condition (record/cover): NM / NM

Insert and obi included.

The Japanese arm of ECM put out a handful of sampler LPs in the seventies, and they function now as extremely efficient snapshots of a label at the exact moment it was inventing its own aesthetic. ECM Special pulls from Chick Corea and Return To Forever, Paul Bley, Paul Motian, Ralph Towner, Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek: Nordic reverb, folk-derived melody, free playing with the volume down and an engineering standard that nobody else in jazz was even attempting. Whether you think that sound is a cathedral or a chill-out room, this is where the argument starts.

Japanese ECM pressing, sampler edition. A neat and unusually well-chosen way into the catalogue.