JAN GARBAREK — Eventyr (review)

Album · 1981 · Post-Fusion Contemporary

5/5 · 2025-01-20
Moshkiae

Jan Garbarek Eventyr 1981

With Nana Vasconcellos and John Abercrombie

Sometimes, I wonder if some of these things are really jazz, even though many of the players are almost exclusively jazz wisened and practiced.

This middle period of Jan Garbarek's is interesting ... not sure you can call it much of anything other than "ambient", as you never really get that feeling that the players are going to break out and jam on their instruments. With Nana Vasconcellos doing his thing on various percussive instruments, and John Abercrombie adding some very light (and beautiful) touches to what Jan Garbarek is doing, and the best part of it ... they keep it going, very smoothly.

This is a special album, for me ... the opening is one of the nicest things I have ever heard and felt ... it has a calling f some sort, and it sounds very lonely, and not quite desperate, but you can feel the emotion with the call. Soria Maria is a Norwegian tale, and even though we might not know what that story is, you get the feeling that you know it some by the piece of music. It's beauty is a bit on the side of the likes of a siren's call in the old greek stories, it has a bit of an inebriated feel to it, or at least a bit on the person being affected if not by stimulants, then by the desire to do what the hero has to do in the story.

It feels like you have been enchanted while listening to it ... forget music ... just close your eyes and see if you can find the visual for it ... I think it gives us the terrain and the majority of the feeling surrounding it. It was, thought of as a "new age" type album, but with all due respect, that is not even a good suggestion in my book. The music here is way and far above a lot of that stuff that was created simply with a name on it to sell, and had not half as much an image as the stuff in this album does.

The whole album is fantastic, and not of the pieces are weaker or not as vivid as any of the others, although none of them have the incredible wake up call that Soria Maria has, which is very strong, and gets stronger as Nana Vasconcellos augments the piece with some of his drums very lightly ... this adds a bit of "distance" to your view of it, but it does not take away from the piece, the story of which has some long voyages.

The title, as it turns out, and I did not know it until I tried to look for a definition just as I am writing this is defined as "a bold or exciting undertaking or experience" ... and well, I think that is all you need to know to enjoy this album of fantastic music. It is a far out experience, and not always something that many of us take on, specially with a soundtrack!!!

The long pieces, (Soria Maria, Eventyr, Once Upon the Time, East of the Sun and West of the Moon) are all the special things here, and just about, all you need to listen to, but please don't do that ... this album deserves a full listen, as the smaller pieces might be thought of as simpler ... with the longer pieces all "a story" and it is my thought that it was Jan Garbarek's idea to tell a story, with the playing, and I think it succeeds well ... most jazz is not about a story ... it is ... here we go, and then each person does their thing and meet up somewhere in the end ... but here, as a piece is coming to an end, you want more ... even though I kinda think that some folks might consider this whole album a bit somber ... a soundtrack for an imaginary story ... a fable from the Norwegian history.

An album worth having, if you are a fan of folks experimenting well and trying to do something different than just play notes and chords a la jazz style ... this is about the mood and its continuation here, that defines this album ... and if you like that ... this is just fine.

Excellent work, and a part of a period of Jan Garbarek, that I think he was looking to see what could be done with jazz that was not so invisible as most jazz playing is, and so tightly based on notes and chords by most players. Hearing this, the first thought of mine ... was .. this is not "jazz" ... and I suppose that this is ambient, with a jazz like bend ... but that might be hard ... since you can close your eyes and this has a movie somewhere.

NOTE: Parts of this album was used in the film "JOURNEY OF HOPE" in 1990 a Swiss/Turkey film, about the plight of many refugees trying to get out of Turkey. The music in the film has Arild Anderson (not sure which album yet), Jan Garbarek and Terje Rypdal (from EOS) ... and it presents Xavier Koller's film with astounding images with various parts of the music, making it look like the music is about the hope that these folks have for a new life. It won an OSCAR for Best Foreign Film the following year.

22 hours ago
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FunkFreak75 wrote:

4 hours ago

Did that opening two minutes of the opening song remind you of Peter Gabriel's Passion, original soundtrack music to Martin Scorcese's 1986 film The Last Temptation of Christ?