Jazz & Improvisation / All styles

ECM debut of Israeli soprano saxophonist Yuval Cohen with Tom Oren (piano), Alon Near (double bass) and Alon Benjamini (drums), eight Cohen originals. Recorded September 2023 at Studios La Buissonne, produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM 2818, 2025.

Second duo album by Trygve Seim (soprano and tenor saxophones) and Frode Haltli (accordion): originals, improvisations, Ukrainian and North Indian songs, a Stravinsky coda. Recorded June 2023 at the Himmelfahrtskirche, Munich, produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM 2813, 2024.

Duo album by Norma Winstone (voice) and Kit Downes (piano): four Downes pieces, songs by John Taylor, Carla Bley, Ralph Towner and Aidan O'Rourke, two traditionals, nine with Winstone lyrics. Recorded April 2023 at Artesuono, Udine, produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM 2811, 2024.

Debut album of the trio Alice Zawadzki (voice, violin), Fred Thomas (piano, vielle, drums) and Misha Mullov-Abbado (double bass): Ladino, Polish, French and Latin American songs. Recorded June 2023 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM 2810, 2024.

Third ECM album by the Colin Vallon Trio: Vallon (piano, electronics), Patrice Moret (double bass), Julian Sartorius (drums), nine Vallon compositions. Recorded June-July 2023 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM 2809, 2024.

Bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi with his son José María Saluzzi (classical guitar) and Jacob Young (electric and steel-string guitar): originals by all three, Karin Krog's Northern Sun and two standards. Recorded April 2023 at Saluzzi Music Studio, Buenos Aires. ECM 2802, 2025.

Debut duo album by Arve Henriksen (trumpet, electronics) and Harmen Fraanje (piano): ten pieces, mostly co-written, between improvisation and written themes. Recorded January 2023 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM 2794, 2024.

A sequence of 13 improvised duets featuring Sharp on soprano sax, dobro, electric fretless guitar, 8-string guitarbass and computer, and Friedl playing inside piano and prepared piano. The results are more instrumental, less electronic than on their previous duo album -- Anostalgia on Grob. Recorded in March, 2001.

Elina Duni (voice) with Rob Luft (guitar), Matthieu Michel (flugelhorn) and Fred Thomas (piano, drums): Albanian and Kosovan traditionals, standards and Duni/Luft originals. Recorded July 2022 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines. ECM 2781, 2023.

Third album by Joe Lovano's Trio Tapestry: Lovano (tenor saxophone, tárogató, gongs), Marilyn Crispell (piano), Carmen Castaldi (drums, percussion), eight Lovano originals. Recorded May 2022 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM 2777, 2023.

Sinikka Langeland (vocals, kantele, Jew's harp) sets poems by Jon Fosse with Mathias Eick (trumpet), Trygve Seim (saxophones), Mats Eilertsen (double bass) and Thomas Strønen (drums). Recorded June 2022 at Rainbow Studio, Oslo, produced by Guido Gorna.

Piano trio album by Bobo Stenson with Anders Jormin (double bass) and Jon Fält (drums): music by Nørgård, Bäck, Sibelius, Janson and Jung-Hee Woo plus two Jormin originals. Recorded April 2022 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher.

Second album by the trio of Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel (classical and electric guitar) with Scott Colley (double bass) and Brian Blade (drums): five originals plus Weill's Liebeslied and Joni Mitchell's Amelia. Recorded February 2022 in Oakland, produced by Eicher.

First trio album by Norwegian guitarist Jacob Young, with Mats Eilertsen (double bass) and Audun Kleive (drums): nine Young originals, recorded in May 2021 at Klokkereint Studio, Gjøvik. His fourth album as a leader for ECM.

Song album by Anders Jormin (double bass), Lena Willemark (voice, violin, viola), Karin Nakagawa (25-string koto) and Jon Fält (drums), setting Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, Mexican and Italian poetry. Recorded 2021 at Studio Epidemin, Gothenburg.

Second album by the Julia Hülsmann Quartet (Hülsmann piano, Uli Kempendorff tenor saxophone, Marc Muellbauer double bass, Heinrich Köbberling drums): originals by all four plus a Prince song. Recorded March 2022 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines.

Solo classical guitar album by Ralph Towner: eight originals plus Danny Boy, Little Old Lady and Make Someone Happy. Recorded February 2022 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher.

Duo album by drummer Sebastian Rochford and pianist Kit Downes, music written after the death of Rochford's father, poet Gerard Rochford, recorded February 2020 at the family home Waverley, Aberdeen. CD, ECM 2749, 2023.

Fourth album by Billy Hart's quartet with Mark Turner (tenor saxophone), Ethan Iverson (piano) and Ben Street (double bass), recorded December 2021 at Sound On Sound Studios, New York, mixed 2023 at La Buissonne. CD, ECM 2748, 2025.

Paul Motian tribute co-led by Jakob Bro (guitar) and Joe Lovano (tenor sax, tarogato) with Larry Grenadier, Thomas Morgan, Anders Christensen (basses), Joey Baron and Jorge Rossy (drums), recorded November 2021 in Copenhagen. CD, ECM 2747, 2022.

