ECM: C/D, S&D

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.

That's a great ECM haul, Ghost Club. My favorite guitarist on ECM is Terje Rypdal. All of his 70s records are worth checking out, but I'd prioritize What Comes After (which I hear as an album-length exploration of the sonic world established by Miles Davis on "Yesternow") and Descendre (beautifully spaced-out and synth-heavy masterpiece; some passages are almost Floydian, though this is more futuristic than anything Pink Floyd ever did).

I've listened to a few Rypdal records, very intriguing but he can get a little abstract for me. His classical/jazz crossover pieces, like the title track of Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away, are exceptional.

Ghost club let us know what you think of Tibbetts he is IMO a genre unto himself

Thanks for all the recommendations! I really liked Sargasso Sea, but I still need to spend more time with Solstice.

Terje Rypdal is an interesting artist. He's incredibly versatile wth his sound, so I find him hard to pin down. I really enjoyed Descendre and his album with Miroslav Vitous and Jack DeJohnette. Spot on that there's Floydian moments, J. Sam, but very much more abstract. I need to check out What Comes After next.

Steve Tibbets, oh my! Northern Song is such a journey. The atmosphere he evokes begs solitude and a darkened room. I don't mean to slight it at all when I say it's very meditative and restorative. Parts of it sound like Fahey on opioids, which I very much like.

Steve Tibbets more recent 'Life Of' is fantastic - good article on it here: https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2019/03/04/deep-into-steve-tibbetts-life-of/

and a cool page on his own site i just spotted: https://stevetibbetts.com/my-ecm/

all been mentioned above, but Connors' 'Swimming with a Hole in My Body' and Metheny 'As Falls Wichita...' and David Darling 'Cycles' are my go-to ecm faves.

I recently purchased a used vinyl copy of Terje Rypdal's Chaser, which is harder-edged power trio stuff, and I feel compelled to c + p this RYM review of it since I found it amusingly OTT for an ECM record.

"SIDE 1: AMBIGUITY - CRANK
ONCE UPON A TIME - HEROIN
GEYSIR - ANGEL DUST
A CLOSER LOOK - COLUMBIAN RED BUD
SIDE 2: ORNEN - MAI TAI'S
CHASER - JACK DANIELS
TRANSITION - WHITE WINE
IMAGI - BLOTTER ACID
JEFF BECK & STEVE VAI ARE TERJE'S LITTLE BITCHES!!THIS IS AVANT GARDE HEAY METAL JAZZ ROCK FUSION ORGASM!!!!!!!!!!!!!CRANK IT AND SPANK IT!!"

see thats the sort of thing i want to see on RYM, not a thousand little wannabe fantano's telling me about angular riffs and polyrhythms

Now I want a record filled with polyriffs and angular rhythms.

i'm not really that into ecm. what you might call beat digger culture / reissue culture / balearic dj culture has certainly given it a boost, and i totally get the urge to reevaluate genres like smooth jazz, fusion and new age. seems like ecm sits comfortably at the intersection of those, they put out a million records so you can always find something in decent shape, plus they have a clean and minimal aesthetic that avoids being clinical by incorporating nature, fits nicely with the clean nature-incorporating minimal aesthetic in favor w/ hip boutiques, trendy record stores and instagrammers

anyway even though i find the label boring in general, i think everyone should check out john abercrombie / dabve holland / jack dejohnette "gateway" and abercrombie / jan hammer / dejohnette "timeless". the covers look as sedate as anything else on ecm, but it's pure jazz-rock fusion shredding, maybe comparable to mahavishnu orchestra but less triumphant in mood, instead it has a more abstracted, cerebral vibe that reminds me of certain mwandishi stuff ("crossings" maybe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QDr-atV0Nw

well shit, I have to check out this one

xxp

it's not a surprise to me that Michael Mann is into Terje Rypdal. A lot of his sound is perfectly in line with noirish existential moodiness, in the best sense.

abercrombie / jan hammer / dejohnette "timeless"

I adore the title track to this but it's probably the least "shready" and most ECMesque thing on the record.

I'm a bit like Goldilocks when it comes to ECM releases; I like a few tracks on each but much of the rest I find either too astringent or too smooth. I've listened to about 40 and maybe my favourites are Bennie Maupin's Jewel in the Lotus and the Annette Peacock record.

xps speaking of Gateway and Timeless, my favorite recent ECM discovery is Colin Walcott's Cloud Dance which features John Abercrombie, Jack DeJohnette, and Dave Holland. So it's basically a Gateway record with Walcott as leader on sitar and tabla. Pensively tripped-out space fusion with a "world music" flavor, all done as tastefully as possible. A proper journey through space and time.

