ECM: C/D, S&D

Classics: Jarrett's maniacal virtuoso piano-bashing, Charlie Haden (esp. the "Ornette's band without Ornette" Old and New Dreams), Puntin/Gunnarsdottir, Abercrombie (esp. Gateway), Rypdal, Surman. I can't say I have any ambition to investigate the whole catalogue (one Stephan Micus album is enough, thanks), but there's more to ECM than proto-new-age.

Speaking as one who has now contributed for (tho not to) VERY NEARLY 200 ISSUES K- BLIMEY, I think Wire attitude to ECM has ALWAYS been very ambivalent. R.Cook was probably super-diplomatic — sometimes his genius, sometimes his crime — but the sense was that their success as a label actually somewhat occluded bettah-favoured Euro- indies like eg Black Saint or hat HUT...

Duds: Most of the mannered and Third Stream records that constitute the so-called "ECM sound" (not like I've listened extensively to them, though).

Compare and contrast "Song for Someone" by the Kenny Wheeler big band on Incus with "Music for Large and Small Ensembles" by more or less the same line-up on ECM. The latter sounds like all the life has been bled out of it.

Most atypical, and therefore best, ECM release: "Afternoon of a Georgia Fawn" by Marion Brown; the missing link between "Bitches Brew" and Braxton.

the first two are as beautiful as abstract music ever gets. the Parker discs are remarkable examples of e-a improv, provided that you can get past Eicher's inappropriately spacious production. and Williamson's tribute to Dylan Thomas is rather atypical, both for the musician and for ECM, with nary a hint of ISB's psychotropic excess (or Eicher's cathedral-ceiling echo) to be heard in its solemn, skeletal settings of Thomas' poems.

the hal russell NRG ensemble "the hal russell story".

there are a few others but it's too early and I haven't cared enough about jazz lately to remember.

other good stuff includes gateway, feat. john abercrombie (sp?) who is somewhat similar to bill frisell's at points. also the early, pre-lame, pre-midi pat metheney.

ECM: Found huddled outside a Starbucks beneath the much-maligned umbrella of "NPR Music," or a still-relevant home to transcendent, spacious music with a minimum of fuss? Are they only as good as their classic back-catalogue? Does the New Series wave of innocuous and "tasteful" artistry leave a bad taste in your mouth (or no taste whatsoever)?

IMHO, their Steve Reich issues are some of the finest Reich extant, including the definitive renditions of Music for 18 Musicians, Violin Phase, Octet, etc. I love Anouar Brahem, enjoy Tomasz Stanko, and admire their volume of Silvestrov/Shevchenko's Silent Songs.

That said, I'm not sold on 100% (or even 75%) of what I hear on ECM, but it's one of the few labels that I routinely give the benefit of the doubt if I'm on the fence about wasting $20 from time to time. I'm entirely in favor of their leanings towards artsy European starkness, but I wish Manfred Eicher would learn to get by on less reverb.

I have also been suprised how much parts of Eberhardt Weber albums from the 70s sound like Tortoise.

I think that ECM's huge advertising budget may have been a contributory factor to that particular "ambivalence."

The NY Times and a Seattle paper love the new ECM label album Arco Iris from Moroccan vocalist Amina Alaoui who performs old Andalusian compositions here. I haven't heard it but I am intrigued. Ilxer Sanpaku liked the Jon Balke & Amina Alaoui album Siwan that came out on ECM a year or 2 back.

I also just mentioned it here:
Arabic music (not elsewhere classified)

the other ECM thread

ECM s/d.

Posted this on the Arabic music thread but its an ECM label album

Some of the Amina Alaoui album is a little too samey--melancholy nearly fado-like vocals and minimalist flamenco guitar strumming, but on other cuts her voice is exquisite and the instrumental work just lively enough.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, July 14, 2011 1:12 PM

Is there a comprehensive digital repository for 70s ECM gubbins? Preferably not streaming.

The label has a page on Bandcamp but it's barely a handful of relatively recent releases so far, AFAICT.

Boringly I think iTunes/Amazon are the most reliable. Qobuz have some lossless stuff but it gets pretty pricey: http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/search?q=ecm&i=boutique&f%5Blabel%5D=ECM+Records#results

ECM stuff rarely turns up on streaming services anyway, the old album shows up for a short while on Apple Music and then disappears again.

I'd definitely pay for some sort of digital ECM subscription, either via Bandcamp or Drip or something - all new releases + curated back catalogue selections.

there's tons that never made it to digital in the first place, right?

Pandora, oddly enough, has a decent ECM catalog.

So ECM appears to have popped up on Spotify. So that's nice. Can't find Julian Priester, but Benny Maupin is there, and AEOC.

Only one AEOC album so far - Tribute To Lester. None of their 80s stuff yet.

Urban Bushmen is there, too.

And Full Force!

Not in the US, at least not yet.

Well whaddya know, loads of ECM stuff on Apple Music in the UK now too. Hooray!

I said preferably NOT streaming damnit, Manfred.

I wish someone would do an exploratory ECM back catalog blog like the Kranky one a from few years back.

US Spotify now has Nice Guys, Urban Bushmen, and The Third Decade up, as well as Lester Bowie's All The Magic!/The One and Only and Works, and Roscoe Mitchell's Nine to Get Ready, Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3, Far Side and Bells For the South Side.

God dammit, Eberhard Weber's early records are so beautiful, I've had a couple kicking around for years but never afforded them the proper attention, what a fool.

The Colours Of Chloë might just be the most ECM-y record of all.

good call, I was just thinking of something to stream right now.

I wonder if Joni was paying attention, some of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter is very reminiscent of Weber's music.

I started this rather unsuccessful topic some while back.

Nik Bärtsch's RONIN have a new album out.

What is his best album?

I'm undecided on that but I loved his last one Continuum, and I think both Stoa and Holon are A+. I haven't listened to his band for a while tbh. Luckily ECM are streaming now so it's easy to access his music. Although he looks disturbingly like a shaved barl-head Tony Blair - I don't judge ppl on looks!

He also looks disconcertingly like the singer form Disturbed

Continuum is amazing and I'll probably buy this new one

^^^ This album is Awase Amaze.

yep!

this band/composer are so consistently good, they've never put out anything less than A+ imo.

Listened to Albanian jazz vocalise Elina Duni last weekend, really good. First vocalist on ECM or am I missing any?

Anettete Peacock, Meredith Monk just off the top of my head

lol Annette

June Tabor released at least one album on ECM!

oh, there are literally loads of vocal albums.

Thanks - I've missed these!

SEARCH - Eberhard Weber Later That Evening 1982

SEARCH — Eberhard Weber all

searching that rn sounds great!

As mentioned by others, Elina Duni is not the first vocalist on ECM by a long shot, though she is certainly a fine one. But one ECM vocalist I feel has been overlooked, and could have been a breakout star like Duni, is Cymin Samawatie. She and her band Cyminology have recorded three fine albums on ECM, but they do not seem to have gotten much attention beyond Germany.

really feeling new Tord Gustavsen album tonight, sort of textbook downbeat, bluesy ECM piano trio classicism, but quite powerful and moving stuff.

thanks for the recommendation, sounds very good indeed

Happy he's returned to the trio format. Did not enjoy What Was Said at all.

Been listening to Rainer Bruninghaus' 'Continuum' from 1984 while working this week, it's a nimble and kinda spindly, looking out the window with nothing to do on a rainy day, sounding record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ooEv70T0oY

Eicher put together this tribute to Tomasz Stanko:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOJ4KJz97xo

Wonderful album, thanks for the recommendation. Unobtrusive, subtle music to daydream and look out of the window to. I think it would also be great to write existential love letters to.

I meant the Brüninghaus album...

Listening to the Brüninghaus album right now. It's absolutely gorgeous.

I've only dipped a couple of toes into EM, but this is my favourite era - whether the tonal palette started to get fleshed out a little with synths and digital reverb units.

Has this ever been discussed? Total banger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX6-pNcJqko

* dipped a couple of toes into ECM, obviously.

That's great, Isham only made one record for ECM?

I feel a bit of an early/mid-eighties rabbit hole coming on, see if I can find some more records with that integrated synth feel.

He played on a few other records, but this is his only album as a leader.
https://www.ecmrecords.com/artists/1435045855/mark-isham

Would love some recommendations of other synthy titles.

I will report back on my findings, I'm kinda intrigued by 'Ecotopia' by Orgeon based on the Allmusic review quoted in it's Wikipedia entry.

"there is no excuse for this waste of studio time and Manfred Eicher's energy. It is no wonder that he began the ECM New Series a few years before, given the junk churned out by some of label's stable between 1983 and 1988, and this record is a stellar example. Simply put, this is a trite, new age piece of dreck slopped out by a group of musicians whose combined creativity should always take them to stellar heights. There are no redeeming tracks on this disc, and few redeeming moments "

That sounds exactly like my kind of thing.

Looks like Ralph Towner's on that one - his Blue Sun has loads of synth all over it.

It's interesting to hear synths used in this context, rather than 'pure' electronic music which tends to put a premium on sound design over playing chops. It's sometimes quite jarring to hear a DX7 on one of these records, played virtuosically but using some hoary old presets.

This might be a good jumping off point.

https://thevinylfactory.com/features/vf-mix-ecm-by-arp/

Brilliant - yes, that looks like a great place to start!

Surman & DeJohnette's Adventures of Simon Simon would fit

Another Brüninghaus from an earlier record released in '80, this has an almost John Carpenter-y looping synth/electric piano line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg2214arX04

Ecotopia is pretty bland for Oregon, not sure if there is nothing to keep but they have done much better.

Surman & DeJohnette's Adventures of Simon Simon would fit

yeah i really like Surman's use of synth vs sax overdubs, really unique - withholding pattern and upon reflection are my favourites in this vein

big fan of that isham album too

i had somehow missed that Tomasz Stanko died - seeing him play with his Polish quartet is a top 10 show for me

That Brüninghaus album is so great, thanks for the rec.

The new album "Helsinki Songs" by Norwegian sax player Trygve Seim and his quartet is grand cru. Kristjan Randalu's subtle piano play is wonderful.

oh hell yeah

so much good scandi jazz

If you're buying the Art Ensemble box in-person, you might want to make sure all discs are there before you check out. My box has two copies of New Directions (XVI) and no copies of Far Side (XIV).

Very clear and fjordian

Accurate.

I think David Torn's 'cloud about mercury' was just reissued.

