1. Terje Rypdal "Waves"
Every once in a while I buy LPs or CDs for no musical reason whatsoever, or a tenuous musical reason. In this case, I bought this LP in 1977 shortly after it was released, because I loved the cover, and also because I spotted on the credits that both Rypdal and Palle Mikkelborg were playing the RMI computer keyboard (an instrument pioneered several years earlier by Todd Rundgren, who used it in his seminal thematic-rock band Utopia). The RMI computer keyboard was a polyphonic synthesizer and for several years was way ahead of its time.
Although the use of the RMI on the LP is interesting, it is mainly used as a colouring drone - a backdrop on the tunes. The really interesting part of "Waves" was my realizing that there was a different concept of what a kit drummer could play in support of a tune, one that did not involve timekeeping with the snare or hi-hat.
The first tune, "Per Ulv" (named after a Norwegian cartoon wolf), begins with a beat-box - an unusual beginning for an ECM release. Jon Christensen plays percussion over the beatbox before he and Sveinung Hovjenso enter together on kit drums and bass. Christensen's drumming style on this album is very cymbal heavy, using the ride cymbal extensively and continuously, with the snare and floor toms only being used for occasional punctuation. In that respect, this drumming style was one I later recognized in the Pat Metheny Group for a long time, where Paul Wertico would carry the backbeat of a tune on the ride cymbal.
"Per Ulv" (Norwegian for Wile E. Coyote) has an A-B-A-B-C-B-Outro form, with a verse for Rypdal to improvise over, followed by a chorus where the melody is played by Mikkelborg's trumpet. As one has come to expect, the LP is superbly recorded, and one two-hit snare pattern by Christensen at the start of the second chorus is devastating in both timing and sound - it is worth the price of the record alone. The C section is in slow rock 4-4, with Rypdal soloing with his soaring guitar sound, before the tune returns to the verse, after which time Mikkelborg solos over an out section using a ring-modulated trumpet that is almost unrecognizable when compared to its natural sound. Ryodal would later reprise the Per Ulv idea in additional tunes ("Return of Per Ulv" and Per Ulv By The Sea").
"Karusell" begins with Mikkelborg's soft, Miles Davis-like trumpet duetting with itself, and slowly builds until drums and bass enter, at first free-form, then coalescing around a slow ballad form, with the RMI as a backdrop, presumably played by Rypdal, since his guitar disappears at around the time that the RMI appears.
"Stenskoven" is built around a chordal pattern on the RMI that sounds like it came from an American spy movie, with Rypdal playing the melody using his aggressive guitar sound.
"Waves" had previously been played live with a big band (the original title being "Wine and Dine To The Music Of The Waves") and, like several of the tunes, slowly morphs from free-form improvisation into a more structured thematic sketch.
"The Dain Curse" is a small-group recording of a composition that was performed at the same time by an expanded version of the band with an orchestra as Symphony No. 2 Part 3. I have a recording of a radio broadcast of that work, and the orchestral version is much more elaborate, with piles of discordant horn and string parts that add both power and intrigue to the tune. This version is based around a descending bass riff from Sveinung Hovensjo, with Mikkelborg initially soloing off the riff, before Rypdal adopts his distorted rock sound for a solo section. After that, Rypdal swaps to keyboards while Mikkelborg takes over. Once again the rhythm is carried almost exclusively on the ride cymbal throughout.
"Charisma", the LP closer, begins with a keyboard drone and echoed guitar figures from Rypdal, before slowly morphing into a slow, stately ballad, once again with Rypdal and Mikkelborg soloing. The ballad slowly dies away, leaving the drone as the final LP sound.
