer Bob Moses and arranged by Arild: “I toured with Bob a couple of years ago, and we had a good musical understanding. Later he sent me this little tune and explained he was sending it out to ten bass players and asking each of them to do their own version of this simple melody for an album he was planning. So I played the melody at home, and then developed this sort of string arrangement with chords and variations and added to it, so this one piece actually became more like studio work than the live things. I recorded everything and sent it to Bob, and said I’d like to include it on my own solo album, and he was very happy about that. It was Manfred Eicher’s idea to put it at the start of the album.”
Landloper was recorded in Oslo in June 2020 and mixed at Rainbow Studio in June 2024.