They're reissuing 50 titles on CD in cardboard sleeves - the first 25 on February 1, and the rest in May. This is the first batch:

Paul Bley • Ballads
Chick Corea • Piano Improvisations Vol. 1
Ralph Towner/Gary Burton • Matchbook
Barre Phillips • Mountainscapes
Eberhard Weber • The Following Morning
Pat Metheny • Watercolors
Mick Goodrick • In Pas(s)ing
George Adams • Sound Suggestions
Leo Smith • Divine Love
Jan Garbarek/Kjell Johnsen • Aftenland
Steve Tibbetts • Northern Song
Mike Nock • Ondas
Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette • Standards Vol. 1
Kenny Wheeler • Double Double You
John Abercrombie • Night
Dave Holland Quintet • Seeds of Time
David Torn • Cloud About Mercury
Terje Rypdal & The Chasers • Blue
Dino Saluzzi • Andina
Louis Sclavis Quintet • Rouge
Miroslav Vitous/Jan Garbarek • Atmos
John Surman/John Warren • The Brass Project
Stephan Micus • To the Evening Child
Bobo Stenson Trio • War Orphans
Peter Erskine Trio • Juni

I'm definitely buying Divine Love and maybe Double Double You.

ugh, cardboard sleeves.

I'll still buy a few.

David Torn is a given, yes, but anyone who doesn't know the Goodrick, Tibbetts, and Barre Philips titles here in particular should snatch them up asap. Massively underrated ECM titles imo

I'm assuming there's no need to remaster any of these, so these are likely just straight reissues of the previously CD versions, right?

Ondas is pretty classic as well.

which ones of those are fjordian

TIA

not fjordian at all but I love some Dino Saluzzi and his version of the Haden/Bley classic Silence (with Haden) is so beautiful.

If you've never heard it, this would be the perfect time to dig in to Eberhard Weber's the Following Morning.

Also, everyone should buy Northern Song, too!

These re-issues are great news. On another note, I've checked the "Offers" section on the ECM homepage and noticed these are different titles than when I checked last time (around December).

i'm liking Yonathan Avishai's Joys and Solitudes. No mystic fjords but it is lovely and subtle.

Is it just me, or have ECM New Series releases really dropped off? This seems to have happened around the release of the Kurtág box set. I wonder if that project involved such financial expenditure for ECM that Manfred Eicher won’t get around to recording more avant-garde classical until the main ECM label releases something popular and relatively high-selling that can subsidize the ECM New Series side of the label (historically, this has been yet another Keith Jarrett release, but Jarrett probably doesn’t move units like he used to).

It's not just you, and it saddens me to no end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nOqxTdQiKQ

Posted this on the Bill Frisell thread, but I listened to the Frisell/Thomas Morgan live album Epistrophy a bunch today, and really enjoyed it. Frisell in chill improv mode is great.

Checking out their previous one, Small Town, now

I think the new Kit Downes album the nicely titled Dreamlife Of Debris is a lovely album, loved Obsidian as well. Also cool that he recorded his church organ pieces at St Paul's Hall in the cultural wasteland that is Hudds again!

Well, this fucking sucks:

How many of the moments of genuine peace in your lives do you owe to Jan Erik Kongshaug, the legendary Norwegian sound engineer behind the sound of ECM Records, who passed away today?

— Brent S. Sirota (@BrentSirota) November 5, 2019

Oh no. Fuck, that's horrible. RIP.

:(((

I wonder how far this documentary got: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1919963818/jan-erik-kongshaug-dokumentar/posts/2472853

rip to a real one

shit missed this revive. RIP Jan

Mal Waldron - Free At Last, the Extended Anniversary Edition is issued as an audiophile vinyl double album.
Revisited and remastered, with additional takes + 16 page booklet.
Pre-order here: https://t.co/hJ6meW7ftB pic.twitter.com/brJole1eMs

— ECM Records (@ECMRecords) November 8, 2019

I’m finding a lot of these records sound *incredible* on good stereo speakers. Tord Gustavsen Extended Circle is the latest one to really grab me. Opener “Right There” is a stark, stately thing of beauty.

Nice thing by Richard Williams on the 50th anniversary - with a Top 20 (19): https://thebluemoment.com/2020/01/03/ecm-at-50/

no Mal Waldron no cred imo!

ECM's artwork over the last fifty years has evolved, for example the recent choice to put portraits of musicians on the covers or back (Avishai Cohen, Elina Duni) has been a striking change.

But has any release had such extremely un-ECM cover art as the new Vincent Courtois release? https://www.ecmrecords.com/catalogue/1578064137

The catalogue number is different: RJAL 397034. The cover art appears to be in keeping with their other releases in the series: https://www.ecmrecords.com/search-advanced/rjal.

Sorry, I goofed. The new Vincent Courtois release has a catalogue number RJAL 397034, which means it belongs to the La Buissonne side label, not ECM proper. But showing this album on the general ECM New Releases page makes it look really outlandish compared to its more typically austere neigbours.

I know, right? I mean...a serif font?

A lot of Carla Bley's albums have very goofy, un-ECM-ish cover art, but those were licensed from her to the label, so Manfred didn't have much input.

I liked this cover, from 2015 (and the music's really good too):

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/714t8cm9bQL.jpg

I've always thought the cover of The Colours of Chloe is very un-ECMish, but I guess it was early days then.

I know Kit Downes is probably tainted by being the regular token jazz nom for low level shite like the mercury/BBC awards for years, but I think his last two albums Obsidian/Dream Life of Debris are really beautiful. Pretty typical ECM covers though.

https://shop.new-art.nl/assets/image.php?width=800&image=/content/img/new_products_queue/1543327215.jpg

This one is the one that really struck me as an uncharacteristic ECM cover, though the font at the top ties it in with the aesthetic I guess.

love that album as well!

Bleeding Gums Murphy!

Agree, that latest Downes album is really good.

Heh, with that last cover art above, I imagine ECM having a photo just of the bridge and night skyline, and then Lovano’s manager or someone insisting that image of him playing sax be photoshopped in front of it.

just listened to that Mal Waldron Free At Last remaster, not that I've done any comparing with the original or neither am I an audiophile to any degree, but it sounds beautiful.

HUGE dud: Jan Garbarek (or "Janny G" as he's often nicknamed on the ECM list). Smooooth! etc

There were a couple of bootlegs of the Jan Garbarek Quartet with Terje Rypdal ca. 69-71 on the Inconstant Sol blog 5 years or so ago that I thought were pretty killer. Looks like they're gone now, that's a pity. Rypdal even got a couple of madcap Keith Rowe moments in IIRC.

Ah shit, just found out that Jon Christensen, brilliant house drummer of sorts to ECM artists has passed.

Figured this thread is a good place to post that I'm enjoying this IG account that's taking a look at all ECM albums in chronological order: https://www.instagram.com/ecm_listening/

It's a simple premise but fun to follow. Some of these early releases are blowing my mind. I particularly love the albums from Terje Rypdal, Marion Brown and Stanley Cowell Trio covered so far.

What exactly caused ECM’s nadir of the mid-late 1980s? Was it a matter of most of the ECM stable producing poor work at this time? Or was it a matter of Eicher choosing only to release the bad stuff?

A bit of the latter, a lot of the former as far as I can tell. Since I've got too much time on my hands, I may try to come up with a 'best of ECM in the 80s' list just for the hell of it.

Mostly because I'm not entirely sure we'd all agree on what constitutes ECM's nadir.

I'm sure there was some a+ Bley albums in the 80s on ecm, Dino Saluzzi..loads of other things I can't remember rn. So much good stuff I think "nadir" might be very harsh!

Avro Part is no nadir!

Calzino, Arvo Pärt releases are on ECM New Series, not ECM proper. In the opinion of some, Eicher's founding of the New Series side label is what got him out of a rut he was stuck in during this decade.

ok now I'm curious to know what ilxors consider to be truly the worst of ECM

what discs constitute said nadir? like I see the point but I’ve really enjoyed quite a few discs from that period over the last few years - I think a lot of stylistic aspects that might’ve made them feel unlovely at the time have aged pretty well (synths and drum machines, new age-y textures)

For reference some I’ve really dug from that era are ‘we begin’ by mark isham and art lande - ‘withholding pattern’ John Surman - ‘continuum’ Rainer Brunighaus et al - just off top of my head

Sorry multiple xp

I’ve seen a few people cite Shankar’s The Epidemics as the worst ECM release, and it sure is a stinker—Steve Vai on guitar!

wow! ok that's a must-hear, at least once.

It's definitely down there.

tbf, I've picked up some ECM releases that were incredibly corny, only to find out their release date was '74 or whatever

Theres a couple Michael mantler and Dob Preston releases that get a bit dungeon synth at times and which have "aged badly" and that shankar sounds shit but some of my favourite ecm is from the 80s (love all the 80s oregon albums for instance)

I bought this one when it first came out, after reading xgau's review:
Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition: Album Album [ECM, 1984]
Like so many of the best-liked new jazz albums, this one pays heartfelt respects to the carnivalesque--if you really wanted to, you could dance to it. But you'd probably rather listen, because at the same time it's highly composed, often dividing tunes into several distinct sections, and superbly played--John Purcell and Howard Johnson damn near keep up with master saxophonist David Murray. And beneath it all, tipping the balance between rowdy and civilized, is a Manfred Eicher mix that makes the record sit more like chamber music than DeJohnette could possibly have intended. A- He's right!

So turn it up, for me always on headphones, and no prob.

Excluding NS releases and without revisiting any of them, my 80s ECM faves look something like this:

Bengt Berger Band with Don Cherry – Bitter Funeral Beer (1982)
Bill Connors – Swimming with a Hole in My Body (1980)
Codona – Codona 2 (1981)
Codona – Codona 3 (1983)
David Darling – Cycles (1982)
David Torn & Geoffrey Gordon – Best Laid Plans (1985)
Hajo Weber, Ulrich Ingebold – Winterreise (1982)
Jack DeJohnette – Special Edition (1980)
Jon Hassell – Power Spot (1986)
Keith Jarrett – Dark Intervals (1988)
Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson & Jon Christensen – Personal Mountains (1989)
Masqualero – Bande à part (1986)
Michael Galasso – Scenes (1983)
Paul Bley, John Surman, Bill Frisell & Paul Motian – Fragments (1986)
Paul Motian Band – Psalm (1982)
Sam Rivers – Contrasts (1980)

So yeah, it does skew rather heavily towards the decade's first half.

Dino Saluzzi - Once Upon A Time Far Away In The South

features a devastatingly beautiful rendition of Silence a oh and the Paul Bley Quartet w/ John Surman, Bill Frisell, Paul Motian from '87 was classic as well imo

I'm weird in that I prefer Saluzzi's later (00s and beyond) material. And yeah, I should've added that Bley Quartet to the list.

it probably is not as good as his later albums tbf but i wouldn't call it bad

That Jack DeJohnette band was good, but I really don't like Paul Motian in almost any context. His style of drumming just hits my ear all wrong.

His 70s ECM albums are even better, obv., but I've got plenty of time for his drumming regardless of context.

