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Vermillion
Kit Downes joins forces with long-time collaborators Petter Eldh on bass and James Maddren on drums for a carefully assorted piano trio programme that treads gentle lyricism and bold creative outbursts in equal measures. Downes, whose prior ECM offering Dreamlife of Debris was termed a “work of otherworldly beauty” by BBC Music Magazine, carves out some of his most compendious pieces to date on Vermillion. Replete with subtle twists and turns, the trio offers its idiosyncratic take on the piano …
Our Daily Bread
The third album from Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry finds the group continuing to extend its spacious and lyrical approach, with deep listening and intense focus. “Our Daily Bread is fueled by the rhythm spirit of expression that projects the mysterious world of music that lies ahead,” says master saxophonist Lovano in his liner note, and these elegantly fluid pieces and free-floating ballads indeed feel like songs of the soul. “The intensity comes not from ferocity but from depth of feeling,” wrote…
Garden Of Expression
*2024 stock* The debut album of Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry was one of 2019’s most talked-about releases. The trio’s musical concept – the Boston Globe spoke of “utterances of hushed assurance, lyricism and suspense” – is taken to the next level on its second album, Garden of Expression, a recording distinguished by its intense focus. Lovano, a saxophonist whose reach extends across the history of modern jazz and beyond, plays with exceptional sensitivity in Trio Tapestry. And the music he wri…
Affirmation
Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, an ECM musician for more than fifty years, is a masterful player who has always welcomed a challenge. His first recording with his new quartet – including rising stars Marius Neset and Helge Lien (both bandleaders in their own right)– is almost entirely improvised. The players make the leap of faith together and find and develop forms at the moment, an object lesson in spontaneous group creativity. Affirmation was recorded in November 2021 at Oslo’s Rainbow Stud…
Up And Coming
*2024 stock* Guitarist John Abercrombie – who has recorded as a leader for ECM since 1974 – returns with a second album by his quartet featuring Marc Copland on piano, along with longtime rhythm partners Drew Gress and Joey Baron. Extolling 39 Steps, the group’s 2013 album, the Financial Times said: “The emphasis is on subtle intrigue, flowing lyricism and the interplay between the leader’s warm, cleanly articulated guitar and Copland’s piano… with bassist Gress and drummer Baron equally supple …
It's Always Now
Ralph Alessi’s fourth appearance as a leader for the label follows a singular album run that’s been met with nothing but praise from The New York Times to The Guardian. The latter lauded Ralph’s previous recording Imaginary Friends (2019) for its “elegant balance of poignant, playful original compositions and gracefully probing improv” and declared it “his best album yet”. It’s Always Now however brims with arguments that there is a new contender for that title. On his new album, Alessi’s unique…
Human
In its review of pianist Shai Maestro’s ECM leader debut The Dream Thief, All About Jazz spoke of “a searching lyrical atmosphere, emotional eloquence and communal virtuosity that serves the music.” All of which also applies to Human, where Maestro’s outgoing, highly-communicative band with fellow Israeli Ofri Nemya on drums and Peruvian bassist Jorge Roeder becomes a quartet with the inspired addition of US trumpeter Philip Dizack. Shai’s expansive pianism is well-matched by Dizack’s alert, …
I Took Up The Runes
One of the Norwegian saxophonists most outgoing dates, the best-selling “Runes” also marked the first appearance of Manu Katché with the Jan Garbarek group. Centerpiece of the album is the five-part “Molde Canticle”.
