Flypast 2002 11

“My time with ECM is a lifetime by now,” Terje Rypdal notes, as he embarks upon his fourth decade with the label that has documented his far-reaching achievements as both improviser and composer. For this anthology, Rypdal chose to focus on his groundbreaking electric guitar artistry, heard in settings ranging from symphony orchestra to the enlightened hard rock of the Chasers. “Music must have colours and freedom”, Rypdal once said, and his selection here lacks neither.

Although Karin Krog was born in Oslo and grew up in a country where Norwegian is the primary language, she is a shining example of how effectively a Scandinavian vocalist can sing English-language jazz. Raindrops, Raindrops, a best-of CD that spans 1966-1985, paints a consistently attractive picture of Krog's artistry. Assembled by a German label called Crippled Dick Hot Wax, this collection shows Krog to be an adventurous, risk-taking improviser who brings an intriguing variety of influences to the table - Sheila Jordan, Betty Carter, and Jeanne Lee have affected her work, but so have less abstract vocalists like Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. Krog favors an inside/outside approach (usually more inside than outside), and the Norwegian improviser is as convincing on Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage" as she is on Michel Legrand's "I'll Wait for You" and Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight"…

The band that eventually became the Children began life as a pair of competing garage combos on the often-overlooked San Antonio rock circuit in 1965. The Stoics came together in the spring of that year. Guitarists William Ash and Rufus Quillian were upper-middle-class kids while singer Al Acosta, drummer Sam Allen, and bass player Michel Marechal all came from the city's predominantly Hispanic northeast side…