My favorite Keith Jarrett record is 1986's Book Of Ways, the album of clavichord improvisations that taught me what bebung is. Also Eberhard Weber's Later That Evening from 1982 is gorgeous.

bitter funeral beer is sublime

quite fond of alfred harth's this earth! from '84 with bley on piano & vocals from maggie nichols

New releases on ECM---won't let me paste, but some appealing copy re projects led by Avishai Cohen, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Carla Bley, Oded Tzur---press page here, with links to streaming sources and album trailers etc.:http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1101632560908&ca=a58f0d68-50f1-46a9-aa74-a92a9f1efbe8

listened to the 3 codona albums today, still great!

Everything involving Don Cherry (the musician) and Collin Walcott is good by default. Beyond Codona, Naná Vasconcelos was more hit or miss, I'm afraid.

Pretty much everything Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell put out on ECM in the 80s is solid.

Hard disagree, but I'm in the minority here. Can't stand either except Frisell as a sideman and only on occasion.

I mean, yes, you probably have to like what they are doing in the first place to enjoy those albums. But I'd say for Pat Metheny in particular, a bunch of his best work is on those ECM albums, and I like what Bill Frisell was doing at the time more than most of his output from the mid 90s onward.

Pat Metheny’s last ECM release was 1984. I think that means he just barely missed the period that seems to be regarded as a nadir.

Figured this thread is a good place to post that I'm enjoying this IG account that's taking a look at all ECM albums in chronological order: https://www.instagram.com/ecm_listening/

It's a simple premise but fun to follow. Some of these early releases are blowing my mind. I particularly love the albums from Terje Rypdal, Marion Brown and Stanley Cowell Trio covered so far.

― cooldix, Friday, 13 March 2020 08:37 (two we

Nice!

listened to the 3 codona albums today, still great!

Dang did you catch a codonavirus or something?

A couple of '80s albums not mentioned in the revive that I like a lot: Don Cherry / Ed Blackwell ‎– 'El Corazón' (1982) and Jack DeJohnette - 'Inflation Blues' (1983). I haven't heard that many ECM records from the era, but I gather these don't really represent the stereotypical sound. 'El Corazón' is a really rich and varied duet album with some intriguing instrumentation (I probably listen to it more than the more-heralded 'Mu'), while 'Inflation Blues' also has lots of world music influences (DeJohnette even sings on the title track, which is almost political reggae). I love the cover art too. His solo stuff is pretty underrated, I reckon.

Xp. I made this pun today

I probably listen to it more than the more-heralded ‘Mu’

i’m not quite there, tho i spin it a lot. it’s a truly amazing record and i often feel like it transcends the normal human musical capacities of two people. a lot of don’s stuff is like that tho.

also y’all should check out the bitter funeral band live footage in the don cherry thread if you haven’t already

Yes, I'm heading over there. That's the thread that keeps giving!

im listening to all the ECM albums on Spotify chronologically as a little covid project

I did this in 2015-2016 (if memory serves). 10/10, I wholeheartedly recommend it to all.

Paul Bley, John Surman, Bill Frisell & Paul Motian – Fragments (1986)

This is about as good of a record as ECM ever put out. There is a bit of a sequel to this by a related band -- a bit freer but a similar vibe:

John Surman, Paul Bley, Tony Oxley, Gary Peacock, Adventure Playground (1991)

That's a lot of albums to listen too! Alright, putting on some Mal Waldron piano jams.

was surprised by the one-two of Mal Waldron Trio free at last and Paul Bley with Gary Peacock as they're both pretty standard contemporary jazz of the time, good records no doubt, but just in the hard-bop/post-bop veins (a lot of Paul Bley stuff of this era is way out there obv, like the synth stuff with Annette Peacock).

then Afternoon of A Georgia Faun by Marlon Brown and Music Improvisation Company is a one-two of free jazz and non-idiomatic free improv!

wonder when the first "ecm sound" (misnomer -there are many sounds on ecm records - but you know what I mean) type record will rear its head. I see "Janny G" himself with ECM1007 Afric Pepperbird coming up, maybe he could be the culprit (wrong word, I love "ecm sound" and Jan) but I seem to remember he was more avant grade for a stage in his early career

Early Garbarek is some of the best ECM shit, full stop.

Not ECM, but don't sleep on the Esoteric Circle LP, which features all the future ECM vets and gets way skronky

Early Garbarek is some of the best ECM shit, full stop.

About a month ago, I bought the 2012 Dansere box set, which contains 1971's Sart with Terje Rypdal on guitar, Bobo Stenson on piano, Arild Andersen on bass and John Christensen on drums; 1973's Witchi-Tai-To, with Stenson, Palle Danielsson on bass, and Christensen; and 1975's Dansere, with the same band as Witchi-Tai-To. I was shocked by how loud and skronky Sart is; there are passages that sound like David S. Ware and Keiji Haino going at it. I love it.

spinning garbarek’s “officium” rn. it’s an interesting idea but i’m guessing this will wind up in my sell / give away pile.

im listening to Afric pepperbird right now and jan is cooking skronkily, especially on beast of kommodo and the title track. ayler-esque at times

some very nifty bass from arild andersen also

Beast of Kommodo has been burned into my brain for the better part of 2 decades, such a killer tune

David Darling's Cycles – one of the most beautiful albums ever recorded imo – features some of Garbarek's finest post-skronk contributions, but they're the exception that confirms the rule, alas.

like many others i have used the current state of things as an excuse to go on a deep ecm journey and it's been fuckin great

Speaking of David Darling, it's always puzzling when an artist who has recorded for ECM for decades, stops recording for ECM and puts out work solely on other labels. One starts to wonder if Eicher felt Darling's work in the new millennium to have become too New Agey even for his label.

If that's the actual reason, Manfred Eicher otm.

eberhard weber is the shit

yeah!

I’m fond of his debut. The rest... not so much.

He has his moments.

I’m fond of his debut. The rest... not so much.

― Publius Covidius Naso (pomenitul), Sunday, April 5, 2020 3:25 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the colours of chloë inspired my post! but also i have been digging into the colours box and already disagree

anyone listen to the re-master of ECM001, the immortal Mal Waldron Free At Last album? I'm not much of an audiophile but thought it sounded better in some unknown way.

I listened to whatever is on spotify and it sounded more muscular than most ECM albums.

yeah I don't think he did anything else on ecm, but I think he went through labels like jumpers.

It's a pretty solid album and not all that uncharacteristic for early ECM. I haven't heard the remaster, though – will rectify that soon.

yeah I don't think he did anything else on ecm, but I think he went through labels like jumpers.

He did the one where he plays electric organ for JAPO which is ECM by proxy. Total one-off in a pretty amazing way.

The Call is amazing. I think that is his only turn on electric organ and he should have done it more often

wow @ “the call”

Echo the love for 'The Call.' Krauty goodness. Unfortunately so hard to come across.

Back on the Garbarek chat, I'm no expert on his stuff but I love, love, love the demented squawk he introduces himself with halfway through the first song from Terje Rypdal's s/t album. That whole album is killer and that song/moment especially.

Getting big Bitches Brew/Jack Johnson vibes from this Rypdal album.

i love eberhard weber. amazing krautrock jazz fusion. he's a pioneer imo. i started an unsuccessful topic about him some time back.

The first Rypdal/Vitous/DeJohnette album sounds like a strong precursor to 80s Frisell, especially the Power Tools band.

anybody have any thoughts on this album? i am currently of the opinion that the lineup promises more than the music delivers, but perhaps i need to spend some more time with it.

Recommend Barre Phillips' Call When You Get There (1984) and also Adelhard Roidinger's Schattseite (1982), particularly the second track "Lufti", for some great double-bass vibes.

This earlier Eberhard Weber is amazing, I'd only ever heard Later That Evening before.

I'm on the ECM is perfect right now bus - listening to lots of Weber and Metheny. For Rypdal I've always gone towards Odyssey and After the Rain but the self-titled is classic, too.

For other recommendations, I really like Coruscating by John Surman (from 2000) and the first Azimuth from 1977, which is on Spotify as a threefer with Touchstone and Depart which are a bit meh.

I haven't heard that New Directions album, but did have similar thoughts about Dejohnette's 'Untitled,' which I think is pretty much the same lineup. Still good, and maybe need to spend more time with it. I'm a big fan of his 'Sorcery' album also with Abercrombie (not on ECM, but feels like it could be).

Currently quite enjoying an album by Contact Trio called 'Muzik.' I don't know too much about them, but they're on JAPO - rather rocky and moody stuff! Was there a specific line in the sand for deciding what was released on JAPO?

the steve tibbetts stuff i've heard is pretty incredibly sick (thanks deej) and that's '80s ecm

uhhh chick corea - return to forever (ecm 1022) anyone?

it slaps!

Chick Corea reminds a total blind spot in my exploration of ECM's output. But knowing that the man has recorded at least one entire tribute album to L. Ron Hubbard, it is hard to pull the trigger on buying or downloading his releases.

That first Return To Forever album is interesting. Kind of a more chilled out version of the band, in contrast with Romantic Warrior, which is 100% dedicated to L. Ron, has completely bonkers over the top energy, and is totally worth listening to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTKBKzlelKc

Really dig "Sand-Glass" from Yellow Fields, especially the way the electric piano keeps coloring that hypnotic ostinato in all kinds of alien ways.

I always love it when this thread pops back, so suitably inspired I dug out my ECM folder and randomly chose Art Lande's Desert Marauders (with Mark Isham) from 1978 and it's sounding pretty great this morning.

steve tibbetts is the jon hassell of guitar. total goat.

yes the thing i'm getting from the few records i've sampled is that he's a total godlike genius

I was very pleased to learn that Julia Holter is a fan of his.

Back on topic, the first two Return to Forever albums are at least genre classics in my opinion; silly ideological baggage or no. The first one has often struck me as kind of a Latin-tinged distant relative of (dare I say it) In A Silent Way.

lol at this thread coming up so perfect.
first day of panic i loaded up a bunch of ecm on shuffle.
thanks. i need to listen more closely.

and i dig Tibbetts

He was on In A Silent Way so...

xxp

The Tibbets record from last year (Life Of?) is really great. Also soothing.

2018, forgive me.

Looking at the monster ECM discography on wiki: 70s stoner faves I dimly recall incl. two by Gateway (Abercrombie, Holland, DeJohnette), Sargasso Sea, by Abercrombie/Towner, and a couple by Oregon, who incl. Towner and Colin Walcott, also of the groovy Codona (and he played on On The Corner). Oregon seemed pretty invigorating at the time, living up to associations w their name (Pacific Northwest seemed so exotic), and they'd even made an album feat. Elvin Jones before coming to ECM. (Before all that, Music Of Another Present Erawas their perfectly-titled revelation on early 70s late-night freeflow FM.)