Ninth album as a leader by Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen, with Steinar Raknes (double bass, electronics) and Jarle Vespestad (drums), recorded October 2021 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher. CD, ECM 2742, 2022.

Second ECM album by singer, pianist and cantor Judith Berkson, in a trio with Trevor Dunn (double bass) and Gerald Cleaver (drums), recorded July 2021 at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY, produced by Manfred Eicher. CD, ECM 2741, 2026.

Solo piano improvisations by Keith Jarrett, a suite in thirteen parts recorded live on 6 July 2016 at the Auditorium of the Opéra National de Bordeaux during his last European tour. Recorded by Martin Pearson, produced by Keith Jarrett.

Second ECM album by tenor saxophonist Oded Tzur, a five-part suite built on a self-fashioned raga, with Nitai Hershkovits (piano), Petros Klampanis (double bass) and Johnathan Blake (drums). Recorded 2021 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher.

Improvised suite in nine parts by trumpeter Avishai Cohen with Yonathan Avishai (piano), Barak Mori (double bass) and Ziv Ravitz (drums), closing with a reading of a poem by Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky. Recorded September 2021 at Studios La Buissonne, produced by Manfred Eicher.

ECM debut of pianist Benjamin Lackner, in a quartet with Mathias Eick (trumpet), Jérôme Regard (double bass) and Manu Katché (drums), playing eight Lackner originals and one by Regard. Recorded September 2021 at Studios La Buissonne, produced by Manfred Eicher.

Duo improvisations by Barre Phillips (double bass) and György Kurtág jr. (synthesizers, digital percussion, live electronics). Recorded in 2020 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines, produced by Manfred Eicher.

First solo album by John Scofield, on electric guitar and looper: five originals, standards, traditional songs and pieces by Keith Jarrett, Buddy Holly and Hank Williams. Recorded August 2021 at Top Story Studio, Katonah, New York.

Third album by Jon Balke's Siwan, setting poems from 11th-century Al-Andalus, with singer Mona Boutchebak, Derya Türkan (kemençe), Pedram Khavar Zamini (tombak), Helge Norbakken and Barokksolistene. Recorded May-June 2021 at The Village Recording, Copenhagen.

Ralph Alessi (trumpet) with Florian Weber (piano), Bänz Oester (double bass) and Gerry Hemingway (drums), in thirteen pieces by Alessi, three co-written with Weber. Recorded June 2021 at Artesuono, Udine, produced by Manfred Eicher.

Piano trio album by Kit Downes (piano) with Petter Eldh (double bass) and James Maddren (drums): five pieces by Downes, five by Eldh and a Hendrix cover. Recorded May-June 2021 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher.

Dominic Miller's third ECM album (2023), eight originals for quartet with Jacob Karlzon (piano, keyboards), Nicolas Fiszman (bass) and Ziv Ravitz (drums), recorded April 2021 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines, produced by Manfred Eicher.

"Living," wrote John Cage in 1952, "takes place each instant and that instant is always changing. The wisest thing to do is to open one's ears immediately and hear a sound suddenly before one's thinking has a chance to turn it into something logical, abstract or symbolical." Many improvising musicians today pay lip-service to Cage, but very few perform music which really lets sounds be themselves. Since 1993, trombonist and composer Radu Malfatti has been exploring "the lull in the storm", craft…

Nik Bärtsch's first solo piano album for ECM (2021): five of his numbered Modul compositions and Déjà-vu, Vienna, played without overdubs, recorded September 2020 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher.

Jakob Bro's fifth ECM album as leader (2021), a trio with Arve Henriksen (trumpet, piccolo trumpet) and Jorge Rossy (drums), recorded August-September 2020 at Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher.

Eberhard Weber alone on five-string electric bass with live delay loops, in concert at the Théâtre des Halles, Avignon, in August 1994. Released by ECM in 2021, mixed at La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro.

Michael Mantler reworks his own compositions (1975-2010) into five suites for a chamber orchestra conducted by Christoph Cech, with Mantler (trumpet), Bjarne Roupé (guitar) and David Helbock (piano) as soloists. Recorded September 2019 at Porgy & Bess, Vienna.

The 23-piece Trickster Orchestra, founded in Berlin in 2013 and led by singer Cymin Samawatie and percussionist Ketan Bhatti, with Wu Wei (sheng), Naoko Kikuchi (koto) and others. Texts in Farsi, Hebrew, Arabic and Turkish. Recorded January 2019, Meistersaal, Berlin.

Fully improvised solo piano concert by Craig Taborn, recorded live on 2 March 2020 in the Mozart-Saal of the Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna. Produced by Manfred Eicher; his second ECM solo album after Avenging Angel.

Piano trio album by Vijay Iyer with Linda May Han Oh (double bass) and Tyshawn Sorey (drums): eight Iyer originals plus Cole Porter and Geri Allen. Recorded December 2019 at Oktaven Audio Studio, Mount Vernon, New York; produced by Iyer and Manfred Eicher.