Keith Tippett "Blueprint" 1972 (Fripp)

Coming straight after the gigantic "Septober Energy" as it did, Blueprint must have come as a bit of a surprise for many of Keith Tippett's fans. The music is minimal - both in scale and sound - but whereas the Centipede recording leaves its impression by its overwhelming force, Blueprint makes it mark with much more subtlety.

At the session, supervised by Robert Fripp, the collective ensemble consists of Keith Tippett (piano) Roy Babbington (bass) Keith Bailey and Frank Perry (percussion) and Julie Tippetts (voice/guitar/mandolin/recorder) but the groups on each track never go above quartet and four of the tracks being trio numbers.

With a few rushes of blood aside (for example on the quartet numbers "Dance" and "Woodcut", much of the album is dominated by quiet, with zen-like bells and percussion drifting into Tippett's piano and Babbington's ethereal bowed bass, while at the beginning of "Blues ll" Julie Tippetts coaxes the mandolin into sounding like a Japanese koto.

As someone who often veers away from anything that even suggests a "jazz" vocalist, I was very much taken by Julie Tippett's abstract use of her voice and the way she blends it with the rest of the instruments, making a much more textural balance between herself and the others

A1 Song

A2 Dance

A3 Glimpse

B1 Blues I

B2 Woodcut

B3 Blues II

Keith Tippett - piano

Roy Babbington - bajo

Julie Tippetts - guitarra, voz, grabadora, mandolina

Frank Perry - percusión (pistas: A2, A3, B2)

Keith Bailey - percusión (pista: A1)

Los sonidos son acústicos, no hay electrónica involucrada (Robert Fripp)

Toda la música en este álbum es improvisada (Keith Tippett)