Jan Garbarek Goes Vinyl on ECM Reissue

Cover of the original release of the album being discussed (from its Wikipedia Web page)

Serious audiophiles may know that ECM has released a new series for them call Luminessence. The objective is to “revive” past CD albums by reissuing them on vinyl. Two of those albums will be released today, both involving performances by saxophonist Jan Garbarek. Both albums will be discussed on this site but in separate articles.

The topic for this first article will be Afric Pepperbird, which was recorded in Oslo over the course of two days in September of 1970. The album was initially released on January 1, 1971. Amazon music has already created a Web page with purchase options for MP3 download and CD. As of today, those options have been extended to include the new vinyl release. Note, however, that this Web page gives no indication of any source for text background content (other than the track listening on the Web page itself). Fortunately, Wikipedia has created its own Web page for this album, which should satisfy any listener in search of such content.

“For the record,” vinyl is now a distant past for me. By the time my wife and I made our move to Singapore, where I was an early researcher in multimedia at the Institute for System Science, I had accumulated large libraries of both vinyls and CDs, all of which traveled with me (and then back to Palo Alto when I made a move to a new Fuji Xerox laboratory there). When I finally left the domain of computer research, my wife and I moved to the Civic Center in San Francisco in a condominium with no room for either vinyl equipment or the discs themselves. As a result, I do not have any strong feelings about whether the recent vinyl revival is a good thing; but I feel it is worth at least a few accounts of past albums that are now being revived.

According to my archives, it has been over half a decade since Garbarek’s name showed up in one of my articles. Unless I am mistaken, the most recent article was on September 5, 2017, when he improvised saxophone accompaniment to John Potter’s vocal work on the ECM Secret History album. Afric Pepperbird, on the other hand, was Garbarek’s second album for the label. On this one he plays not only tenor and bass saxophones but also clarinet, flute, and percussion. The principal percussionist is Jon Christensen. The other members of Garbarek’s quartet are Terje Rypdal, alternating between guitar and bugle, and bassist Arild Andersen, who also plays mbira (thumb piano) and xylophone.

Taken as a whole, the album serves up eight highly imaginative improvisations, the shortest of which lasts less than a minute, while the longest is about twelve and a half minutes. Only four of the tracks are led by Garbarek. Andersen leads three, and Christensen leads the remaining track, “Blupp,” which is the last one on the album. There is an admirable quality to the audio capture. In the absence of any visual input, the attentive listener will most likely have little trouble identifying which thematic gestures are provided by which of the instrumentalists.

This is a release that rewards attentive listening, and its new availability on vinyl may encourage more serious listeners to attend!