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Pages of a Biography

Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica ensemble continue the longstanding relationship with ECM’s New Series on Pages of a Biography, a programme of works by Georgs Pelēcis, Andrius Žlabys and Arvo Pärt. The three composers heard here are closely connected to Kremer’s work as an interpreter and advocate of Baltic music: Pelēcis and Žlabys have written works specifically for him and Kremerata Baltica, while Pärt’s music has been a constant presence throughout his artistic life. ...

Composer: Arvo Pärt (1935), Andrius Zlabys (1977), Georgs Pelecis (1947)

Genre: Classical

Subgenre: Chamber Music

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Live in Venice

The Tallis Scholars, founded by their conductor Peter Phillips in 1973, belong among the world’s preeminent chamber choirs and have championed the sacred vocal music of the Renaissance like no other ensemble. Here they are captured in a remarkable concert recorded on 14 July 2017 in the glorious Basilica di San Marco in Venice. The music crosses centuries without smoothing their fractures, gathering difference into communion. San Marco presses itself like an ear against the sealed tomb, where new life begins as a change ...

Composer: Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), Arvo Pärt (1935), Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652), Komitas (1869-1935), Antonio Lotti (1666-1740)

Genre: Classical

Subgenre: Choral

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Corners

For his new recording, Italian trumpeter and long-time label-companion Enrico Rava has surrounded himself with a new generation of Italian players eager to defy the paradigm. As a collective they call themselves the Fearless Five – a quintet joined here by guest saxophonist Joe Lovano for an album of all-original music, fashioned with a sense of adventure and panache ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (Remastered)

This Grammy-winning new recording features several players who've been with Reich's ensemble since the landmark Music for 18 Musicians debuted in the mid-'70s. Says the New York Times: ""It would be hard to think of any American music more important than this."" ...

Composer: Steve Reich (1936)

Genre: Classical

Subgenre: Minimalism

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Ritornare

Since its formation in 1999, Enzo Favata’s Atlantico quintet has explored a musical space where Mediterranean roots, Latin American echoes and African influences merge. Probing the musical space where jazz, chamber music dynamics and improvisation meet, the group, never predictable, proves to have a strong sense of direction grounded in vast musical backgrounds, including the ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Crossover Jazz

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Salt Catchers

After an ECM debut recording with a quintet (Movements in Colour, 2009), a critically lauded release with his Trio Libero, successful quartet recordings (Surrounded By Sea, 2015, Romaria, 2018) and an internationally acclaimed trilogy of albums in a trio with Carla Bley and Steve Swallow, on Salt Catchers English saxophonist Andy Sheppard presents a new trio with Italian ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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Samuel Beckett: Stirrings Still (with music by Trevor Bača)

Stirrings Still was Samuel Beckett’s last message in prose, completed in 1987, and first published the following year. More monologue than story, it comes from a narrator on the edge between life and what lies beyond, which might be a vast wheatfield seen in black-and-white, or might be a swirl of stumbling memories. Beckett cherished music, in particular the songs and string quartets of Franz Schubert. His writing is musical, in its meticulous phrasing, its use of repetition, and often its form. Stirrings Still is an example: a composition of interweavings and developments. ...

Composer: Trevor Baca (1975)

Genre: Classical

Subgenre: Chamber Music

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Windflower

Windflower introduces a new trio, with the Japanese pianist Ayumi Tanaka, the US bassist Thomas Morgan and the Norwegian drummer Thomas Strønen. Three players well-known to followers of musical directions at ECM, they shape their music together, weaving abstract and lyrical ideas in pieces whose flow and energy are influenced by chamber music and jazz, and by sensibilities of East, West and North. ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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A Sun That Never Sets

Für A Sun That Never Sets erweitert Ralph Alessi die Quartettbesetzung um einen fünften Musiker für ein Set aus elf neuen Kompositionen, die Alessis komplexe Schreibweise aus Reflektion und Lust am Abenteuer weiter ausführen. Das letzte Mal arbeitete Alessi in einem Quintett mit dem Saxophonisten Ravi Coltrane in seinem Ensemble This Against That zusammen, festgehalten auf dem gefeierten Album Imaginary Friends von 2019. Anstelle eines Saxophonisten tritt diesmal der ... #!EN!#> On A Sun That Never Sets, Ralph Alessi expands the quartet configuration with a fifth player for a set of eleven new compositions that elaborate on Alessi’s intricate writing with deep thought and a fresh sense of adventure. The last time Alessi operated with a quintet was alongside saxophonist Ravi Coltrane in his This Against That ensemble, captured on 2019’s acclaimed Imaginary Friends, among several other recordings from that outfit. However instead of a ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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Winter Songs

For Winter Songs, Steve Swallow’s first true leader date in over a decade (Into The Woodworks, 2013) and his first recorded appearance on the label after John Scofield’s Swallow Tales and Carla Bley’s Life Goes On in 2020, the master-bassist has gathered together a group of close confidants to accompany him through some of the most intrinsic and melodically immediate music he has ever written. With the expert but subtly applied horn section of Chris Cheek on sax and Mike Rodriguez on trumpet, ....

