ECM: C/D, S&D

If you've never heard it, this would be the perfect time to dig in to Eberhard Weber's the Following Morning.

Also, everyone should buy Northern Song, too!

These re-issues are great news. On another note, I've checked the "Offers" section on the ECM homepage and noticed these are different titles than when I checked last time (around December).

i'm liking Yonathan Avishai's Joys and Solitudes. No mystic fjords but it is lovely and subtle.

Is it just me, or have ECM New Series releases really dropped off? This seems to have happened around the release of the Kurtág box set. I wonder if that project involved such financial expenditure for ECM that Manfred Eicher won’t get around to recording more avant-garde classical until the main ECM label releases something popular and relatively high-selling that can subsidize the ECM New Series side of the label (historically, this has been yet another Keith Jarrett release, but Jarrett probably doesn’t move units like he used to).

It's not just you, and it saddens me to no end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nOqxTdQiKQ

Posted this on the Bill Frisell thread, but I listened to the Frisell/Thomas Morgan live album Epistrophy a bunch today, and really enjoyed it. Frisell in chill improv mode is great.

Checking out their previous one, Small Town, now

I think the new Kit Downes album the nicely titled Dreamlife Of Debris is a lovely album, loved Obsidian as well. Also cool that he recorded his church organ pieces at St Paul's Hall in the cultural wasteland that is Hudds again!

Well, this fucking sucks:

How many of the moments of genuine peace in your lives do you owe to Jan Erik Kongshaug, the legendary Norwegian sound engineer behind the sound of ECM Records, who passed away today?

— Brent S. Sirota (@BrentSirota) November 5, 2019

Oh no. Fuck, that's horrible. RIP.

:(((

I wonder how far this documentary got: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1919963818/jan-erik-kongshaug-dokumentar/posts/2472853

rip to a real one

shit missed this revive. RIP Jan

Mal Waldron - Free At Last, the Extended Anniversary Edition is issued as an audiophile vinyl double album.
Revisited and remastered, with additional takes + 16 page booklet.
Pre-order here: https://t.co/hJ6meW7ftB pic.twitter.com/brJole1eMs

— ECM Records (@ECMRecords) November 8, 2019

I’m finding a lot of these records sound *incredible* on good stereo speakers. Tord Gustavsen Extended Circle is the latest one to really grab me. Opener “Right There” is a stark, stately thing of beauty.

Nice thing by Richard Williams on the 50th anniversary - with a Top 20 (19): https://thebluemoment.com/2020/01/03/ecm-at-50/

no Mal Waldron no cred imo!

ECM's artwork over the last fifty years has evolved, for example the recent choice to put portraits of musicians on the covers or back (Avishai Cohen, Elina Duni) has been a striking change.

But has any release had such extremely un-ECM cover art as the new Vincent Courtois release? https://www.ecmrecords.com/catalogue/1578064137

The catalogue number is different: RJAL 397034. The cover art appears to be in keeping with their other releases in the series: https://www.ecmrecords.com/search-advanced/rjal.

Sorry, I goofed. The new Vincent Courtois release has a catalogue number RJAL 397034, which means it belongs to the La Buissonne side label, not ECM proper. But showing this album on the general ECM New Releases page makes it look really outlandish compared to its more typically austere neigbours.

I know, right? I mean...a serif font?

A lot of Carla Bley's albums have very goofy, un-ECM-ish cover art, but those were licensed from her to the label, so Manfred didn't have much input.

I liked this cover, from 2015 (and the music's really good too):

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/714t8cm9bQL.jpg

I've always thought the cover of The Colours of Chloe is very un-ECMish, but I guess it was early days then.

I know Kit Downes is probably tainted by being the regular token jazz nom for low level shite like the mercury/BBC awards for years, but I think his last two albums Obsidian/Dream Life of Debris are really beautiful. Pretty typical ECM covers though.

https://shop.new-art.nl/assets/image.php?width=800&image=/content/img/new_products_queue/1543327215.jpg

This one is the one that really struck me as an uncharacteristic ECM cover, though the font at the top ties it in with the aesthetic I guess.

love that album as well!

Bleeding Gums Murphy!

Agree, that latest Downes album is really good.

Heh, with that last cover art above, I imagine ECM having a photo just of the bridge and night skyline, and then Lovano’s manager or someone insisting that image of him playing sax be photoshopped in front of it.

just listened to that Mal Waldron Free At Last remaster, not that I've done any comparing with the original or neither am I an audiophile to any degree, but it sounds beautiful.

