★ECM Records
Bordeaux Concert
Bordeaux Concert is a special document from Keith Jarrett’s last European tour. Each of Jarrett’s 2016 solo piano concerts had its own strikingly distinct character, and in Bordeaux the lyrical impulse is to the fore. In the course of this improvised suite, many quiet discoveries are made, and there is a touching freshness to the music as a whole, a feeling of intimate communication. Reviewing the July 2016 performance, the French press spoke of hints of the Köln Concert and Bremen-Lausanne in t…
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…
The Song Is You
Their collaboration has been hailed as a summit meeting of two jazz masters. Enrico Rava, trumpeter from Trieste, and Fred Hersch, pianist from Cincinatti, share a deep affection for the tradition and a profound sense for melodic invention. In this recording, with flugelhorn and piano glowing in the superb acoustic of the Lugano studio, Rava and Hersch explore some much-loved standards: Jerome Kern’s “The Song Is You”, Thelonious Monk’s “Mysterioso” and “’Round Midnight”, Jobim’s “Retrato em Bra…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Antenna
Antenna showcases David Virelles’ mastery in fusing Afro-Cuban spirituality with avant-garde innovation. This reissue highlights its hypnotic rhythms and spectral harmonies.
More Movies
Original 1980 LP edition, first pressing – printed in the USA. For light relief from his darker, more existential works, Michael Mantler assembled two fine ensembles at the end of the 1970s to play music that might be described as the Thinking Man’s Answer to Fusion. "Like a more mature and musicianly Mahavishnu Orchestra" according to Melody Maker. Two original albums, remastered, on a single CD.
Alien
Original 1985 LP edition. This one is a bit of an outlier. More a showcase for keyboardist Don Preston’s (The Mothers Of Invention) array of 1980s synthesizers and drum machines than a jazz album. As the story goes composer Michael Mantler wrote this music for a conventional orchestra with the solo trumpet part, but then decided to transpose orchestral partitions to Preston’s gadgetry. It is not known if this move was informed by the budgetary constraint or perhaps creative or even financial inc…
My Cat Arnold
Original 1989 LP edition. Singer, harmonica virtuoso, and keyboardist Karen Mantler has inherited her father, Michael Mantler's sense of whimsy and her mother, Carla Bley's musical fearlessness -- not to mention her electric-shredded-wheat hairstyle. Although Mantler's debut album was produced by Bley and new husband Steve Swallow and features fellow avant-jazz offspring Eric Mingus as co-lead vocalist and Jonathan Sanborn on bass, 1989's My Cat Arnold isn't quite jazz, but it's not exactly pop …
Plays The Music Of Carla Bley
Original 1990 LP edition. Experience the vibrant and soulful sounds of Sicily with Orchestra Jazz Siciliana's latest album, "Plays The Music Of Carla Bley." This dynamic ensemble pays tribute to the iconic composer and pianist Carla Bley, with their own unique jazz interpretations of her compositions. The album features a fusion of traditional Sicilian melodies and Bley's avant-garde jazz influences, creating a dynamic and captivating listening experience. Led by renowned saxophonist and conduct…
Silent, Listening
Silent, Listening is a major addition to ECM’s distinguished line of solo piano recordings, featuring one of the outstanding improvising pianists and jazz masters of our time: Fred Hersch. The album features seven original creations and a handful of well-chosen standards, including Billy Strayhorn’s “Star-Crossed Lovers”, Sigmund Romberg’s “Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise”, Alec Wilder’s “Winter Of My Discontent” and Russ Freeman’s “The Wind”, all played with the focus, sensitivity and gracefuln…
Gateway
Joining their newly launched Luminessence audiophile vinyl-reissue series, the legendary imprint, ECM, digs deep into their own vaults and comes up with an absolute gem: the guitarist John Abercrombie, the bassist Dave Holland, and the drummer Jack DeJohnette’s groundbreaking 1975 LP “Gateway”. Rooted in approaches drawn from free jazz and unquestionably springing from both Holland and DeJohnette’s time working in Miles Davis’ electric fusion band at the end of the 1960s and early '70s, it’s a r…
Angel Song
“Destined to go down in history as a jazz classic” was the verdict with which The Guardian greeted this album on its release in 1997, saying, “Wheeler’s compositions and four of the world’s greatest improvisers make for a tranquil set that rewards with every listening. This is beautiful, golden music.” Angel Song is among the apexes of the label’s catalogue, uniting four master-improvisers – each with a unique artistic identity – in an intimate, drummer-less quartet session. Kenny Wheeler is the…
A Passion For John Donne
*2024 stock* Ketil Bjørnstad’s passion for the English metaphysical poet John Donne (1572-1631) is a lifelong affair. His settings of Donne’s verse have led to recordings including The Shadow, Grace and the ECM album The Light. “After working with the texts of John Donne for more than twenty years, I still find new approaches to understanding what he wrote and I find music throughout. It is in the language, in the rhythm, in the silence between the sentences – a passionate quest for meaning and …
What Comes After
2024 stock. What Comes After introduced a new alliance with American bassist Barre Phillips whose freely creative arco playing is often the second lead voice (two of the compositions are also Barre’s). The unorthodox line-up includes contributions from powerhouse bass guitarist Sveinung Hovensjø, an important collaborator throughout the 70s (in the Odyssey band and other ensembles), and from classical oboist Erik Niord Larsen. Rypdal, Phillips and Christensen periodically played completely impro…
Azimuth
Recorded in 1977 and now reissued in ECM’s audiophile Luminessence vinyl series, the debut album of the Azimuth trio was truly ahead of its time. Formed by adding Canadian-born trumpeter Kenny Wheeler to the British duo of pianist John Taylor and vocalist Norma Winstone, the group’s futuristic musical palette embraced hypnotic, minimalistic pulse patterns, otherworldly synthesizer sounds, songs, collective improvisation and solo flights. In recent seasons, the number of listeners under Azimuth’s…
Strands (Live At The Danish Radio Concert Hall)
"When we walked out on stage it felt like a homecoming,” says Jakob Bro of this texturally spacious and emotionally charged live recording from Copenhagen, on which three of the defining protagonists of improvisation in Denmark, leading musicians from three generations of Danish jazz, come together. The concert, in February 2023, was particularly poignant since it marked a return to performance for trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg, who delivers some of his most thoughtful playing here. Repertoire, dra…
Afric Pepperbird
Recorded in Oslo in September 1970, Afric Pepperbird was released on New Year’s Day in 1971. Half a century later, it still conveys the freshness and excitement of discoveries being made. The album signalled the arrival of four Norwegian improvisers – Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen – at the fledgling ECM label. It was the start of a lifelong association with each of the musicians, whose influence was soon to reach far beyond the borders of their homeland. In exten…