Oregon exemplified what came to be called (at least in magazines) The New Acoustic Music, but what David Grisman called "dawg music." Some friends of mine, Grisman heads, also covered "Conference of the Birds," the lyrical, limber, low-key, lovely, misleading title track of the Dave Holland Quartet album: for me, at least, past that and the playful, spare "Q & A," and even though Holland and Barry Altschul=distinctive, leaf-gripping, seed-popping rhythm at the very least, the combination of Sam Rives *and* Anthony Braxton was just somehow too freaky---so I gave up, put it away for at least ten years, then tried again, loved it, it's my favorite ECM of all time!

So I should check The Paris Concert, by Circle, which was Braxton (also played percussion), Holland, and Altschul, with Corea, in his very brief avant-inclined phase, between Miles and Return To Forever and so on (well, there's also A.R.C., Circle minus Braxton, but that would prob be too much Corea for me)

Also belatedly discovered and enjoyed Steve Kuhn, especially albums involving Sheila Jordan. And Metheny's involving Charlie Haden.

And the aforementioned Album Album. others by or involving DeJ., and Art Ensemble/Lester Bowie.

Sam RIVERS I meant

And this one

https://shop.new-art.nl/assets/image.php?width=800&image=/content/img/new_products_queue/14307337350911.jpg

CONTRASTS
SAM RIVERS

Release date: 30.06.1980
ECM 1162
Format : CDLP
Cart
Buy CD€ 15.90
Buy LP€ 20.00
Dave Holland always described Sam Rivers’ groups as his finishing school. It was Sam who instructed him to play “all the music” – inside, outside, atonal, swing, blues, and all the hues of the jazz and chamber music traditions. By the time of Contrasts,Rivers and Holland had been working together consistently for seven years (with Dave’s Conference of the Birds at the start of the story), a powerhouse combination of multi-reeds and double bass. Of the drummers who passed through the line-up, Thurman Barker was one of the most creative, rippling across drum kit and marimba. Young trombone innovator George Lewis had already worked with Holland and Barker in Anthony Braxton groups. For Contrasts everyone was fired up and ready to play.

FEATURED ARTISTS
Sam Rivers Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Flute
George Lewis Trombone
Dave Holland Double Bass
Thurman Barker Drums, Marimba
TRACKLIST
1CIRCLES
(Sam Rivers)
04:19
2ZIP
(Sam Rivers)
04:44
3SOLACE
(Sam Rivers)
06:57
4VERVE
(Sam Rivers)
5DAZZLE
(Sam Rivers)
09:16
6IMAGES
(Sam Rivers)
03:54
7LINES
(Sam Rivers)

That Circle live is the one 70s ECM vinyl I own, it's real good.

Just bought Yellow Fields and Colours of Chloë on Ebay for $25, hopefully they are in serviceable condition.

important: https://www.instagram.com/ecm_memes/

This is a good one ive been listening to while playing Witcher 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW1npkQEtDo

Those ECM memes are top notch.

And yeah, Dawn Dance is awesome.

important: https://www.instagram.com/ecm_memes/

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Wednesday, April 8, 2020 11:02 AM

i've never previously followed an account before actually looking at any of the content, but there's a first time for everything.

OMG I didn't know I needed ECM memes so bad

I'm listening to Dawn Dance and this is right on the line of what I can cope with vis-a-vis ECM. I took my boy for some counselling sessions before all this madness kicked off and this is giving me flashbacks to the awful, awful music they piped into the waiting room.

it's just some incredible guitar playing and percussion don't be scared

Brad knows what's up.

The earlier Cloud Dance is even better imo – basically Gateway (John Abercrombie/Dave Holland/Jack DeJohnette) + Collin Walcott. Just stellar stuff.

I'm totally that guy in the meme checking out Bremen/Lausanne's arse.

Same, except the aptly named Dark Intervals and the self-consciously classical Paris Concert would be my top solo Jarrett picks.

Terje can have a little flugelhorn, as a treat. Next level lolz.

As if the quality of the playing was ever going to be the issue.

One of my great "digger" joys was a stop in Konstanz, Germany some years ago. I hit up the local (old, pretty well stocked) record store and came away with pretty much pristine first pressings of all of Eberhard Weber's mid '70s to early '80s ECM run on vinyl for ... €7 a pop?

Sold off most of my vinyl collection last year but I kept those.

The earlier Cloud Dance is even better imo – basically Gateway (John Abercrombie/Dave Holland/Jack DeJohnette) + Collin Walcott. Just stellar stuff.

― Publius Covidius Naso (pomenitul), Thursday, April 9, 2020 6:45 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is absolutely killer thank you pom

My pleasure! I wish Collin Walcott was still around and making music.

One of my great "digger" joys was a stop in Konstanz, Germany some years ago. I hit up the local (old, pretty well stocked) record store and came away with pretty much pristine first pressings of all of Eberhard Weber's mid '70s to early '80s ECM run on vinyl for ... €7 a pop?― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, April 9, 2020 8:48 AM (seven hours ago)

big time mood. you did p well i'd reckon.

Dawn dance reminds me of the diablo soundtrack but better

The Chick Corea/Gary Burton - Crystal Silence album is amazing. "Crystal" nails the sound. Vibes+piano and it sounds like a glass of ice water. Just a fantastic record, and I've been playing it a lot lately.

Gonna check it out now. Love all the suggestions coming up on here. There's a ton of great stuff I've missed out on.

John surman - upon reflection is a dope album

dimly recall walcott's obit from one of the very very early issues of wire (single figures, might actually be the first one): i had no idea who he was and only a very vague grasp what ECM was at the time but somehow filed it away anyway as an important moment

Just stuck on Keith Jarrett’s ‘My Song’...just lovely...RIP Jon Christensen

man, Bennie Maupin "the jewel in the lotus" slays. just one of the best spiritual, definitely out-there but not free jazzy albums I've heard in years

It's absolutely stellar, yeah. Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer's repurposed version of 'Ensenada' on Re: ECM is also worth your time, if you haven't heard it.

Weirdly haven't heard it considering how fanboyish ive previously been wrt sweet ricardo, will give it a go

This seems like a good time to hunt down vinyl copies of their 70s/80s albums. They haven't quite gotten to the point where they are considered collectible, so there are lots of good deals to be had. Currently stalking a copy of Burton/Weber - Ring on Ebay, and will probably try to snap up the Return To Forever debut too.

i love 'reshadub' off the villalobos ecm

It's not directly ECM-related, but last year's The Clouds Know as Vilod (Villalobos/Loderbauer) was excellent. And speaking of 'Reshadub', Paul Giger deserves more plaudits too, especially for Chartres.

Burton's 'Ring' is fantastic. I picked it up for about $5 a couple of months ago and it's been near the turntable ever since. There are lots of good ECM bargains out there. Speaking of which I pulled 'My Song' from my Discogs inventory and gave it a spin this morning. What a surprisingly good album- usually Garbarek gets too corny for me but he was terrific on this.

Another unsuccessful ECM topic I made: Keith Jarrett — "The European Quartet" (i.e. Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson, Jon Christensen) albums

john surman "within the halls of neptune" is the best thing i've ever heard

what a title! I’ll need to check it out.

the rest of the record the amazing adventures of simon and simon is also really great

getting really into dino saluzzi's "kultrum" LP

v cool stuff

Oho, just unearthed a 1994 Downbeat, incl. appealing review of Gary Peacock & Ralph Towner's Oracle--ECM 78118-21490-2 (50:12) Personnel: Peacock, double bass, Towner, classical and 12-string guitars
...Versatility is essential if one works with both Bill Evans and Albert Ayler, as Peacock did in the mid-60s...
Oracle reinforces the perception that Peacock is a guitarist at heart, who happens to play bass violin. He is recorded beautifully and prominently. "Inside Inside" tricks your ear...as Peacock and Towner reverse roles and registers. The filigrees and pensive moods of "Flutter Step" and "Empty Carousel" fit Tower's strengths and mannerisms so closely, it's a surprise to discover that Peacock wrote those tunes. Towner('s)...interplay with Peacock recalls collaborations with John Abercrombie and Glen Moore. It's hard to recall a bassist other than Moore who's shown such empathy for the guitarist. Working with Peacock reinvigorates Towner, and a reunion with Towner on piano would be intriguing.
Reviewer Jon Anderson also says that (despite the light touch, intricacy and sensitivity that pervades the session), it "isn't a stretch for either of them," then gives it 4 1/2 stars---y'all heard it??

I am still working my way through the Touchstone series. The one I keep coming back to is "The Pilgrim and The Stars" from Enrico Rava. Clearly influenced by Miles Davis around Bitches Brew but Rava plays very melodic lines on top of the music which gives it a very European touch. My introduction to Jon Christensen too.

All the Kenny Wheeler albums on ECM are worth investigating too. The last one I purchases was "Music for Small and Large Ensembles" and I wish I got earlier as it's a gorgeous album, starting in a somewhat Metheny/Mays-vein (without the Brasilian influences) but then moving to the usual very strong writing (and orchestratino) that Wheeler was known for. The interplay between Mike Brecker and Wheeler on "Double, Double You" is also amazing. And I haven't even heard his output on CamJazz..

the mark isham and rainer brüninghaus records referenced upthread are incredible

All the Kenny Wheeler albums on ECM are worth investigating too.

I only have ever heard Gnu High, but it's got the Peacock / Jarrett / Dejohnette trio backing him and it's really good.

Angel Song - Kenny Wheeler's album with Lee Konitz, Bill Frissell and Dave Holland is gorgeous.

Reminds me: just came across an old Downbeat Blindfold Test where Dave Liebman raves about Wheeler's playing on the title track of Jane Ira Bloom's Art and Aviation (Arabesque, 1992), and gives the whole thing 4 1/2 stars.

deer wan by wheeler is great

(w/holland, DeJohnette, garbarek, Abercrombie)

Edward Vesala's Nan Madol really hit the spot this morning.

I am still working my way through the Touchstone series. The one I keep coming back to is "The Pilgrim and The Stars" from Enrico Rava. Clearly influenced by Miles Davis around Bitches Brew but Rava plays very melodic lines on top of the music which gives it a very European touch. My introduction to Jon Christensen too.

just played this this morning, very good.

listened to the koln concerts today and now listening to yellow fields by eberhard weber, probably my favorite of the 3 albums mentioned.

Angel Song - Kenny Wheeler's album with Lee Konitz, Bill Frissell and Dave Holland is gorgeous.

Seconded, and it also has great comping by Bill Frisell. I wish "It should've happened a long time ago" on which he also plays was available as a single disc. It's only available as part of a 6cd box of all Paul Motian's work for ECM.

Tord Gustavsen Trio - The Ground, is transporting me very efficiently through some boring work admin duties this morning.

"It Should Have Happened..." is a high point (among many others) here---Frisell w The Bad Plus, mostly playing Motian compositions, at Newport in 2012---stream/download: https://www.npr.org/2012/08/08/158004697/the-bad-plus-with-bill-frisell-live-in-concert-newport-jazz-2012

Hey all, so I was a bit bored this afternoon and made this ECM mix for fun.

