ECM: C/D, S&D

so, back to ralph towner for a sec—

i just checked out his joint venture with gary burton (matchbook) for the first time on the old internet jukebox today and realized i'm an idiot. i could've bought that record for a dollar probably a hundred times when i lived in reno. but oh well, if i had done that i would have spent a hundred dollars and inexplicably have a hundred copies of the album. i mean, it's a great record, but. . .

ECMs I've never heard that I've played in the last couple of days:
Pat Metheny, New Chautauqua & Bright Size Life - liked the really low key stuff the best, otherwise kind of reminded me of the guitar equivalent of a solo Jarrett record. I had heard Bright Size in passing a while ago and thought it was pretty nice sounding. After having gone deep on Pat recently, I wasn't as moved by it as I had expected to be, but it had some uncharacteristic, understated playing by Jaco which I got into.
Rypdal/Vitous/DeJohnette - loved this one
Dave Liebman, Lookout Farm & Drum Ode - I liked about half of each of these. Vocals undid Drum Ode, got a little lost on Lookout Farm, but will revisit both.
Julian Priester, Polarization - I know and adore Love, Love, but had never heard of this one at all. Some funk, some stately tone pieces. Pretty cool as well.
Oregon, Crossing & Ecotopia - the synths on Ecotopia were mentioned as a hazard upthread, but I was ready for them and got into this one. Crossing was better though. I think I need to get into more Oregon.

i tried to get into oregon last year. picked up their first two albums (from the vanguard years, so very early 1970s) and just didn't really dig what i heard. wasn't put off by it, just didn't really stick out much.

i used to be one of those metheny haters, but i've since eased off on that after hearing some of his early work as a sideman. need to check out one of his proper albums.

also, after seeing it on the non-meme ecm instagram (linked earlier upthread), i checked out this bill connors album and whoa! it's really interesting and not very ecm-esque (not in the 'classic' sense anyway). almost seems like it would not be too out of place in the post-fahey thread. really searching, undefined music. p rad.

what i've heard of rypdal has been great. he does get a little riffy and showy in his playing sometimes, but it doesn't really feel out of place. side b of his descendre album is probably among the prettiest music that ecm ever did. definitely one for the "in a similarly silent way" crowd.

Apple music has ECM's entire streaming output organized by decade, which is cool for deciding whether I want to check out some early classics I haven't had a chance to explore yet or go for the digital synth era. I've yet to make it past 1989 with any ECM release, save for listening to more recent Eberhard Weber over the last couple of days. I didn't realize his output dropped off because he'd had a stroke over a decade ago. Biographically, I know quite little about the ECM coterie. Would be a great topic for a documentary.

That Connors is on my list to check out for sure.

Swimming with a Hole in My Body (such an oddly mysterious title) is my fave Connors release for ECM.

Just picked up a lovely pristine copy of Scales by the Manfred Schoof Quintet (on Japo). I already had and appreciated the ECM 2CD collecting most of their material for the label but listening to it with the original sequencing is a much better experience. Some wonderful delicate keyboard work from Jasper Van’T Hof. I’m not aware of these records being much talked about - possibly because Schoof moved away from jazz? But really strong work IMO.

https://shop.new-art.nl/assets/image.php?width=800&image=/content/img/new_products_queue/1443426047.jpg

I simply cannot articulate what a stunning piece of music this is.

A perfect disc, yes, and I'm not even that big a Satie/Cage/Feldman stan.

It is perfect, such a beautiful compilation. There's about a hundred years between Satie and Cage's 'Four', but they sit together like they're meant to.

In the past I've found some of the material François Couturier released under his own name to be a little light on content, but his second album with Anja Lechner, featuring mostly original compositions this time, is really hitting the autumnal spot right now. These two have more chemistry as a duo than as half of a quartet.

jean-louis matinier & kevin seddiki - rivages

^^^
this is another quite beautiful and captivating duo album imo

not sure if Terje Rypdal hits that autumnal spot for everybody but he released his first new album for years last month, sounded p good on my first listen

Yeah, the Rypdal album is fantastic. Reviewed it for The Wire.

Thought this was a cool little piece - Manfred Eicher picks five favourite Blue Note albs:

https://www.wbgo.org/post/field-studies-manfred-eicher-founder-ecm-records-picks-his-top-five-blue-note-albums#stream/0

That's really cool. Thanks for the heads up.

That's a great looking list. The Pete La Roca album is fantastic.

I'm sure I read about it here but can find no mention on the thread. Either way, the live Ghazal album, The Rain makes my hair stand on end.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/The_Rain_%28Ghazal_album%29.jpg

Fantastic cover- I'll look this up.

My two most recent discoveries from the 80s back catalogue are Paul Motian's 'It Should've Happened A Long Time Ago' & Marc Johnson's 'Bass Desires', both from 86-87, both featuring Bill Frisell doing a ton of guitar synth stuff, which I can't get enough of these days.

Ooh, gotta check that out

the live Ghazal album, The Rain makes my hair stand on end

Just listened, fucking awesome, thanks. Have you ever heard Ravi Shankar's live thing from the Concert for Bangladesh? Similar vibe to Eternity.

so the Ezra Feinberg album Recumbent Speech from last year is hitting a lot of ECM notes for me. ECM and tubular bells and tortoise and jim o'rourke. All that good stuff.

