Kristin Lavransdatter

In the ’70s and ’80s, bassist Andersen made a number of albums for ECM. I remember then liking one in particular — Green Shading into Blue — though I might feel differently if I heard it today. This music was written to accompany a play based on the 1928 Nobel Prize-winning novel of the same name, and it does indeed sound like incidental music. Andersen’s pastoral, synthesizer and reverb-laden jazz/fusion is evocative, but hardly provocative, which means that it probably served its original purpose well. Asking it to stand alone as a work unto itself is unfair to the composer’s intent (though I doubt the record was put out against his will). Listen to this music without referring to the personnel listings, and you’ll swear the saxophonist is Jan Garbarek. It’s not — just an amazingly life-like facsimile. Pretty music, but it’s charms are ephemeral and ultimately negligible. – Chris Kelsey