Witchi-Tai-To is the 1974 album by the quartet of Jan Garbarek and Bobo Stenson that made its name on ECM. According to ECM, no European jazz group of the mid-1970s was more popular, and the record was voted Record of the Year 1974/75 in the Jazz Forum poll. It holds no Garbarek originals: the five pieces come from Carla Bley, Don Cherry, Jim Pepper, Carlos Puebla and the group's bassist.
The date began as a trio session under Stenson's name. As Michael Tucker recounted in Jazz Journal in 2019, the plan changed after the Swedish pianist and the Norwegian saxophonist met at a jam session during the 1973 Jazz Jamboree in Warsaw, where Stenson was playing with Cherry. The quartet, completed by Palle Danielsson on double bass and Jon Christensen on drums, recorded on 27 and 28 November 1973 at Arne Bendiksen Studio in Oslo. Manfred Eicher produced and Jan Erik Kongshaug engineered. Garbarek plays soprano and tenor saxophone.
Carla Bley's A.I.R. (All India Radio) opens over a drone and a 6/8 pulse, with crisp piano lines and a soprano solo that builds slowly. Jim Pepper's title tune is a pentatonic chant, introduced by Stenson and then carried by Garbarek's soprano; he returned to it years later on Twelve Moons, but Tucker still hears this version as the definitive one. Cherry's Desireless closes the album and runs for twenty minutes. It moves between rubato reverie and forceful ostinato sections, with Danielsson and Christensen in close dialogue. Danielsson's ballad Kukka and Puebla's Hasta Siempre, with Christensen's tango-like accents, complete the set.
Down Beat gave the album five stars: "Those who think that contemporary music from Europe lacks soul-fire are hereby advised to listen to Witchi-Tai-To." Not everyone agreed at the time. Roger Dean, in Jazz Journal in August 1974, called it "a rather unsatisfying record", though he liked Kukka. Stenson's own memory, quoted by ECM, is warmer: "The quartet had a chemistry that I've very rarely known."
This CD edition of ECM 1041, first released in 1974, was reissued on 17 May 2019 in the Touchstones series, which ECM started in 2008 to bring key catalogue albums back in cardboard sleeves.
