Green in Blue: Early Quartets gathers the first three albums Arild Andersen made as a leader for ECM: Clouds in My Head (1975), Shimri (1977) and Green Shading into Blue (1978). None had been issued on CD before this set. Heard together, they follow the Norwegian bassist from his free-leaning beginnings to the bandleader and composer he became, and they introduce several players who would matter in Nordic jazz.

Clouds in My Head was recorded in February 1975 at Arne Bendiksen Studio in Oslo, with Knut Riisnæs on tenor and soprano saxophones and flute, an 18-year-old Jon Balke on piano and Pål Thowsen on drums. For Shimri (October 1976) and Green Shading into Blue (April 1978), both made at Talent Studio in Oslo, Thowsen stayed while Juhani Aaltonen took over the saxophones and flutes and Lars Jansson the piano, adding synthesizer on the third record. Manfred Eicher produced all three, with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer.

The first album is the most open of the three, built on Andersen's tunes and lively interplay between bass and piano. Its Last Song is a short duet for the two of them, while The Sword Under His Wings closes at a fast tempo with the bass well forward. Shimri brings in more colour: Wood Song is credited to all four players and leans on flutes and percussion, and Jansson's Vaggvisa för Hanna is a Swedish lullaby. On Green Shading into Blue Jansson's synthesizer and two more of his pieces, Anima and Terhi, sit beside Andersen's title track and the light Radka's Samba.

The box comes with a 32-page booklet and liner notes by Steve Lake. Reviewing Clouds in My Head on its release in Jazz Journal in 1975, Barry McRae found that “Andersen and Balke are the outstanding players”, and judged Last Song “the best on the record”. He also singled out Balke's solo on Outhouse, though he was less taken with the drumming.

This is the 3-CD box in ECM's Old & New Masters series, which gathers earlier albums of an artist in one set. Catalogued ECM 2143-45 on ECM Records, it was released on 26 March 2010.