Take a little Mr. Bungle, mix in some Elliot Sharp, add a dash of Claudia Phillips, and you may just get something akin to this strikingly outlandish rarity from 1982. The voice of Maggie Nicols is the solder that holds everything together, while Ulrich Lask’s laser-like sax and labored synth weave an ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Fusion
Like its contemporary, the Everyman Band, the Lucerne-based quartet known as OM succeeded in blending rock and free improv idioms to gnarled perfection. Composed of guitarist Christy Doran (Dublin-born but Swiss-raised) and fellow countrymen Urs Leimgruber (reeds), Bobby Burri (bass), ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
Bringing together reedman Denney Goodhew, cellist Eric Jensen, and horn player James Knapp, First Avenue is a ghostly outlier in the ECM backlist. The project germinated within the American Contemporary Dance Company, which paired spontaneous incidental music with indeterminate movement on stage. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
Self-taught Trieste-born trumpeter Enrico Rava is the grand master of Italian jazz. Originally a Dixieland trombonist, he switched to trumpet in his teens after hearing Miles Davis. In 1967, he moved to New York (“where my idols were, all the people I wanted to meet”), and found his musical direction, playing ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
I know nothing of Hajo Weber and Ulrich Ingenbold beyond the incandescent duets these two guitarists buried in the snowy recesses of Winterreise (Winter Journey), one of ECM’s greatest forgotten treasures. The title, of course, evokes Schubert, and the comparison may not be so ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Lithuanian-born Michael Naura is a German pianist, editor, and journalist. Capitalizing on a range of influences, from George Shearing to Horace Silver, his successful self-titled quintet LP of 1963 made him a household name in hard bop. If the benefit concerts arranged after his being diagnosed ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Gary Burton’s involvement in any project guarantees smoothness and melodic robustness, and Easy As Pie is no less promising than one would expect from the mallet master. As the title may imply, the results are generally laid back, but ever virtuosic. From the first licks of “Reactionary Tango” (Carla Bley) we get a taste of the banquet about to be laid before us. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Musik was the second effort by the Contact Trio for ECM’s sister JAPO label. Inspired by the atmospheric developments of Wolfgang Dauner (see, for example, Output) and heavily invested in the softening distinctions between rock and jazz, the trio had by now perfected its rhizomatic sound in what was to be its final record. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Fusion
Path brings together guitarist Bill Connors (fresh off a stint with the Jan Garbarek Group on Photo With…), Carla Bley Big Band regular Roger Jannotta on winds, and vibraphonist Tom van der Geld for a network of pellucid improvisations entwining the barest of compositional skeletons. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
An early outlier in the ECM catalog, Output convulses with as much originality as it did when it was first released. Wolfgang Dauner, perhaps better known as founder of the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble (which saw ECM greats Eberhard Weber, Kenny Wheeler, and Charlie Mariano pass through its doors), ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
Another gem from the ECM catalogue. Brooklyn-born jazz horn player John Clark hasn’t made many records as a bandleader, but has been hugely prolific and has recorded and performed with Miles Davis, Jaco Pastorius, Chick Corea, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and Leonard Bernstein, among many others. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Girl From Martinique (Remastered)
One night, after a gig in Harlem, a budding saxophonist by the name of Robin Kenyatta was approached by none other than Bill Dixon, who expressed an admiration for the young reedman’s skills and would soon introduce him to the likes of John Coltrane. Thus began a colorful and fascinating career that ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Vibraphonist-composer Tom van der Geld’s ECM initiation came by way of the JAPO sister label when, in 1976, the self-titled Children At Play introduced listeners to an album of uncompromising originality. Recorded in 1973, the same year of van der Geld’s permanent relocation to Germany ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free jazz
Improvisations For Cello And Guitar - Live At Little Theater Club, London 1971 (Remastered)
If you’ve ever picked up a guitar and played those short strings between the end of the neck and the pegs and wondered if one could make viable music with that kind of sound, then look no further, for that is precisely the pinpoint aesthetic captured on this rare recording. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
Along with Musik, the Contact Trio’s New Marks is another standout for ECM’s sister label, JAPO. Sharing with that later release frontmen Evert Brettschneider (acoustic and electric guitars) and Aloys Kott (fretless bass) but differing in the presence of Michael Jüllich ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Fusion
Double Image was the intermittent project of Davids Friedman and Samuels, whose vibes and marimbas found likeminded company in session musicians Harvie Swartz and Michael DiPasqua on Dawn, the second of only three albums for the group and their only for ECM. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Bassist and Oregon cofounder Glen Moore joins pianist Larry Karush (who can be found lurking elsewhere on ECM as part of Steve Reich’s ensembles) in a fascinating encounter recorded on the titular date for the JAPO label. Perhaps because the two had already nurtured a deep synergy, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
Last Year's Waltz - Live At Fat Tuesday's, New York City 1981 (Remastered)
Last Year’s Waltz has everything a great live jazz album should: a present feel, gobs of atmosphere, and, oh yeah, Sheila Jordan. Right off the bat, interplay from Bob Moses and Harvie Swartz kicks us into wakefulness in “Turn To Gold.” Gilded by Kuhn’s indeed alchemical but always punctual pianism, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Cool
The Philosophy Of The Fluegelhorn (Remastered)
The Philosophy of the Fluegelhorn is Herbert Joos’s first of two albums for ECM’s sister label JAPO, the second being Daybreak. Where the latter was a lyrical, if longwinded, excursion, the former is something of a meta-statement for the German renaissance man—not ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
As yet to provide choice “vibes” for Kenny Wheeler’s around 6, in addition to his elusive but well-worth-owning Path, mallet man Tom van der Geld made his ECM debut with this, his second of three “Children At Play” recordings. Less specific than his later work with the group, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