That Ezra Feinberg album is great.

Just listened, fucking awesome, thanks. Have you ever heard Ravi Shankar's live thing from the Concert for Bangladesh? Similar vibe to Eternity.

God, this album is so good. Not heard that particular Shankar - will check it out for sure.

Wow, thanks for that Jamie (and Chinaski), the Feinberg album really is great!

Tibbetts' Northern Song keeps getting played at our residence, please advise as to how I can keep these low-key heady vibes going please, in the ECm vein...

more tibbetts.

Big Map Ideas is one i really like from him

yes, also very mellow in the vein of northern song. his two more recent ones (natural causes and life of) are probably the most aurally similar to northern song.

but nothing tops northern song.

for similarly sparse ecm / windham hill vibes, i like—

michael hedges — breakfast in the field
william ackerman — it takes a year

i also think one could put together a playlist of 70s leo kottke deep cuts that may be relevant. i might do that later, actually.

Excited for the forthcoming Vijay Iyer with Linda May Hahn Oh and Tyshawn Sorey. Iyer's last ECM was very good indeed.

Swimming with a Hole in My Body (such an oddly mysterious title) is my fave Connors release for ECM.

― pomenitul, Friday, July 31, 2020 9:05 AM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is great and fits table's criteria

xp

quite the trio is that, almost guaranteed to be a+. Hafez Modirzadeh's Facets is probably my fave album of the year so far but still it will be nice to hear Sorey back behind a drum kit again.

love Facets, too. Thanks all.

I got to see the Iyer/Oh/Sorey trio at the Jazz Standard about a month before lockdown, playing music from this upcoming album. Based on that and the tracks I've already heard, it's gonna be a pretty forceful album. Looking forward to it.

Facets is stunning - love Modirzadeh's sound world.

Thanks for the recs yesterday, though as much as I love the Connors and Hedges, it's the full instrumental treatment of Northern Song that appeals most to me—

some purist was probably quite ruffled at the time, but this is hittin like holy shit this morning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmRm8UYTeNw

(gary burton — "las vegas tango")

also, ya i know this isn't on ecm, but either i'm bad at the search function or there isn't a currently existing gary burton topic (!!??!?!).

There was a post two days ago on the thread entitled "jazz" about Gary Burton reissues.

yeah, i saw that. it's what prompted my recent dive back into his catalogue.

Vijay Iyer's tenure as Pitchfork's favorite jazz artist continues. Long may he reign.

This record is really lovely, has heavy ECM vibes on it
https://schlarb.bandcamp.com/album/time-no-changes

This record moves between WH-ECM-Takoma vibes. Really beautiful record from a promising young musician.

https://yasminwilliams.bandcamp.com/album/urban-driftwood

very nice stock ecm anti-smooth post-bop sounds on dawn by double image from 1979. a quartet fronted by two marimba players! if you like ecm but hate pianos, horns, AND guitars, well friend, do i have recommendation for you. it's actually really good though and worth hearing. especially if you like that melodic mallet sound. kind of leans more towards that introspective thing you expect from ecm, but still some really pretty stuff. the tunes take twists and turns with some passages of absolutely wondrous harmonic conversations between the two ... uh, marimberers? marimbists? marimbobo honkers?

The princely Andrew Male did a nice ECM set at Spiritland a couple of weeks ago. Lots new to me: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5cImqc3DCXMyIzJj9oLxwe?si=0d2c8ba34f4e4402

He played records rather than Spotify, obviously.

Ooh, I'd love to hear a set like this

Digging through the ECM back catalogue has been a welcome relief to my depression at the moment. There's something so uplifting and transcendent about the ECM sound at its best. Doctors should seriously consider prescribing this stuff imo.

Really enjoying The Colours of Chlöe right now. Eberhard Weber really couldn't put a foot wrong during his best run in the '70s.

Barre Phillips • Mountainscapes

This is a great album.

xp

It's really true, that's exactly what got me through the whole lockdown period in the early days of the pandemic (well that and a healthy amount of whiskey), and yes, The Colours of Chlöe got a lot of play during that time.

Well I’ve fallen, hard. Just ordered a stack of ECM CDs from Discogs and can't wait for them to arrive:

Keith Jarrett - The Survivors' Suite
Steve Kuhn - Trance
Mike Nock - Ondas
Barre Phillips - Mountainscapes
John Surman - Withholding Pattern
Steve Tibbets - Northern Song
Edward Vesala - Nan Madol
Eberhard Weber - The Colours of Chlöe
Eberhard Weber/Colours - Silent Feet

Guess I'm very into the more atmospheric side of the sound. Need to get some more guitar stuff too... John Abercrombie and David Torn are next on the wishlist.

As far as guitar stuff goes, I really got into Ralph Towner's various ECM recordings.

Thanks for the recommendation! Any particular place I should start wth Towner?

Solstice is my favorite, especially since it features Eberhard Weber. He also has some nice duet albums like Sargasso Sea with John Abercrombie and Matchbook with Gary Burton.