Jan Garbarek
In Praise of Dreams
Jan Garbarek crafts a brooding, electronic-tinged song without words, with violist Kim Kashkashian and drummer Manu Katché. Spacious, hypnotic and cinematic; ambient chamber music, unmistakably ECM.
Places
A cornerstone of the early Nordic ECM sound: Jan Garbarek's keening saxophone over shifting, atmospheric backdrops, with John Taylor, Bill Connors and Jack DeJohnette. Glacial, majestic, carved from northern light.
Officium
ECM's landmark cross-over: Jan Garbarek's saxophone improvising around medieval and Renaissance chant sung by The Hilliard Ensemble, recorded in a monastery. Sublime, meditative and utterly unclassifiable.
My Song
My Song is the beloved high point of the so-called "European" or "Belonging" quartet led by pianist Keith Jarrett, and one of the most cherished albums in the ECM catalogue. Recorded in 1977, it unites Jarrett with three of Scandinavia's finest musicians: saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Palle Danielsson and drummer Jon Christensen, a band whose chemistry was extraordinary. Where Jarrett's contemporaneous American quartet leaned toward fire and abstraction, the European group cultivated a more …
Of Mist And Melting
In December 1977, at the tail end of a decade he had helped to electrify, Bill Connors brought a nylon-string guitar into Oslo's Talent Studio. Three years earlier, he had walked away from Chick Corea's Return to Forever at the height of its commercial ascent, trading a 200-watt Marshall stack for the spruce-and-cedar intimacy of the classical guitar - a decision that stunned his fusion-era following and quietly redirected the course of his work. Of Mist And Melting, his second leader date for E…
Hav
2025 stock Jan Erik Vold and Jan Garbarek, two of Norway's most prominent jazz figures, teamed up with bassist Arild Andersen, drummer Jon Christensen, guitarist Terje Rypdal and Bobo Stenson on keyboards on those two September days in 1970 to create a formidable jazz album that sells for thousands on the second-hand vinyl market. Two poems from Vold (‘Det alle vet’ from the poetry collection Mor Godhjertas glade version. Ja (1968) and ‘Dikt’ from Kykelipi (1969)) and long, slow instrumental sec…
I Took Up The Runes
One of the Norwegian saxophonists most outgoing dates, the best-selling “Runes” also marked the first appearance of Manu Katché with the Jan Garbarek group. Centerpiece of the album is the five-part “Molde Canticle”.
Luminessence
Mysterious, dramatic and alluring, Luminessence comes from a peak period in the creative association between Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek, recorded in 1974, immediately after their vibrant Belonging album. Here, Jarrett creates shimmering orchestral frameworks to spur Garbarek to some of his most concentrated, impassioned and expressive playing. “The melodies that Jarrett writes sound like Garbarek improvisations, so great is the rapport between the two men,” wrote Ian Carr in his Keith Jarre…
Belonging
Tip! "Belonging is a studio album by American jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, recorded over two days in April 1974 and released on ECM later that year—the debut of Jarrett's "European Quartet", featuring saxophonist Jan Garbarek and rhythm section Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen. Because Jarrett's contract with ABC/Impulse! prevented him from performing with the quartet under his own name, the group became known as the 'Belonging' quartet." - Wikipedia