HUGE dud: Jan Garbarek (or "Janny G" as he's often nicknamed on the ECM list). Smooooth! etc

There were a couple of bootlegs of the Jan Garbarek Quartet with Terje Rypdal ca. 69-71 on the Inconstant Sol blog 5 years or so ago that I thought were pretty killer. Looks like they're gone now, that's a pity. Rypdal even got a couple of madcap Keith Rowe moments in IIRC.

Ah shit, just found out that Jon Christensen, brilliant house drummer of sorts to ECM artists has passed.

Figured this thread is a good place to post that I'm enjoying this IG account that's taking a look at all ECM albums in chronological order: https://www.instagram.com/ecm_listening/

It's a simple premise but fun to follow. Some of these early releases are blowing my mind. I particularly love the albums from Terje Rypdal, Marion Brown and Stanley Cowell Trio covered so far.

What exactly caused ECM’s nadir of the mid-late 1980s? Was it a matter of most of the ECM stable producing poor work at this time? Or was it a matter of Eicher choosing only to release the bad stuff?

A bit of the latter, a lot of the former as far as I can tell. Since I've got too much time on my hands, I may try to come up with a 'best of ECM in the 80s' list just for the hell of it.

Mostly because I'm not entirely sure we'd all agree on what constitutes ECM's nadir.

I'm sure there was some a+ Bley albums in the 80s on ecm, Dino Saluzzi..loads of other things I can't remember rn. So much good stuff I think "nadir" might be very harsh!

Avro Part is no nadir!

Calzino, Arvo Pärt releases are on ECM New Series, not ECM proper. In the opinion of some, Eicher's founding of the New Series side label is what got him out of a rut he was stuck in during this decade.

ok now I'm curious to know what ilxors consider to be truly the worst of ECM

what discs constitute said nadir? like I see the point but I’ve really enjoyed quite a few discs from that period over the last few years - I think a lot of stylistic aspects that might’ve made them feel unlovely at the time have aged pretty well (synths and drum machines, new age-y textures)

For reference some I’ve really dug from that era are ‘we begin’ by mark isham and art lande - ‘withholding pattern’ John Surman - ‘continuum’ Rainer Brunighaus et al - just off top of my head

Sorry multiple xp

I’ve seen a few people cite Shankar’s The Epidemics as the worst ECM release, and it sure is a stinker—Steve Vai on guitar!

wow! ok that's a must-hear, at least once.

It's definitely down there.

tbf, I've picked up some ECM releases that were incredibly corny, only to find out their release date was '74 or whatever

Theres a couple Michael mantler and Dob Preston releases that get a bit dungeon synth at times and which have "aged badly" and that shankar sounds shit but some of my favourite ecm is from the 80s (love all the 80s oregon albums for instance)

I bought this one when it first came out, after reading xgau's review:
Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition: Album Album [ECM, 1984]
Like so many of the best-liked new jazz albums, this one pays heartfelt respects to the carnivalesque--if you really wanted to, you could dance to it. But you'd probably rather listen, because at the same time it's highly composed, often dividing tunes into several distinct sections, and superbly played--John Purcell and Howard Johnson damn near keep up with master saxophonist David Murray. And beneath it all, tipping the balance between rowdy and civilized, is a Manfred Eicher mix that makes the record sit more like chamber music than DeJohnette could possibly have intended. A- He's right!

So turn it up, for me always on headphones, and no prob.

Excluding NS releases and without revisiting any of them, my 80s ECM faves look something like this:

Bengt Berger Band with Don Cherry – Bitter Funeral Beer (1982)
Bill Connors – Swimming with a Hole in My Body (1980)
Codona – Codona 2 (1981)
Codona – Codona 3 (1983)
David Darling – Cycles (1982)
David Torn & Geoffrey Gordon – Best Laid Plans (1985)
Hajo Weber, Ulrich Ingebold – Winterreise (1982)
Jack DeJohnette – Special Edition (1980)
Jon Hassell – Power Spot (1986)
Keith Jarrett – Dark Intervals (1988)
Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson & Jon Christensen – Personal Mountains (1989)
Masqualero – Bande à part (1986)
Michael Galasso – Scenes (1983)
Paul Bley, John Surman, Bill Frisell & Paul Motian – Fragments (1986)
Paul Motian Band – Psalm (1982)
Sam Rivers – Contrasts (1980)

So yeah, it does skew rather heavily towards the decade's first half.