A solo concert from Keith Jarrett - recorded at Munich’s Philharmonic Hall on July 16, 2016, on the last night of a tour - finds the great improvising pianist at a peak of invention. Creating a spontaneous suite of forms in the moment with the intuitive assurance of a master builder – ...
Genre: Instrumental
Subgenre: Piano
Not Far From Here introduces pianist Julia Hülsmann’s new group, in which her long-established working trio with Marc Muellbauer and Heinrich Köbberling (together now for 17 years) is expanded to a quartet with the addition of saxophonist Uli Kempendorff. In Kempendorff’s playing “both suppleness and unruliness are in ample supply”, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
The half-Polish, half-Norwegian quartet led by fiery alto saxophonist Maciej Obara is gaining ground as one of the most exciting groups on the contemporary jazz scene. Both the band and its ECM debut Unloved were awarded the Fryderyk Prize in Poland in 2018, and early in 2019 the Obara Quartet ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Dreamlife of Debris carries forward the story begun on Kit Downes’s Obsidian, extending and developing its processes and core ideas. But where Obsidian was (almost exclusively) a solo church organ album, part of Kit’s plan for Dreamlife was to put the organ in a broader context, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
Remember Me, My Dear (Live in Bellinzona / 2014)
25 years on from the release of Officium, the groundbreaking alliance of Jan Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble, comes Remember me, my dear, recorded during the final tour the group made in October 2014. The program is emblematic of the range of repertoire the Norwegian saxophonist and...
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Vocal
Louis Sclavis’s 13th ECM recording finds the French clarinetist drawing inspiration from two sources – the street art of Ernest Pignon-Ernest, and the interpretive originality of a splendid new quartet. Pignon-Ernest’s works were previously the subject of Sclavis’s highly acclaimed 2002 recording Napoli’s Walls. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Common Practice (Live At The Village Vanguard / 2017)
The latest ECM album to feature pianist Ethan Iverson – following last year’s duo recording with saxophonist Mark Turner, Temporary Kings, and two lauded discs with the Billy Hart Quartet – presents the Brooklyn-based artist at the head of his own quartet in a program of standards and blues, recorded live at Manhattan’s famed Village Vanguard. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
The Danish String Quartet's Grammy-nominated Prism project links Bach fugues, late Beethoven quartets and works by modern masters. In volume two of the series, Bach's Fugue in Bb minor from the Well-Tempered Clavier (in the arrangement by Viennese composer Emanuel Aloys Förster) ...
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
Playing The Room bears testimony to the long musical friendship of Avishai Cohen and Yonathan Avishai. They began to explore jazz as teenagers in Tel Aviv, and have continued to play together over many years, with Yonathan making important contributions to Avishai’s group albums Into The Silence and Cross My Palm With Silver on ECM. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Recorded live at Rome’s Auditorium Parco della Musica last November, this album documents the meeting of the doyen of Italian jazz, Enrico Rava, with Joe Lovano, masterful US tenorist of Sicilian heritage. Rava and Lovano front a spirited quintet that includes ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Universo Musical de Egberto Gismonti
Born in 1981, Brazilian guitarist Daniel Murray began his musical studies at an early age. After dedicating himself to the classical guitar, he studied the instrument and composition in Brazil and formed a duo with Paulo Porto Alegre, dedicated to modern and avant-garde repertoire for two guitars. ...
Genre: Guitar
Subgenre: Jazz
Just Music was the moniker for a rotating West German collective whose musical “happenings” were a nascent challenge to mainstream sociopolitical strictures. Although the classical training of these musicians is readily apparent from their technical prowess, the opening outburst tells us we’re in for something ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
Werner Pirchner, Harry Pepl, Jack DeJohnette (Remastered)
Vastly under-recognized malleter and composer Werner Pirchner sharing the same studio with guitarist Harry Pepl and drummer Jack DeJohnette? What could go wrong? Quite a bit, unfortunately. The opening “Africa Godchild” starts intriguingly enough, seeming to creep from the soil like an awakening locust. Pirchner describes with his marimba the feelers ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
The Swiss quartet of OM, which found just the freedom it needed in ECM’s studios for a good decade, flung open the doors with colorful aplomb on Rautionaha, a rare JAPO release. To this early date the group brings a kaleidoscope of shared experience. The sound is appropriately ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Free Jazz
It’s unfortunate that Adelhard Roidinger only cut this one record for ECM. The Austrian-born Renaissance man seems to have been a perfect fit for the label, which by the time of this release (1982) had firmly established its aesthetic hold on the jazz market. Schattseite has a lush, airy sound ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
“I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” welcomes us with open arms as Rava skips, keens, wails, and laughs his way along this journey filled with nostalgia and multilingual communication. D’Andrea is downright ecstatic as he stumbles into a teaser of an ending. The title track is the album’s ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre:
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, which was ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Another enigmatic outlier in the land of the as-yet-to-be-reissued, Gallery follows in the tender footsteps of First Avenue. Its talents are immediately sent skyward in “Soaring,” where the sprightly vibes of Dave Samuels find complement in bassist Ratzo Harris and cellist David Darling, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
After an explosive introduction, Arild Andersen’s Lifelines kicks us like a soccer ball down the field of “Cameron,” where we are intercepted by Steve Dobrogosz’s swirling keys. Into this hammered storm, Andersen drops his bass, keeping us centered in this staggering opener. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