Viola
*2024 stock* "Walter Fähndrich's album "Viola" is a beautiful and captivating collection of works for the viola. Fähndrich's skills as a violist are on full display as he expertly navigates through a variety of pieces, showcasing the instrument's rich and versatile sound. From hauntingly melancholic melodies to lively and energetic compositions, "Viola" takes listeners on a journey through a range of emotions. Fähndrich's impeccable technique and emotional depth make this album a must-listen for…
Theory Of Becoming
The ECM New Series debut of Evgueni Galperine is one of the most strikingly original and evocative albums of the year. A composer of Russian and Ukrainian heritage, living in Paris since 1990, Galperine is working with sound, texture and dynamics in new and powerfully expressive ways. As he explains, the sound world of Theory of Becoming represents an “augmented reality of acoustic instruments, created from recordings made with real and virtual instruments. The numerous transformations the inst…
Ravensburg
*2024 stock* One of the pleasures of Mathias Eick’s Midwest album was hearing his vaulting trumpet supported by violin, an instrumental combination further developed on Ravensburg. The new violinist in Eick’s ensemble is Håkon Aase, one of the up-and-coming players of the Norwegian scene, whom attentive ECM listeners will already know from his work with Thomas Strønen’s group. The core Eick road band is further shored up by the addition of Helge Andreas Norbakken, who interacts excitingly with f…
Old And New Dreams
Hot on the heels of Old Friends, New Friends comes Old And New Dreams, an operation meant as a new flagship for Ornette Coleman, whose lack of enthusiasm for the project left a gap duly filled by Dewey Redman. The result is this delightful excursion into post-bop outlands that sounds as alive as ever. Two Coleman pieces comprise nearly half of its duration—which is saying much, for like many of ECM’s joints of the 70s, this one breezes by in under 50 minutes. The first Coleman piece, “Lonely Wom…
Glimmer
Violinist Nils Økland and keyboardist Sigbjørn Apeland, musical partners for thirty years, have long explored the interface of Norwegian traditional music and improvisation. Glimmer, an exceptionally beautiful and touching album, takes as its starting point folk music from the Haugalandet region of Western Norway. Apeland’s collection of pieces from local singers who have helped to keep the traditions alive forms the basis of the repertoire here, along with original compositions. The latter ran…
Where The River Goes
*2024 stock* Where The River Goes carries the story forward from Wolfgang Muthspiel’s highly-acclaimed Rising Grace recording of 2016, reuniting the Austrian guitarist with Brad Mehldau, Ambrose Akinmusire and Larry Grenadier, heavy talents all, and bringing in the great Eric Harland on drums. Much more than an “all-star” gathering, the group plays as an ensemble with its own distinct identity, evident both in the interpretation of Muthspiel’s pieces and in the collective playing. The album, re…
My Prophet
On My Prophet, Oded Tzur together with his quartet of pianist Nitai Hershkovits, bassist Petros Klampanis and the new group member Cyrano Almeida on drums, continues on the idiosyncratic musical path he has carved out for himself – a flowing jazz idiom that seamlessly combines multiple forms of expression –, while delving deeper into the meditative and highly concentrated realm of improvisation. In the process, the saxophonist presents some of his fiercest playing yet.
The quartet’s synergy is…
Temporary Kings
*2024 stock* With Temporary Kings two of the most distinct voices on today’s jazz scene present their debut on record as a duo. Engaging in inspired dialogue Mark Turner and Ethan Iverson here explore aesthetic common ground in the atmosphere of a modernist chamber music-like setting at the Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano. The saxophonist and the pianist had begun their association in the Billy Hart Quartet, where the two players featured sympathetically on two ECM albums by that band.
The ne…
Characters On A Wall
*2024 stock* Louis Sclavis’s 13th ECM recording finds the French clarinetist drawing inspiration from two sources – the street art of Ernest Pignon-Ernest, and the interpretive originality of a splendid new quartet. Pignon-Ernest’s works were previously the subject of Sclavis’s highly acclaimed 2002 recording Napoli’s Walls. This time Sclavis looks at a broader range of the artist’s in situ collages from Ramallah to Rome, in search of “a dynamic, a movement that will give birth to a rhythm, a…
Romaria
*2024 stock* Andy Sheppard’s quartet extends the musical explorations begun on the 2015 release Surrounded By Sea, an album praised by Télérama for its “poignant serenity.” In this new programme of compositions by Sheppard (plus the title track by Brazilian singer-songwriter Renato Teixeira), the drones and washes of Eivind Aarset’s guitar and electronics – aided by the generous acoustics of Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI – help to establish a climate in which improvisation can take place. T…
Sphere
The Bobo Stenson Trio’s ability of covering far-reaching idioms and wide-ranging repertoire within the scope of their personal diction has become both hallmark and custom, inspiring the New York Times to say the pianist “makes sublime piano-trio records without over-playing. It’s pulsating, with long improvised phrases; it’s alive.” Sphere is primarily comprised of works by 20th and 21st century composers including Per Nørgård, Sven-Erik Bäck, and Jean Sibelius and offers two originals by Jormin…
En Attendant
*2024 stock* “There’s a galaxy of piano trios in today’s jazz universe,” the BBC Music Magazine has noted, “but few shine as bright as Marcin Wasilewski’s”. On its seventh ECM album the multifaceted Polish group illuminates a characteristically wide span of music. On En attendant, collectively created pieces are juxtaposed with Wasilewski’s malleable “Glimmer of Hope”, Carla Bley’s timeless “Vashkar”, The Doors’ hypnotic “Riders On The Storm” and a selection from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg…