Guitarist Steve Tibbetts exploded our view when ECM introduced the world to the adroit textures of Northern Song. He did so again with “Test,” the doorway onto the enlightening path that winds through Safe Journey. Don’t let its initial stirrings fool ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Marc Sinan’s third ECM release is an evocative duo album with Oğuz Büyükberber which subtly covers a lot of ground. The guitarist and the clarinettist have worked together in many contexts since first meeting in Istanbul a decade ago, and Büyükberber previously appeared on ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
One-of-a-kind guitarist and record-maker Steve Tibbetts has an association with ECM dating back to 1981, with his body of work reflecting that of an artist who follows his own winding, questing path. The BBC has described his music as “an atmospheric brew… brilliant, individual.” ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
A Suite Of Poems (Lars Saabye Christensen)
Settings of poetry and other literary texts form a special category in the discography of Norwegian pianist-composer Ketil Bjørnstad's and A Suite of Poems, recorded at Oslo's Rainbow Studio in June 2016, is a song cycle to put alongside such projects as A Passion for John Donne, Sunrise, and The Light. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Vocal
„Awase”, ein Ausdruck aus der Kampfkunst, bedeutet so viel wie „verschmelzen” oder „harmonisieren”, Energien aufeinander abstimmen – eine treffende Metapher für die aufgeweckte Präzision, die mosaikartigen Grooves und den graziösen Minimalismus von Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Songs of love, loss and leaving. After two highly acclaimed albums with her jazz quartet, Elina Duni issues her most intimate recording to date. The entirely solo Partir features the Tirana-born vocalist, accompanied by her own piano, guitar and frame drum, interpreting songs ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
Ravel, Franck, Ligeti, Messiaen
A sense of discovery is a key theme in the third ECM recital of sisters Natascia and Raffaella Gazzana. Alongside a landscape of French music for violin and piano, drawing on a multiplicity of inspirations, the album includes a premiere recording of György Ligeti’s Duo, dedicated to Kúrtag. ...
Composer: Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), Cesar Franck (1822-1890), György Ligeti (1923–2006), Olivier Messiaen (1930)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Chamber Music
The fourth New Series album from the St Petersburg-based composer Alexander Knaifel may be his most wide-ranging to date, voyaging from the sacred to the secular and back again via several inspired detours. It includes two Prayers to the Holy Spirit, movingly performed by the Lege ...
Composer: Alexander Knaifel
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Vocal
All four of Arvo Pärt’s symphonies, newly recorded with the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic under the direction of one of Pärt’s most trusted colleagues, Tõnu Kaljuste. Each of the symphonies, as the great Estonian composer has noted, is a world unto itself. ...
Composer: Arvo Pärt (1935)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Orchestral
Estonian pianist Kristjan Randalu makes his ECM debut with a striking album of his own rigorous-yet-lyrical music, sensitively played by a trio formed especially for this recording, with US guitarist Ben Monder and Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
Norwegian master bassist Arild Andersen's trio with big-toned tenorist Tommy Smith and powerhouse drummer Paolo Vinaccia is one of the most viscerally exciting jazz small groups of the present moment. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
"Danish guitarist Jakob Bro creates magical music, impossible to categorize", wrote Downbeat recently. On 'Returnings' the magic is intensified as Bro and musical soul-mate Thomas Morgan reconnect with two living legends of European jazz, trumpeter Palle ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
One of the pleasures of Mathias Eick s Midwest album was hearing his vaulting trumpet supported by violin, an instrumental combination further developed on Ravensburg. The new violinist in Eicks ensemble is Hakon Aase, one of the up-and-coming players of the new Norwegian scene, whom attentive ECM ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
The group colloquially known as “the Standards trio” has made many outstanding recordings, and After The Fall must rank with the very best of them. “I was amazed to hear how well the music worked,” writes Keith Jarrett in his liner note. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Andy Sheppards quartet extends the musical explorations begun on the 2015 release Surrounded By Sea, an album praised by Télérama for its poignant serenity. In this new program of compositions by Sheppard (plus the title track by Brazilian singer-songwriter Renato Teixeira), ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
A creative journey into the world of cinema with new arrangements - by Klaus Gesing and Glauco Venier - of music by Nino Rota, Michel Legrand, William Walton, Bernard Herrmann, and Ennio Morricone for the movies of Scorsese, Godard, Wenders, Jewison, Zeffirelli, Olivier and more. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre:
After two ECM albums with the cooperative trio Third Reel, Swiss reedman Nicolas Masson presents a quartet for which he is the sole composer. The group has existed for a decade with unchanged personnel, touring as Nicolas Massons Parallels, and the leaders writing for it always encourages ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
An ECM debut for a unique Japanese-French-German trio, with a lyrical sound of its own. Drummer-leader Shinya Fukumori, also the principal composer for the band, is an imaginative melodist at several levels, and the attention to timbre and detail and space which distinguishes ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Saxophonist and clarinettist John Surman is often characterized as a quintessentially English improviser and composer, and hints of folk music and a pastoral ambience are attributes of his music on well-loved albums like 'The Road to Saint Ives' or his last ECM recording, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Norwegian drummer/composer Thomas Strønen presents a revised edition of his acoustic collective Time Is A Blind Guide, now trimmed to quintet size, and with a new pianist in Wakayama-born Ayumi Tanaka. Tanaka has spoken of seeking associative connections between Japan and Norway ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