It's a collage of about 50/60 different songs, just short little slivers of each, overlaid and crossfaded to make up this weird little hour-long patchwork quilt, often two or three tracks at once.

I went for beatless or interstitial sections, originally I was going to try to make it much more ambient but I used a lot of the earlier records so the first 20 mins came out more gnarly and 'free' sounding in places, but it gets pretty ambient towards the end.

I even managed to get the bass solo from the first track on The Mal Waldron Trio's 'Free At Last' in there (ECM 1001!)

All your faves are present - Jan, Keith, Terje, Gary, Rainer, various Steve's and David's and even Arvo and Meredith.

Hope you like -

https://we.tl/t-kvHasMjdRy

i'm so in love with john surman i can hardly stand it

Surman's Rain On the Window with Howard Moody on church organ is probably not one of his high rated albums but I love it!

There's a Marcin Wasilewski Trio album with Joe Lovano coming. That could be interesting.

Thimar w/ surman, dave holland and anouar brahem that's a classic.

was trying to find the Surman album I haven't heard for ages, it was Upon Reflection I was looking for, Edges of Illusion is a reet track!

Very much agree x2.

Maresn3st, I dig.

ty!

I'm glad I started this thread 19 years ago, even though I never had anything to say further on the topic.

I was prompted by an IG post by a former member of this parish to dig out Surman's Road to St Ives. It's terrific and ghostly and sort of damp and chilly. Though that was my experience of Cornwall three summers ago, so may be projection. Nice smiley, sunny photo of JS in (presumably) Oslo in the CD booklet.

Within the halls of Neptune was on my Spotify daily mix today! I’ve been listening to a ton of Don Cherry recently and want to rep for this one

https://shop.new-art.nl/assets/image.php?width=800&image=/content/img/new_products_queue/1432888623.jpg

ecm complaint: keith jarrett is given waaaay too much leeway to explore his yen for semi-classical improvisation. I do not need 90 minutes of Keith Jarrett improvising on an organ in an abbey!

Jarrett on an off-day is still more interesting than Garbarek, Metheny or (God forbid) Gary Burton at their worst.

inclusion of metheny there baffles me

jarrett’s worst affectation is his singing, but his solo concerts are so powerful that yeah sure i’ll have 90 minutes of him on an organ, why not, his instincts are that sharp

I’m that rare beast, an ECM stan who doesn’t really get Metheny, so take my shortlist of overprolific awfulness with a grain of salt.

Jarrett on an off-day is still more interesting than Garbarek, Metheny or (God forbid) Gary Burton at their worst.

― pomenitul, Friday, May 1, 2020 3:58 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is insane

I enjoy Jarrett's quartets, and his solo piano - although at times he moves into territory which is like a melange of denatured spiritual jazz with Ludovico Einaudi - but I've not gotten any enjoyment from in the light, arbour zena, and hymns/spheres.

At least Jarrett can sport the Romantic abandon of the intuitive experimentalist when he drops a clunker. And I did say ‘at their worst’ – Garbarek’s early work may well edge our my Jarrett faves. I think Burton’s music is unsalvageable trash though.

I have some amount of cautious respect for Metheny, I just don’t recall ever enjoying his stuff.

In the middle days of the April lockdown when the weather was extraordinary and I was sitting in the garden with spring thickening all around me I listened to a good deal of Metheny and assumed it had been written precisely for this moment.

I think Burton’s music is unsalvageable trash though.

― pomenitul, Friday, May 1, 2020 5:13 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I find this troubling. Is it possible you just don't like vibraphone? A lot of people loathe that instrument. Or is it his compositions you dislike? Because he's done an entire album of Carla Bley tunes that's just wonderful. Also, his duo work with Towner, Swallow, Corea et al is uniformly excellent, and the previously mentioned Ring LP is one of the best ECMs. I've always meant to check out Duster, which is supposed to be a really good one, too.

I do enjoy the sound of the instrument, it's just that Burton's vibes are too cheesy for my ears. I'll stick to Bobby Hutcherson.

burton quartet records on rca victor are fucking great.
haven’t heard much of his ecm output so far

People who don't like Gary Burton or Metheny, have you heard Like Minds?

No I haven't but Dave Holland's on it so I may be persuaded.

Pat Metheny has a bunch of great stuff on ECM, and Offramp and Bright Size Life are goddamn masterpieces.

It's been a long time, I think I'm more amenable to the elevator-esque facets of that style than I was ten-odd years ago when I went on an exhaustive ECM binge.

Roy Haynes is the real star of Like Minds, I actually had to check to see if it was his name on the cover.

Gonna check this out. Looks like an expansion of Question and Answer featuring Metheny/Holland/Haynes, which is just a straight up sick jazz album

Speaking of similar allstar lineups The Song Is You (not ECM) featuring Braxton, Corea, Metheny, DeJohnette, Konitz, Vitous, is worth checking out. Think it was recorded in the early 80s, but released more recently.

Those with any interest in Burton should check his original Quartet, meaning the one with Larry Coryell, Steve Swallow and Bob Moses: youthful, groovy, even barefoot, even shroomy at tymes, yet not too noodley--just jazz, shaded w rock, Latin, folk, country, and whatever else they absorbed and recombined, growing up and getting out of the house in the 60s.
Also, probably his Tennessee Firebird, judging by what I've heard of it, hard to find the whole thing, although I haven't looked in a while.
Also the one Carla Bley wrote and arranged for him, A Genuine Tong Funeral,
Never heard much of his early records w Metheny, but got my girl their Reunion, and it became her soundtrack for many after-midnight Windows 95 treks, business and recreational.
I like Metheny better as a costar than outright leader--though his designated debut as the latter, Bright Size Life I hear more as the former, mainly because Bob Moses (and Jaco, ok), and yeah Question and Answer, and the ones w/incl. Charlie Haden, and omg Song X w Ornette (must get expanded reissue), But I liked his RIP pianist Lyle Mays, did like Mays' own Pictionary better than what he got to do with Metheny.
Would like to hear his Steve Reich projects.

he Song Is You (not ECM) featuring Braxton, Corea, Metheny, DeJohnette, Konitz, Vitous, is worth checking out. No Doubt!!!

I agree, I have a hard time getting into Metheny albums, but I love hearing him as a side man and being like 'oh yeah that guy is fucking sick'. #1 on that list is the Kenny Garrett Coltrane tribute, Pursuance.

Y'all really should give Offramp a second try. The guitar synth heroics on the first couple tracks are the best.

The first side of when Witchita Falls is really something... love bright size life and watercolors is nice... I need to spend more time with offramp, most definitely

there’s some badass metheny live shows on YouTube, btw

Please share

American Garage in places is like his lost city pop album, it's amazing

Throwing American Garage on ye olde record player. Nice pre-dinner combo with equally smooth Manhattan.

burton quartet records on rca victor are fucking great.
haven’t heard much of his ecm output so far

― sknybrg, Friday, May 1, 2020 5:19 PM

ring
ring
RING

Seriously I have not been this hooked on a particular album for a long time. S1 is proggy and jammy, S2 is spacey and dreamy. I can't get enough!

I just bought a copy of Ring off ebay a couple weeks ago, inspired by this thread of course. I can't say I'm a huge Gary Burton fan, but that album is nice!

ring
ring
RING

Seriously I have not been this hooked on a particular album for a long time. S1 is proggy and jammy, S2 is spacey and dreamy. I can't get enough!

Well said, the A and B side indeed have quite distinctive vibes!

Okay, fine! I've just ordered a copy of Ring from discogs. Will check back in after I've had a chance to listen.

I’m looking for the ecm stuff that’s more on the electronic / “world music” / genre blending side of stuff if anyone had any good recommends .. love Steve tibbetts, egberto, dino s “kultrum,” nils petter molvaer... I do love a lot of the more purely jazz records described here from the 70s, and any of the really exceptional stuff in that vein I’m always into, but I kinda feel like a lot of what grabs my attention from the label is the stuff they put out that feels almost .. cheesy

Eberhard Weber is your new best friend

Jon Hassell's Power Spot came out via ECM.

windham hill is your new best friend

Rainer Bruninghaus' two records for ECM, check those out also.

iirc Gary Burton played vibes on Tim Hardin's "Misty Roses" in 1966: among his finest two minutes' work.

Some nice ECM references in this massive Jim O'Rourke interview from this week.

Mark Isham & Art Lande's We Begin is a big favourite here in the sort of ambient-electronic ECM space. Mainly for the open track, with its amazing drum machine work.

windham hill is your new best friend

― ANU (sisilafami), Thursday, May 7, 2020 2:30 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Kind of ... I think I want the windham hill side of ecm but windham is its own thing

I feel like Stephan Micus is probably what you're looking for then. His stuff embodies the windham wing of ECM (even if a lot of his best stuff was technically on JAPO).

Interesting ACL footage from the early days of the Pat Metheny Group. I've never completely warmed up to the first Group album, but it's neat to see them still kind of figuring it out. Lyle Mays (RIP) gets some particularly nice showcases here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UweiNBl3TLQ&t=1096s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UweiNBl3TLQ

Hmmmm

I'd like to pause for a moment to rep for Pat Metheny's eternally spectacular head of hair

It always looks like a bit more than his neck can sustain

I watched this just a few days ago, and yes mad props to PM's barnet.

Not on ECM, but Like Minds is Burton, Corea, Metheny, Holland, Haynes--here's the one I heard last night on Jazz For The New Millenium (Rick Mitchell's KBOO show, nationally distributed, named for his book): "Country Roads," a Burton original---incl. Metheny at his bluesiest...it's cool, Pops:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOpEPs3P-IM
Album has some variety, 3 or 4 shades anyway, and I think the whole thing's on the 'Tube.

so i got ring in the mail yesterday. the first half is pretty solid, but if you really dig the second half and have never heard any of eberhard weber's albums. . .well friend, you are in for a treat. overall, good album.

related: anyone know this album? i thought i had it on vinyl, but checking my shelves reveals no such luck. i know i've listened to it ay some point in my life, but i don't recall much about it. a lot of the same band as on ring.

I believe Ring is also the first recorded appearance of Pat Metheny.

In related news, I got my copy of Chick Corea - Return to Forever in the mail yesterday.

Passengers is solid. Dreams So Real (The Music of Carla Bley) is also worth checking out. It features the Ring band minus Eberhard Weber, and the selection of Bley tunes is terrific - that's always been one of my favorites.

Didn't realize that was all Bley, will check. I've seen Passengers, which also has some early Metheny playing and writing, it sez here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_(Gary_Burton_album)#cite_note-RSJRG-3

continuing my Jarrett gripes: staircase. another inessential Jarrett record on ecm in the 70s

Not a huge Burton fan, but I'm enjoying Dreams So Real. I'm guessing Carla Bley was a big influence for Metheny's more composition-heavy recordings that came later.

https://instagram.com/ecm_listening

found this account just now. seems relevant.

