Disc 1

Keith Tippetts 1972 album "Blueprint" is a complete contrast to the big band explosion of the highly acclaimed Centipede which was his previous release. Blueprint is a small chamber piece hovering somewhere between music and silence. Although the initial calm of the album is baffling, Tippett and the other musicians take a microscope to music examining the details to be found in the small inner worlds which exist between the notes and the players and the listener.

Reviews

Keith Tippetts 1972 album "Blueprint" is a complete contrast to the big band explosion of the highly acclaimed Centipede which was his previous release. Blueprint is a small chamber piece hovering somewhere between music and silence. Although the initial calm of the album is baffling, Tippett and the other musicians take a microscope to music examining the details to be found in the small inner worlds which exist between the notes and the players and the listener. If Centipede's "Septober Energy" was principally Keith Tippett's vision of what a Jazz orchestra might achieve then the key to Blueprint lies in its democratic, collective view of playing. Tippett, with bassist Roy Babbington, drummer and percussionists Keith Bailey and Frank Perry, along with his wife and vocalist, Julie, laid down a series of improvisations in London's Command Studios over a couple of days. Working quickly and without fuss the team (with King Crimson's Robert Fripp in attendance as a trusted pair of ears) produced a series of clean uncluttered pieces which are possessed with a disarming simplicity. If this suggests an album of spartan, earnest austerity then prepared to be surprised. Emerging from the shimmering gossamer of bells and tones (alternately provided by Bailey and Perry) are moments of crystalline beauty where traces of haunting ballads are fleetingly outlined, underscored by Babbington's poignant, inquisitive bass. It is hard not to be impressed as one hears Julie Tippetts conjuring a haunting half-song from the air. The urgency with which she issues her breathless dispatches is nothing short of thrilling. They glide and soar in a cascading gush of hybrid syntax, twisting and turning the ensemble in unexpected directions. Unbound, uncompromising and free of stylistic constraints this is music of real commitment and humility. Historically, "Blueprint" marked the passage of a truly gifted player and the musicians of his choice, moving from one area of interest to another, and in doing so, laid the foundations for what would become Ovary Lodge and beyond.