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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Feebles, Fables & Ferns

Feebles, Fables and Ferns captures a rare one-time coming together of luminaries Mick Goodrick and Fred Hersch, both active in Boston at the time, recorded in Hersch’s studio in New York, in August 1988. Looking back at the session almost four decades later, Hersch notes how “the highlight to me is just the level of ensemble playing. There was a lot of profound listening ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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Paramount Quartet

The “Paramount” in Joe Lovano’s new quartet can be interpreted as a statement of intent. “I feel like at this point I’m on the rise,” Joe says, seemingly unaware of the decades of experience and several dozens of leader-recordings under his belt. “We've arrived at this unique place with this quartet – It’s very special. It's a new thing. Recording this with Manfred [Eicher] in the studio, ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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Reaching for the Moon

“Few contemporary jazz-influenced singers manage to sound so intensely like themselves while drawing on such a variety of genres, languages, and cultural backstories as the Albania-born vocalist Elina Duni,” The Guardian has noted, and Reaching for the Moon once again casts a wide net. It’s Duni’s third recording with UK guitarist Rob Luft, and where Lost Ships and A Time To ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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Prokofiev — Pärt — Schnittke

Their last album with works by Robert Schumann, Edvard Grieg and Tõnu Kõrvits saw the Gazzana sisters Natascia and Raffaella “achieve the highest levels of instinctive expression”, according to the French daily paper Le Monde, and one could argue that this holds even more true for their new recording with music by Sergei Prokofiev, Arvo Pärt and Alfred ...

Composer: Serge Prokofieff (1891-1953), Arvo Pärt (1935), Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)

Genre: Classical

Subgenre: Instrumental

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Thee They Thy

Judith Berkson, mezzo-soprano, pianist, composer and improviser returns on ECM with a compelling new album. “I view the pieces on this recording as a natural extension of my solo work,” says Judith Berkson. “This idea of songs that are quite intimate and personal, informed by jazz with pockets of improvisation but also drawing from song ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Vocal

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Mountain Call

Mountain Call is a peak achievement in Miroslav Vitous’s music, presenting the masterful bassist in varying ensemble configurations that prominently include the late French clarinetist Michel Portal and American drummer Jack DeJohnette, among others. Persuasively bringing together several tendencies and streams in Vitous’s work, the album bears testimony to his multiple skills as dynamic improviser, jazz composer, arranger and creative sampling pioneer. ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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Memento

Memento, the first duo release from US pianist Marilyn Crispell and Swedish bassist Anders Jormin, is an album of lyrical and subtle music-making, with compositions and improvisations that circle around ideas of memory and loss. Crispell previously appeared on Jormin’s cycle of sacred songs, In Winds, In Light (2004), and has long credited the Swedish bassist as an influence on her own musical thinking. ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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Patternmaster

Patternmaster captures Mark Turner’s quartet at its most adventurous, sophisticated and hard-hitting. In his review of the West Coast-based saxophonist’s last quartet effort for ECM, 2022’s Return From The Stars, the Swiss daily Weltwoche’s Peter Rüedi spoke of “the leanest, most concentrated, and most inspired improvised chamber music imaginable.” It’s a fitting description of the tenor saxophonist’s powerful quartet endeavours ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz

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con slancio

The release of con slancio, with premier recordings of music written by Swiss composer and nonpareil oboist Heinz Holliger, marks 40 years of collaboration with ECM New Series. Threaded throughout the album are strongly contrasting pieces dedicated to Holliger over the years by fellow composers. A spirit of vigor and enthusiasm animates both new pieces and tributes. ...

Composer: Heinz Holliger (1939-), Toshio Hosokawa (1955-), Jürg Wyttenbach (1935), György Kurtág (1926), Heinrich Sutermeister (1910-1995)

Genre: Classical

Subgenre: Instrumental

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The Jewel In The Lotus (Remastered)

The Jewel in the Lotus is the debut album by jazz woodwind player Bennie Maupin, recorded in March 1974 and released on ECM later that year. The sextet's rhythm section consists of pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Buster Williams and percussionists Billy Hart, Freddie Waits and Bill Summers, with guest appearances from trumpeter Charles Sullivan. ...

Genre: Jazz

Subgenre: Free Jazz

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