Lol, my entire Instagram feed is going to be ECM content

Haha, I posted that ECM Listening IG a bit further up. It's great!

Currently obsessing over the Edward Vesala album mentioned in the Jim O'rourke interview upthread - kind of dark spiritual jazz with awesome drummming and drone-y sections. This label keeps giving.

Poor description, great album.

Appealing description. Although drone-y can be overdone (ILX minority report, yes). Will check, thanks.

Satu is the 2nd album I've heard with Terje Rypdal where his playing sounds extremely similar to 80s Bill Frisell circa Power Tools (other was the first trio album with Vitous and DeJohnette). I have to imagine Frisell was studying these very closely.

Satu is the 2nd album I've heard with Terje Rypdal where his playing sounds extremely similar to 80s Bill Frisell circa Power Tools (other was the first trio album with Vitous and DeJohnette). I have to imagine Frisell was studying these very closely.

I think he did, as he's on this Rypdal-tribute that should appeal to ECM fans.

This is a beauty : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ukrdo696vBc

Satu rules but Nan Madol is one of the best ECM albums, full stop.

That Sky Music tribute-to-Rypdal set is fantastic. I visited the Rune Grammofon offices in Oslo a couple of years ago and bought a copy of the ultra-limited edition version (white vinyl, an extra CD).

How are those 2 extra tracks that aren't on the regular cd release, unperson? I still haven't heard those.

They're good - long guitar jams, but they hold your attention.

Damn, Yellow Fields is so good. Just endlessly flowing like a mountain stream.

Haha, listened to that earlier on this evening. Also Ring and Dreams So Real.

Quarantine is truly the Season of ECM

Pretty much!

Heard a couple of tracks from the Gateway album (mentioned above) recently for the first time. It was beautiful stuff, some of my favorite "new to me" guitar playing I have heard for some time. I have seen Abercrombie's forever, but I kind of chalked up a whole slew of folks from that era as jazz-fusion guys and most of that stuff for me didn't stick once it got to the mid-70s and beyond. But yeah, this I loved and wasn't that fusion-y at all. I actually made a comment to my friend that it sounded a bit like Frisell to me as well (which someone else noted above too). Gonna try to track that album down, had a joyous feel to it which is appreciated right now.

For those completists out there, playlists of the entire ECM catalog in chronological order.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/54hZLPMDWjHVpCi9eJtUPB?si=g1uYq5RTT3eZZnaDy33lKQ

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0XIVL6mL5DoUDF15bCYxF2?si=KSZeZnjrRHSHtB_o7RtnxA

Listening to ECM on Spotify seems totally at odds with the experience of actually listening to an ECM album but that's just me

there are a lot of them, and I only own a tiny fraction

to help make up for this I just snapped up a Ralph Towner vinyl 4 pack of Solstice, Matchbook, Diary, and Sargasso Sea for $30 off ebay.

Sargasso Sea is a really good one! I like Batik a lot, too. Never heard Diary or Matchbook.

I think I'm lapsing into full on WeberMania. In the last couple of days I've checked out 'Later That Evening', 'Little Movements', 'Passengers' & 'Fluid Rustle', all new to me, all of which have been good to great IMO. His sense of space and his overall tone really appeal to me.

His tone is a mystery to me. Sounds so much like a fretless bass a lot of the time. Much louder and sharper than most upright basses. I suppose a lot of that comes from amplification, but it is very unusual.

welcome to the club, sparkle. his music is wondrous and highly rewarding.

re: his tone — i've long suspected he used some subtle modulation effect of some sort. definitely not a flanger or phaser, but the jc-120 (the first instance of chorus that i know of) didn't get released until 1975. would be very curious to know, as well.

https://www.ecmrecords.com/shop/1580224264

Accordionist Jean-Louis Matinier (who was in some ace Brahem bands) with classical guitarist Seddeki on a virtuosic but still retaining some sense of looseness and soulfulness sort of nice album!

If I posted about every ECM discovery during Covid times, I’d need my own thread. And yet, a big thanks to those who mentioned Steve Tibbetts above. I managed to pick up a cheap copy of “Exploded View” and, wow, I wasn’t expecting that. Noisy, feedback-drenched guitar, tribal drums and tape experimentation. Another intriguing dimension of the label to explore.

cycled over to a 2nd hand record store yesterday... first vinyl purchase in months was a cheap copy of Ecotopia by Oregon.
it's a weird one... the two longest tracks are synth drenched and sort of messy... and i'm guessing the reasons why this LP has some bad reviews, everything that surrounds them is much much better. regardless of those 2 synth fests, as per usual everything is so beautifully recorded it doesn't really matter too much? for me, that element + amazing typography and design is the ECM trick for selling me even their shittier lps...

After devouring a steady diet of Weber over the last few months, I've come upon several Pat Metheny LPs lately and have been nuts about them. I tried listening to this stuff 20+ years ago and it all sounded too squishy for me, but now that I'm more squishy it sounds perfect. I can't believe I slept on 'As Falls Wichita' for as long as I did. I think I listened to the title cut half a dozen times in a row. I picked up the first Group LP, along with Offramp and Watercolors as well, all of which I'm crazy about. The synth stuff is perfection imo. Funny that I'm just digging this at this late date but I am who I am.

The ECM album I've been playing the most lately is Ralph Towner - Solstice. Especially love the track "Nimbus". Also a good album to check out for all you Weber heads.

I realized I had that one in my Discogs store inventory and after a few spins, delisted it. It's really good.

I managed to pick up a cheap copy of “Exploded View

nice. i highly recommend safe journey or northern song next. or yr.

or, you know, the entire catalogue. whatever.

The ECM album I've been playing the most lately is Ralph Towner - Solstice

Towner is among the most underrated ECM mainstays imo. I love Batik too, especially 'Waterwheel'.

The 4 Towner albums I picked up on Ebay are all front to back great

I got the '78 Metheny Group for next to nothing and it has been one of my 'jigsaw puzzle' soundtracks of lockdown. I don't doubt for a second, despite how fucked up things have been, that I'll look back at this - and the album - as a golden period.

'78 Metheny Group

listening now and damn. also my friends would murder me if I played this for them.

is this the "Phase Dance" one? It was really famous, but I've never been able to really get into this one.

That's the one. Seemed really appealing on a first playthrough.

Listening to Batik again and DeJohnette's solo on the title track is pure *chef's kiss*.

As is Eddie Gómez's bowed double bass playing.

xp It is the Phase Dance one! The whole album is gorgeous.

This is specific and probably obsessive, but ever since the quarantining started, the first album I listen to every day has been Tibbetts' <i>Northern Songs</i> - sometimes just side two, sometimes the whole thing. I found this interview about the making of the album, where Tibbetts talks about having other loops and sounds that he wanted to add to the album and I'm personally glad it didn't work out for them:

<a href="https://www.allaboutjazz.com/steve-tibbetts-northern-song-and-the-sounds-of-silence-steve-tibbetts-by-rob-caldwell.php";>https://www.allaboutjazz.com/steve-tibbetts-northern-song-and-the-sounds-of-silence-steve-tibbetts-by-rob-caldwell.php<;/a>

I've been making a lot of other ECM discoveries but one thing that strikes me is how tight the albums from 60-69 are - I had heard about the legendary first 30 ECM albums or the first 50, but that run from <i>Solstice</i> to <i>Gnu High</i> is almost desert island stuff for me, I've always loved <i>Yellow Fields</i>, I had never even heard <i>Odyssey</i> - if anyone ever asked me where to start with ECM (a question that never comes up), that's where I'd point them.

(Sorry about the formatting fail, I'm rusty)

Odyssey is incredible

i've just put Northern Songs on and my cat has gone full force 100% CHILLED OUT TO THE MAX next to the stereo. magic calming tendencies pumping out of this lp.

i think, when it comes down to it, northern song is probably my favorite tibbetts. but screw picking just one.

I love that Tibbetts record so much. I'm going to need a second lockdown to crawl through the ECM catalogue! Everyone's guidance and remarks here are really helpful. This will be a special listening projects the coming months.

so, back to ralph towner for a sec—

i just checked out his joint venture with gary burton (matchbook) for the first time on the old internet jukebox today and realized i'm an idiot. i could've bought that record for a dollar probably a hundred times when i lived in reno. but oh well, if i had done that i would have spent a hundred dollars and inexplicably have a hundred copies of the album. i mean, it's a great record, but. . .

ECMs I've never heard that I've played in the last couple of days:
Pat Metheny, New Chautauqua & Bright Size Life - liked the really low key stuff the best, otherwise kind of reminded me of the guitar equivalent of a solo Jarrett record. I had heard Bright Size in passing a while ago and thought it was pretty nice sounding. After having gone deep on Pat recently, I wasn't as moved by it as I had expected to be, but it had some uncharacteristic, understated playing by Jaco which I got into.
Rypdal/Vitous/DeJohnette - loved this one
Dave Liebman, Lookout Farm & Drum Ode - I liked about half of each of these. Vocals undid Drum Ode, got a little lost on Lookout Farm, but will revisit both.
Julian Priester, Polarization - I know and adore Love, Love, but had never heard of this one at all. Some funk, some stately tone pieces. Pretty cool as well.
Oregon, Crossing & Ecotopia - the synths on Ecotopia were mentioned as a hazard upthread, but I was ready for them and got into this one. Crossing was better though. I think I need to get into more Oregon.

i tried to get into oregon last year. picked up their first two albums (from the vanguard years, so very early 1970s) and just didn't really dig what i heard. wasn't put off by it, just didn't really stick out much.

i used to be one of those metheny haters, but i've since eased off on that after hearing some of his early work as a sideman. need to check out one of his proper albums.

also, after seeing it on the non-meme ecm instagram (linked earlier upthread), i checked out this bill connors album and whoa! it's really interesting and not very ecm-esque (not in the 'classic' sense anyway). almost seems like it would not be too out of place in the post-fahey thread. really searching, undefined music. p rad.

what i've heard of rypdal has been great. he does get a little riffy and showy in his playing sometimes, but it doesn't really feel out of place. side b of his descendre album is probably among the prettiest music that ecm ever did. definitely one for the "in a similarly silent way" crowd.

Apple music has ECM's entire streaming output organized by decade, which is cool for deciding whether I want to check out some early classics I haven't had a chance to explore yet or go for the digital synth era. I've yet to make it past 1989 with any ECM release, save for listening to more recent Eberhard Weber over the last couple of days. I didn't realize his output dropped off because he'd had a stroke over a decade ago. Biographically, I know quite little about the ECM coterie. Would be a great topic for a documentary.

