Alexander Knaifel: Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight: Canticum Canticorum is among the most remarkable compositions of Alexander Knaifel. Written in 1992 and 1993 and based upon the eighth chapter of the Old Testament Song of Songs, the Song of Solomon, it is conceived as a “community prayer”. In his imagination, while writing it, Knaifel said he “heard it in the most reverberant church ...
Composer: Alexander Knaifel (1943-2024)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Choral
Norway’s Jon Balke proposes a new sonic dimension with Skrifum, continuing a line of inquiry begun with Warp (2016) and Discourses (2020), solo piano albums which also processed the acoustic environment in which the music was heard. Skrifum, however, takes things a step further, as is apparent from the outset. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
After twenty-plus years of shared activity, the Billy Hart Quartet – with Mark Turner, Ethan Iverson and Ben Street – is still distinguished by its stylistic openness, a consequence of setting out to embrace all the things that drummer-leader Hart likes to play. “If ever there was an example of contemporary jazz that draws extensively on all ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
THE KÖLN CONCERT, the most successful solo jazz album of all time, is an awe-inspiring work of improvisation and invention. There is a consensus among critics, listeners and musicians alike that this, Keith Jarrett’s second solo piano concert recording (after Solo-Concerts Bremen/Lausanne), is a milestone not only of Keith Jarrett’s work, but of ...
Composer: Keith Jarrett (1945)
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
For Lullaby, Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick draws on the quartet formation in a programme that includes some of his most exploratory and improvisatory qualities to date, with a cast of ECM familiars Kristjan Randalu and Ole Morten Vågan on piano and bass, and new arrival Hans Hulbækmo on drums. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Soprano saxophonist Yuval Cohen’s debut for the label is a thrilling offering that captures the brother of long-time ECM traveller Avishai Cohen charting innovative paths through eight originals in graceful interplay with his quartet. Pianist Tom Oren, bassist Alon Near and Alon Benjamini on drums are longtime acquaintances of Yuval’s who are not only outstanding ...
Composer: Yuval Cohen (1973)
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Julia Hülsmann’s quartet resurfaces with a fresh Norwegian voice on horn in tow and presents an attractive batch of originals that finds the group thoughtfully exploring common ground with a knack for adventure. When saxophonist Uli Kempendorff first joined Julia’s trio on 2019’s Not Far From Here, a new sense of expressionist urgency was ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
François Couturier and Dominique Pifarély, defining figures in creative music in France, renew their special connection on Preludes and Songs, an album of sensitive interaction, improvisational flair, and wide ranging artistic reference. Almost three decades have elapsed since the last ECM album by the pianist and violinist ...
Composer: Francois Couturier (1950)
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Back with a newly formed quintet, gathered together for a particularly fruitful 2024 session in Southern France, the German-American pianist Benjamin Lackner now presents a different side of his composer-approach that should go a step further in exposing Lackner as a force to be reckoned with in the contemporary jazz world. Trumpeter Mathias Eick is the sole returnee from Lackner’s debut ...
Composer: Benjamin Lackner (1976)
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
A strikingly unorthodox album, with a unique sense of flow, Relations brings together kindred spirits from scattered compass points and traditions, and tells us something new about each of them. Conceived and realized over a four year period, the album is both a thoughtful collection of duos and solos and ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, an ECM recording artist since 1970, presents his first-ever solo album. Characteristically broad in its musical scope and creative range, Landloper was recorded primarily at Oslo’s Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene. Choice of repertoire in this recital reflects on Arild’s musical journey, and, alongside original ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Recorded ten years ago in New York, and released now for the first time, Taking Turns is a snapshot of Jakob Bro’s music in a period of transition. In a chronological discography of Bro’s sessions, it would follow Gefion, the Danish guitarist’s leader debut for ECM, by a few months. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
The Colin Vallon Trio has found its own space in the crowded world of the piano trio by quietly challenging its conventions. On its third ECM album Vallon again leads the group not with virtuosic solo display but by patient outlining of melody and establishing of frameworks in which layered group improvising can take place. Reviewing the group’s 2014 release Le Vent, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
To the Rising Moon is Stephan Micus’ 26th solo album for ECM. It features instruments from Colombia, India, Xinjiang (China), Bavaria, Cambodia, Egypt and Borneo, which have never before been combined in one composition. People often call themselves a multi-instrumentalist when they play three or four instruments, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
Beethoven: The Piano Concertos
Alexander Lonquich, one of the foremost performers in chamber music and as a soloist, has said that “every encounter with a work of art is at the same time an exploration of one's own existential position. This is the only way to make music today.” The New York Times has called him “an original at the piano who features both orderliness and suppleness”, ...
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Concertos
The Old Country (Live at the Deer Head Inn)
Keith Jarrett’s recordings from the Deer Head Inn have a special place among his recordings devoted to explorations of jazz standards and the American songbook. And The Old Country is a document of particular historical significance, from several perspectives. ...
Composer: Keith Jarrett (1945)
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
For her first solo-violoncello album on ECM’s New Series, Anja Lechner devotes herself to a particularly unique convergence of three composers from vastly different contexts: JS Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel and Tobias Hume. In the past, her extensive discography has captured the cellist as part of the renowned Rosamunde Quartett, as well as ...
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787), Tobias Hume (1569-1645)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Instrumental
In blazing form, the trumpeter from Tel Aviv responds to the turbulent spirit of a troubled time, leading his dedicated band through a five-part suite that runs the gamut of emotions, by turns hopeful, despairing, outraged and profoundly melancholic. The melodic directness of the concluding “The Seventh”, composed by ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
After tackling the sonatas for violin and piano of Bach, Busoni and Beethoven in 2017 – a “thoughtfully determined and subtly interconnected programme” according to Strad magazine –, the duo of Yuuko Shiokawa and András Schiff returns with striking renditions of Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 1 and Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 2. When the ....
Composer: Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Robert Schumann (1840-1856)
Genre: Classical
Subgenre: Instrumental
With Seeing, Tord Gustavsen begins an intricate new chapter in his series of acclaimed trio recordings, initiated in 2003 with Changing Places – an album that is today considered a classic. The new recording with its compact, concentrated song forms „reflects my personal development as I get older, going for the essentials in life and music“, says the Norwegian pianist. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