Abercrombie's Timeless is an album I want to like more than I do, mainly because I'm not a huge fan timbrally of the organ Jan Hammer uses on it. I get ELP vibes, which is not what I'm looking for on an ECM record. But I can tolerate it for Abercrombie's shredding, and the synths and piano are cool. Also the title track is a total masterpiece.

and a cool page on his own site i just spotted: https://stevetibbetts.com/my-ecm

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Friday, October 21, 2022 10:08 AM

a month late, but that's a swell link. thank you for sharing.

here's the playlist btw.

there are a grip is sweet late 70s early 80s Ebehard Weber shows on youtube!!

this one it tite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP8_STIT0lE

My difficult in appreciating <i>Timeless</i> is John Abercrombie’s slightly disparaging view of the 1970s fusion portion of his career. This style seemed to be a problem that he only solved at the end of the decade with his more traditional quartet.

xp that's an amazing set, thanks for posting! The Later That Evening band is one of his best combos. I'm also psyched to hear the Colours quartet live in San Francisco 1979.

that SF show is off the chain unbelievable

haven't heard Cloud Dance yet, but I recently fell under the spell of Walcott's Grazing Dreams from around the same time, which has Abercrombie, Don Cherry, Palle Danielsson, etc on it. really amazing, surprised I hadn't heard it, since i love those Codona records ...

saw an amazing Jan Garbarek group show last week at London Jazz Festival - Rainer Brüninghaus on piano (features on all those Eberhard W. lps i love) and Trilok Gurtu on drums/percussion/tons of other things - he in particular being one of the most mindblowing musicians i've ever seen...

perfect sound, 2 hours of non stop goodness. catch them if you can.

Some new titles added to the Touchtone series it seems, including "What Exit" by Mark Feldman.

I'm interested in Third Stream / ECM style jazz and I suppose this thread is the closest, although the boundaries of this kind of fusion are probably wider. I don't understand how this style developed and took over, but it's everywhere isn't it. I had also never realized that Dolmen Music (one of my favorite records) or 18 Musicians were ECM records, but that makes sense.

Anyway, I've listened to Dave Holland, Enrico Rava, Art Ensemble of Chicago, and just now to Eberhard Weber (The Colours of Chloë) which is a beautiful, rich, lively, impressionistic record that plays a little like a prog rock suite. On the other end, I haven't found entry points into Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek or Anouar Brahem in the past. So err, that's my statement of intent to keep digging and try to understand the legacy of ECM.

I still think Feldman, Satie, Cage - Rothko Chapel is one hell of a great ECM recording.

I had also never realized that Dolmen Music (one of my favorite records) or 18 Musicians were ECM records, but that makes sense.

Both of those are on ECM New Series, which I think started out as a bit of a side foray into "contemporary classical" rather than "jazz" territory?

i was going to say - i never really associated ecm with third stream! that might be down to my lack of familiarity with ecm and third stream in general, though

still, i always thought third stream was stuff like george russell?

i think of ECM as like, "chill fusion" or maybe something like quiet storm, but with new age influences instead of disco-era r&b influences

A rare treat today. My local record store had a pile of freebies from which I was able to pilfer seven(!) ECM/Japo titles. Most of them are from the early '80s, so a bit off my radar. Really looking forward to listening with a clean slate.

The ones I picked up are:
Dino Saluzzi - Kultrum (1982)
Egberto Gismonti - Solo (1979)
Jan Garbarek Group - Wayfarer (1983)
Herbert Joos - The Philosophy of the Fluegelhorn (1974)
David Holland - Life Cycle (1983)
Eberhard Weber - Later that Evening (1982)
Katrina Krimsky and Trevor Watts - Stella Malu (1981)

Amazing haul! I like Stella Malu a lot. Have seen that Dave Holland in the wild a few times but it has always been priced a little too high for a speculative buy - free is the perfect price!

Svante Henryson has to be the only ECM recording artist that was a former member of Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force.

This is one of the more odd musical connections I recently found out about.

One of the great pleasures of record shopping these days is regularly finding forgotten ECM gems for super cheap. A few days ago I picked up a nice vinyl copy of Ralph Towner's second Solstice album, Sound and Shadows for $2. It's darker and more subdued than the first one but just as good to my ears. Lovely flute work from Garbarek on the last track, and Weber's bass is sublimely liquid as usual.

i just picked up Garbarek's Dis the other day for $4, well worth iit

surprised i hadn't heard it before (since I'm a big codona fan), but I picked up Collin Walcott's Grazing Dreams recently — extremely sweet stuff w/ don cherry, abercrombie, palle danielsson, etc.

Really enjoying Kenny Wheeler’s "Around 6" from 1980. The opening track is somewhat stereotypical ECM (i.e. very melodic), and that goes on for several minutes. But then comes an Evan Parker freakout that veers into free jazz. I’m sure this horrified some listeners, but I love it.

Came across this stunning record, Jakob Bro & Joe Lovano's tribute to Paul Motian. Two drummers (Joey Baron and Jorge Rossy) and THREE bassists, but it still manages to be delicate and spacious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8lvPNG-vsQ

https://ecmrecords.com/product/once-around-the-room-a-tribute-to-paul-motian-jakob-bro-joe-lovano/#tab_description

Been going through some of my ECM LPs and Rainer Bruninghaus’ Freigeweht feels like a peak of some sort of ECM feeling that I love - beautiful recording, lots of tastefully deployed synths, smooth playing and a production sheen over everything but also real sort of uneasy… like I feel it is reductive to describe this stuff through the prism of Soundtrack-ness, but it could be the soundtrack to some inscrutable UK sci fi film from 1983… like if they had filmed A Dream of Wessex maybe

Anyway it is so good