That Connors is on my list to check out for sure.

Swimming with a Hole in My Body (such an oddly mysterious title) is my fave Connors release for ECM.

Just picked up a lovely pristine copy of Scales by the Manfred Schoof Quintet (on Japo). I already had and appreciated the ECM 2CD collecting most of their material for the label but listening to it with the original sequencing is a much better experience. Some wonderful delicate keyboard work from Jasper Van’T Hof. I’m not aware of these records being much talked about - possibly because Schoof moved away from jazz? But really strong work IMO.

https://shop.new-art.nl/assets/image.php?width=800&image=/content/img/new_products_queue/1443426047.jpg

I simply cannot articulate what a stunning piece of music this is.

A perfect disc, yes, and I'm not even that big a Satie/Cage/Feldman stan.

It is perfect, such a beautiful compilation. There's about a hundred years between Satie and Cage's 'Four', but they sit together like they're meant to.

In the past I've found some of the material François Couturier released under his own name to be a little light on content, but his second album with Anja Lechner, featuring mostly original compositions this time, is really hitting the autumnal spot right now. These two have more chemistry as a duo than as half of a quartet.

jean-louis matinier & kevin seddiki - rivages

^^^
this is another quite beautiful and captivating duo album imo

not sure if Terje Rypdal hits that autumnal spot for everybody but he released his first new album for years last month, sounded p good on my first listen

Yeah, the Rypdal album is fantastic. Reviewed it for The Wire.

Thought this was a cool little piece - Manfred Eicher picks five favourite Blue Note albs:

https://www.wbgo.org/post/field-studies-manfred-eicher-founder-ecm-records-picks-his-top-five-blue-note-albums#stream/0

That's really cool. Thanks for the heads up.

That's a great looking list. The Pete La Roca album is fantastic.

I'm sure I read about it here but can find no mention on the thread. Either way, the live Ghazal album, The Rain makes my hair stand on end.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/The_Rain_%28Ghazal_album%29.jpg

Fantastic cover- I'll look this up.

My two most recent discoveries from the 80s back catalogue are Paul Motian's 'It Should've Happened A Long Time Ago' & Marc Johnson's 'Bass Desires', both from 86-87, both featuring Bill Frisell doing a ton of guitar synth stuff, which I can't get enough of these days.

Ooh, gotta check that out

the live Ghazal album, The Rain makes my hair stand on end

Just listened, fucking awesome, thanks. Have you ever heard Ravi Shankar's live thing from the Concert for Bangladesh? Similar vibe to Eternity.

so the Ezra Feinberg album Recumbent Speech from last year is hitting a lot of ECM notes for me. ECM and tubular bells and tortoise and jim o'rourke. All that good stuff.

That Ezra Feinberg album is great.

Just listened, fucking awesome, thanks. Have you ever heard Ravi Shankar's live thing from the Concert for Bangladesh? Similar vibe to Eternity.

God, this album is so good. Not heard that particular Shankar - will check it out for sure.

Wow, thanks for that Jamie (and Chinaski), the Feinberg album really is great!

Tibbetts' Northern Song keeps getting played at our residence, please advise as to how I can keep these low-key heady vibes going please, in the ECm vein...

more tibbetts.

Big Map Ideas is one i really like from him

yes, also very mellow in the vein of northern song. his two more recent ones (natural causes and life of) are probably the most aurally similar to northern song.

but nothing tops northern song.

for similarly sparse ecm / windham hill vibes, i like—

michael hedges — breakfast in the field
william ackerman — it takes a year

i also think one could put together a playlist of 70s leo kottke deep cuts that may be relevant. i might do that later, actually.

Excited for the forthcoming Vijay Iyer with Linda May Hahn Oh and Tyshawn Sorey. Iyer's last ECM was very good indeed.

Swimming with a Hole in My Body (such an oddly mysterious title) is my fave Connors release for ECM.

― pomenitul, Friday, July 31, 2020 9:05 AM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is great and fits table's criteria

xp

quite the trio is that, almost guaranteed to be a+. Hafez Modirzadeh's Facets is probably my fave album of the year so far but still it will be nice to hear Sorey back behind a drum kit again.

love Facets, too. Thanks all.

I got to see the Iyer/Oh/Sorey trio at the Jazz Standard about a month before lockdown, playing music from this upcoming album. Based on that and the tracks I've already heard, it's gonna be a pretty forceful album. Looking forward to it.

Facets is stunning - love Modirzadeh's sound world.

Thanks for the recs yesterday, though as much as I love the Connors and Hedges, it's the full instrumental treatment of Northern Song that appeals most to me—

some purist was probably quite ruffled at the time, but this is hittin like holy shit this morning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmRm8UYTeNw

(gary burton — "las vegas tango")

also, ya i know this isn't on ecm, but either i'm bad at the search function or there isn't a currently existing gary burton topic (!!??!?!).

There was a post two days ago on the thread entitled "jazz" about Gary Burton reissues.

yeah, i saw that. it's what prompted my recent dive back into his catalogue.

Vijay Iyer's tenure as Pitchfork's favorite jazz artist continues. Long may he reign.

This record is really lovely, has heavy ECM vibes on it
https://schlarb.bandcamp.com/album/time-no-changes

This record moves between WH-ECM-Takoma vibes. Really beautiful record from a promising young musician.

https://yasminwilliams.bandcamp.com/album/urban-driftwood

very nice stock ecm anti-smooth post-bop sounds on dawn by double image from 1979. a quartet fronted by two marimba players! if you like ecm but hate pianos, horns, AND guitars, well friend, do i have recommendation for you. it's actually really good though and worth hearing. especially if you like that melodic mallet sound. kind of leans more towards that introspective thing you expect from ecm, but still some really pretty stuff. the tunes take twists and turns with some passages of absolutely wondrous harmonic conversations between the two ... uh, marimberers? marimbists? marimbobo honkers?

The princely Andrew Male did a nice ECM set at Spiritland a couple of weeks ago. Lots new to me: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5cImqc3DCXMyIzJj9oLxwe?si=0d2c8ba34f4e4402

He played records rather than Spotify, obviously.

Ooh, I'd love to hear a set like this

Digging through the ECM back catalogue has been a welcome relief to my depression at the moment. There's something so uplifting and transcendent about the ECM sound at its best. Doctors should seriously consider prescribing this stuff imo.

Really enjoying The Colours of Chlöe right now. Eberhard Weber really couldn't put a foot wrong during his best run in the '70s.

Barre Phillips • Mountainscapes

This is a great album.

xp

It's really true, that's exactly what got me through the whole lockdown period in the early days of the pandemic (well that and a healthy amount of whiskey), and yes, The Colours of Chlöe got a lot of play during that time.

Well I’ve fallen, hard. Just ordered a stack of ECM CDs from Discogs and can't wait for them to arrive:

Keith Jarrett - The Survivors' Suite
Steve Kuhn - Trance
Mike Nock - Ondas
Barre Phillips - Mountainscapes
John Surman - Withholding Pattern
Steve Tibbets - Northern Song
Edward Vesala - Nan Madol
Eberhard Weber - The Colours of Chlöe
Eberhard Weber/Colours - Silent Feet

Guess I'm very into the more atmospheric side of the sound. Need to get some more guitar stuff too... John Abercrombie and David Torn are next on the wishlist.

As far as guitar stuff goes, I really got into Ralph Towner's various ECM recordings.

Thanks for the recommendation! Any particular place I should start wth Towner?

Solstice is my favorite, especially since it features Eberhard Weber. He also has some nice duet albums like Sargasso Sea with John Abercrombie and Matchbook with Gary Burton.

That's a great ECM haul, Ghost Club. My favorite guitarist on ECM is Terje Rypdal. All of his 70s records are worth checking out, but I'd prioritize What Comes After (which I hear as an album-length exploration of the sonic world established by Miles Davis on "Yesternow") and Descendre (beautifully spaced-out and synth-heavy masterpiece; some passages are almost Floydian, though this is more futuristic than anything Pink Floyd ever did).

I've listened to a few Rypdal records, very intriguing but he can get a little abstract for me. His classical/jazz crossover pieces, like the title track of Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away, are exceptional.

Ghost club let us know what you think of Tibbetts he is IMO a genre unto himself

Thanks for all the recommendations! I really liked Sargasso Sea, but I still need to spend more time with Solstice.

Terje Rypdal is an interesting artist. He's incredibly versatile wth his sound, so I find him hard to pin down. I really enjoyed Descendre and his album with Miroslav Vitous and Jack DeJohnette. Spot on that there's Floydian moments, J. Sam, but very much more abstract. I need to check out What Comes After next.

Steve Tibbets, oh my! Northern Song is such a journey. The atmosphere he evokes begs solitude and a darkened room. I don't mean to slight it at all when I say it's very meditative and restorative. Parts of it sound like Fahey on opioids, which I very much like.

Steve Tibbets more recent 'Life Of' is fantastic - good article on it here: https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2019/03/04/deep-into-steve-tibbetts-life-of/

and a cool page on his own site i just spotted: https://stevetibbetts.com/my-ecm/

all been mentioned above, but Connors' 'Swimming with a Hole in My Body' and Metheny 'As Falls Wichita...' and David Darling 'Cycles' are my go-to ecm faves.

I recently purchased a used vinyl copy of Terje Rypdal's Chaser, which is harder-edged power trio stuff, and I feel compelled to c + p this RYM review of it since I found it amusingly OTT for an ECM record.

"SIDE 1: AMBIGUITY - CRANK
ONCE UPON A TIME - HEROIN
GEYSIR - ANGEL DUST
A CLOSER LOOK - COLUMBIAN RED BUD
SIDE 2: ORNEN - MAI TAI'S
CHASER - JACK DANIELS
TRANSITION - WHITE WINE
IMAGI - BLOTTER ACID
JEFF BECK & STEVE VAI ARE TERJE'S LITTLE BITCHES!!THIS IS AVANT GARDE HEAY METAL JAZZ ROCK FUSION ORGASM!!!!!!!!!!!!!CRANK IT AND SPANK IT!!"

see thats the sort of thing i want to see on RYM, not a thousand little wannabe fantano's telling me about angular riffs and polyrhythms

Now I want a record filled with polyriffs and angular rhythms.

i'm not really that into ecm. what you might call beat digger culture / reissue culture / balearic dj culture has certainly given it a boost, and i totally get the urge to reevaluate genres like smooth jazz, fusion and new age. seems like ecm sits comfortably at the intersection of those, they put out a million records so you can always find something in decent shape, plus they have a clean and minimal aesthetic that avoids being clinical by incorporating nature, fits nicely with the clean nature-incorporating minimal aesthetic in favor w/ hip boutiques, trendy record stores and instagrammers

anyway even though i find the label boring in general, i think everyone should check out john abercrombie / dabve holland / jack dejohnette "gateway" and abercrombie / jan hammer / dejohnette "timeless". the covers look as sedate as anything else on ecm, but it's pure jazz-rock fusion shredding, maybe comparable to mahavishnu orchestra but less triumphant in mood, instead it has a more abstracted, cerebral vibe that reminds me of certain mwandishi stuff ("crossings" maybe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QDr-atV0Nw

well shit, I have to check out this one

xxp

it's not a surprise to me that Michael Mann is into Terje Rypdal. A lot of his sound is perfectly in line with noirish existential moodiness, in the best sense.

abercrombie / jan hammer / dejohnette "timeless"

I adore the title track to this but it's probably the least "shready" and most ECMesque thing on the record.