The base trio of Rypdal, Mikkelborg and Christensen would record a follow-up LP, "Descendre" the following year. That LP occupied the typical ECM "sketch music" zone, lacking the compositional acuity of "Waves" and its forceful sound, sounding at parts like aimless noodling more in the style of New Age music. I saw this bassless trio in London at the end of 1979, and the concert sounded like largely unstructured meandering. Lacking a keyboards player on stage, Mikkelborg resorted to sticking down keys on polyphonic synths to create backing drones, and the lack of a bass player further reduced the level of melodic interest. The group also used tape loop backing on several tunes, which did not work too well, partly because the tape loops were noisy and sometimes distored through the sound system. All in all a rather disappointing concert. There is a 1978 concert from Stockholm available on Dime (including Sveinung Hovenjso on bass and Haakon Graf on keyboards) that is far superior and gives a better idea of what the group was capable of in a live setting.

2. Weather Report "Live in Japan 1978"
In 1978 Weather Report toured extensively. This was the first tour to feature the "power quartet" of Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius and Peter Erskine. The tour played rock venues and featured an impressive light show, and some theatrics (mainly comprising a "lift off" sequence at the beginning of "Scarlet Woman" where Zawinul's keyboards were surrounded in dry ice). The official tour live LP, recorded in the USA in September of that year "8:30" is OK, but I attended the London concert earlier in the tour, and the LP was a poor reflection of the live show, partly due to the need to compress two and a half hours of music into 80 minutes to fit the format of a double LP. Notably missing was any part of a beautiful piano and sax duet between Zawinul and Shorter. (Fortunately missing was most of the hideously over-indulgent bass solo by Jaco Pastorius, which seemed to be as much about showbiz visuals, with Jaco ending the solo with a backflip over an amp stack.)
Now, via Dimeadozen, I have obtained a pristine FM radio recording of about half of the 1978 tour set, recorded in Japan in September 1978. Included on this is the full 1978 re-working of "Scarlet Woman", and a 24 minute version of "Gibraltar", which became a tour-de-force on that tour. Also included is the Zawinul-Shorter solo and duet section based on "Ponte de Arena" and "Sophisticated Lady".
The sound quality on this concert is superb, except for a brief burst of static in the introduction to "Gibraltar", which I resolved by editing out the affected synth phrase. Interestingly, at the start of "Gibraltar", you can hear a section which sounds like it might have been the early sketch for what later became the main theme melody for "Madagascar" (just like there is a solo section on a tune in "Live and Unreleased" which contains part of the theme that later became a section of "Birdland").
Although I remember being disappointed by the lack of a percussionist, this recording shows that when the band was "on", Peter Erskine was a great drummer who fitted the band's concept perfectly at the time. Also included is the somewhat bizarrely repetitive version of "Teen Town" that this line-up played at the time, with the entire tune repeated, and an additional section leading into the end figure. Mercifully missing are any of the tunes from "Mr. Gone", which I could never understand as an LP, mainly because it seemed so poor in terms of tune quality and playing consistency compared to "Heavy Weather". "Mr Gone" sounded like a patchwork quilt of outtakes by comparison to the LP's preceding it.
Another interesitng detail is that Peter Erskine was playing "Birdland" as per the record on the early part of the tour, then Zawinul apparently made a comment after a concert to the effect of "stop playing that samba crap", after which time he changed to a 4/4 rock shuffle instead. On this concert he is still playing "Birdland" as per the original recorded version. By the time they got to Europe and then to the USA on the tour, he was playing the shuffle, which is what is heard on the Rockpalast concert and "8:30".

3. Leo Kottke "Live in Rochester"
Another Dime special - a soundboard recording of an entire Leo Kottke concert from 1999. One of the main disappointments with officially released live albums (apart from the fact that many live albums are "fixed up" extensively in the studio), is that most of the between-song talk is removed in order to pack the most music onto one or more CDs. Leo Kottke does has an official double live CD available, but that has no talking on it. As anybody who has been to a Leo Kottke concert will attest, this is a scandalous omission, since Leo Kottke has a seemingly endless supply of stories that he tells between songs.
On this package, we get to hear the entire concert in pristine soundboard quality (I did add some reverb to the mix, because otherwise it is dry and lacking in presence), plus a bunch of the funny stories between songs, including Leo's wry explanation of how, if you are a guitar player, record companies always want you to make a Christmas album with a chick singer. His observation that part of his appeal is due to the fact that he has never made a Christmas album with a chick singer brings the house down.