I'm a bit like Goldilocks when it comes to ECM releases; I like a few tracks on each but much of the rest I find either too astringent or too smooth. I've listened to about 40 and maybe my favourites are Bennie Maupin's Jewel in the Lotus and the Annette Peacock record.

xps speaking of Gateway and Timeless, my favorite recent ECM discovery is Colin Walcott's Cloud Dance which features John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette, and Dave Holland. So it's basically a Gateway record with Walcott as leader on sitar and tabla. Pensively tripped-out space fusion with a "world music" flavor, all done as tastefully as possible. A proper journey through space and time.

Abercrombie's Timeless is an album I want to like more than I do, mainly because I'm not a huge fan timbrally of the organ Jan Hammer uses on it. I get ELP vibes, which is not what I'm looking for on an ECM record. But I can tolerate it for Abercrombie's shredding, and the synths and piano are cool. Also the title track is a total masterpiece.

and a cool page on his own site i just spotted: https://stevetibbetts.com/my-ecm

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Friday, October 21, 2022 10:08 AM

a month late, but that's a swell link. thank you for sharing.

here's the playlist btw.

there are a grip is sweet late 70s early 80s Ebehard Weber shows on youtube!!

this one it tite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP8_STIT0lE

My difficult in appreciating <i>Timeless</i> is John Abercrombie’s slightly disparaging view of the 1970s fusion portion of his career. This style seemed to be a problem that he only solved at the end of the decade with his more traditional quartet.

xp that's an amazing set, thanks for posting! The Later That Evening band is one of his best combos. I'm also psyched to hear the Colours quartet live in San Francisco 1979.

that SF show is off the chain unbelievable

haven't heard Cloud Dance yet, but I recently fell under the spell of Walcott's Grazing Dreams from around the same time, which has Abercrombie, Don Cherry, Palle Danielsson, etc on it. really amazing, surprised I hadn't heard it, since i love those Codona records ...

saw an amazing Jan Garbarek group show last week at London Jazz Festival - Rainer Brüninghaus on piano (features on all those Eberhard W. lps i love) and Trilok Gurtu on drums/percussion/tons of other things - he in particular being one of the most mindblowing musicians i've ever seen...

perfect sound, 2 hours of non stop goodness. catch them if you can.

Some new titles added to the Touchtone series it seems, including "What Exit" by Mark Feldman.

I'm interested in Third Stream / ECM style jazz and I suppose this thread is the closest, although the boundaries of this kind of fusion are probably wider. I don't understand how this style developed and took over, but it's everywhere isn't it. I had also never realized that Dolmen Music (one of my favorite records) or 18 Musicians were ECM records, but that makes sense.

Anyway, I've listened to Dave Holland, Enrico Rava, Art Ensemble of Chicago, and just now to Eberhard Weber (The Colours of Chloë) which is a beautiful, rich, lively, impressionistic record that plays a little like a prog rock suite. On the other end, I haven't found entry points into Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek or Anouar Brahem in the past. So err, that's my statement of intent to keep digging and try to understand the legacy of ECM.

I still think Feldman, Satie, Cage - Rothko Chapel is one hell of a great ECM recording.

I had also never realized that Dolmen Music (one of my favorite records) or 18 Musicians were ECM records, but that makes sense.

Both of those are on ECM New Series, which I think started out as a bit of a side foray into "contemporary classical" rather than "jazz" territory?

i was going to say - i never really associated ecm with third stream! that might be down to my lack of familiarity with ecm and third stream in general, though

still, i always thought third stream was stuff like george russell?

i think of ECM as like, "chill fusion" or maybe something like quiet storm, but with new age influences instead of disco-era r&b influences

A rare treat today. My local record store had a pile of freebies from which I was able to pilfer seven(!) ECM/Japo titles. Most of them are from the early '80s, so a bit off my radar. Really looking forward to listening with a clean slate.

The ones I picked up are:
Dino Saluzzi - Kultrum (1982)
Egberto Gismonti - Solo (1979)
Jan Garbarek Group - Wayfarer (1983)
Herbert Joos - The Philosophy of the Fluegelhorn (1974)
David Holland - Life Cycle (1983)
Eberhard Weber - Later that Evening (1982)
Katrina Krimsky and Trevor Watts - Stella Malu (1981)

Amazing haul! I like Stella Malu a lot. Have seen that Dave Holland in the wild a few times but it has always been priced a little too high for a speculative buy - free is the perfect price!

Svante Henryson has to be the only ECM recording artist that was a former member of Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force.

This is one of the more odd musical connections I recently found out about.

One of the great pleasures of record shopping these days is regularly finding forgotten ECM gems for super cheap. A few days ago I picked up a nice vinyl copy of Ralph Towner's second Solstice album, Sound and Shadows for $2. It's darker and more subdued than the first one but just as good to my ears. Lovely flute work from Garbarek on the last track, and Weber's bass is sublimely liquid as usual.

i just picked up Garbarek's Dis the other day for $4, well worth iit

surprised i hadn't heard it before (since I'm a big codona fan), but I picked up Collin Walcott's Grazing Dreams recently — extremely sweet stuff w/ don cherry, abercrombie, palle danielsson, etc.

Really enjoying Kenny Wheeler’s "Around 6" from 1980. The opening track is somewhat stereotypical ECM (i.e. very melodic), and that goes on for several minutes. But then comes an Evan Parker freakout that veers into free jazz. I’m sure this horrified some listeners, but I love it.

Came across this stunning record, Jakob Bro & Joe Lovano's tribute to Paul Motian. Two drummers (Joey Baron and Jorge Rossy) and THREE bassists, but it still manages to be delicate and spacious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8lvPNG-vsQ

https://ecmrecords.com/product/once-around-the-room-a-tribute-to-paul-motian-jakob-bro-joe-lovano/#tab_description

Been going through some of my ECM LPs and Rainer Bruninghaus’ Freigeweht feels like a peak of some sort of ECM feeling that I love - beautiful recording, lots of tastefully deployed synths, smooth playing and a production sheen over everything but also real sort of uneasy… like I feel it is reductive to describe this stuff through the prism of Soundtrack-ness, but it could be the soundtrack to some inscrutable UK sci fi film from 1983… like if they had filmed A Dream of Wessex maybe

Anyway it is so good

(ahem)
if you're reading this, you need to check this shit out immediately. stop whatever you're doing. it's on spotify.

fyi-

Profile:

Steve Eliovson (born in 1954 – died March 15, 2020)

South-African jazz guitarist, having recorded his critically acclaimed debut Dawn Dance in 1981, Eliovson completely disappeared from the music industry for reasons as of yet unknown.

The Quiet Funeral of a Great Guitarist - Steve Eliovson - Born: 1954 - Died: 15 Mar 2020

uhm. yeah. i don't wanna start throwing around hyperbole, but it's really good. spare and haunting, but like all of my favorite environmental music classics, a deeper emotional element. a very unique searching quality to the vibe here.

and also- it's another of those ecms that crosses over into takoma/new primitive territory. if you like the more sparse moments of steve tibbetts, dawn dance doesn't come with any higher recommendation.

The opening of Dawn Dance immediately recalls Yes (And You And I) and I think I hear too many influences (oriental, flamenco) to make it work for me, also the rhythm is a little off to me.

Really loving Marc Johnson's solo bass record 'Overpass', maybe the solo bass record I've ever heard (out of not very many, I suppose).

Obsessed (I'd like to post other tracks but only a couple are on youtube, the whole record is streaming though)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNdB8szK9Rk

Just discovered this 1989 album by AM4, not on YouTube but on streaming channels: wild mix of spoken word, soprano saxes, and piano (prepared and otherwise). Feels like performance art, kind of like Meredith Monk. Enjoying it a lot, including their version of Ornette Coleman' "Lonely Woman."

Wolfgang Puschnig
Alto Saxophone, Alto Flute, Hojak, Shakuhachi

Linda Sharrock
Vocals

Uli Scherer
Piano, Prepared Piano, Keyboards

I just realized there are samples on that ECM page linked above ^^. The opening track is super quiet until about 30 seconds in.

Also just listened to that Marc Johnson track Jordan posted. So good too.

Linda Sharrock

sold

Eazy if you haven't heard that "Paradise" LP she did with Sonny and Ilhan Mimaroglu get it now :)

The opening track is super quiet until about 30 seconds in.

okay wow

if you turn it up to where you can just hear what's going on, the sax when it enters will scar you for life

holy shit

also this is awesome TY

ok not sure anything else on this lives up to the first track
i like it don't get me wrong

Flagging that Paradise LP to listen to soon - thanks! And yeah, the first song ("Streets and Rivers") really is the standout.

Paradise is incredible

I'm on my biannual 'Bennie Maupin's *Jewel in the Lotus* is on ECM!' reconnaissance. What a record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4nWCNerR7c

Love that one of Maupin's credits is 'reeds'. Flex.

I've listened to a few Rypdal records, very intriguing but he can get a little abstract for me.

Now I've got around to the expanded Odyssey reissue and this is a lot more full-bodied (or "rock", maybe) than his previous records. Despite the tracks mostly being very, very long they seem more vital than a lot of the other stuff of his I've heard.

It's not on ECM but Maupin's follow-up record Slow Traffic to the Right is an intelligent compromise between some of the virtues of Jewel in the Lotus and the commercial/easy-listening/funky tendencies of the era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMIkv0-aQdk

Posted in the obituary thread, but RIP guitarist Ralph Towner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6FNcN7KXRU

bummer, i had matchbook with gary burton for a while and enjoyed it. from the obit thread:

Oh man, I've been listening to so much Ralph Towner over the last 5 years. He has tons of good stuff on ECM.

― whimsical skeedaddler (Moodles), Sunday, January 18, 2026 10:52 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

does anyone have a good recommendation or two?

I like the group alb Solstice and the self-explanatory Solo Concert - I could go with a good guide to the Oregon stuff myself...

Second the Solstice album, but I was more into his work with Oregon tbh. The recent archival “1974” live album is really good.

Also watched the Live at Molde Jazz 1975 set on YouTube twice today, so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m7VIHR9lYk

Aforementioned 1975 show, such a treat and love the attentive, beautiful looking Norwegian crowd.