★ECM Records
Return To Forever
Chick Corea's luminous 1972 classic that launched a movement, with Stanley Clarke, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim and Joe Farrell. Sunlit Brazilian melody and weightless groove; a founding ECM statement.
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.
Swallow Tales
Guitarist John Scofield offers a warm and affectionate tribute to a lifelong friend and mentor on Swallow Tales, an album devoted entirely to the compositions of the great electric bassist Steve Swallow. Joined by Swallow himself and by longtime drummer Bill Stewart, Scofield revisits a songbook he has known intimately for half a century, having first studied with Swallow as a young musician. The trio recorded the whole set in a single relaxed day, and that spontaneity is audible in every track:…
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
On this absorbing recording Keith Jarrett steps away from jazz entirely to interpret the Württemberg Sonatas of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, performed on clavichord. Best known for his groundbreaking improvised concerts and his luminous jazz quartets and trios, Jarrett has long maintained a parallel life as a serious interpreter of notated keyboard music, and here he turns to one of the most adventurous composers of the eighteenth century. C.P.E. Bach's writing is famously restless and expressive,…
Facing You
Where it all began: Keith Jarrett's first ECM solo piano album (1971). Spontaneous compositions of startling melodic and rhythmic invention that foreshadow The Köln Concert. A cornerstone of jazz piano.
The Melody At Night, With You
Keith Jarrett's most tender solo album, taped at home during recovery from illness as a gift to his wife. Standards and folk songs played with disarming simplicity. Hushed, fragile and deeply moving.
Last Dance
Intimate duo standards from pianist Keith Jarrett and bassist Charlie Haden, from the Jasmine sessions. Unhurried and conversational, two old friends; a poignant and beautiful farewell.
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 …
Unfolding
French clarinet master Louis Sclavis and pianist Benjamin Moussay in a spare, searching duo. Composition meets free improvisation in delicate, chamber-like dialogues. European improvised music at its most refined.
Awase
Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch and his band Ronin deliver hypnotic 'ritual groove music': interlocking minimal patterns, funk-tinged grooves and Zen-like repetition. Precise, physical and mesmerizing.
Khmer
The landmark that redefined the ECM trumpet album: Nils Petter Molvaer fuses Nordic trumpet with ambient, dub, electronics and drum'n'bass. A manifesto for future jazz; cinematic and groundbreaking.
American Garage
The Pat Metheny Group at a joyous peak, with Lyle Mays, Mark Egan and Dan Gottlieb. Bright, anthemic and melodic, led by the soaring '(Cross the) Heartland.' One of ECM's most popular records.
Offramp
Offramp marks a bold and pivotal step forward for the Pat Metheny Group, the album on which the band significantly expanded its sonic palette while deepening its emotional reach. The great innovation here is Pat Metheny's embrace of the Roland guitar synthesizer, whose vocal, brass-like timbres opened up entirely new textural possibilities and would become a signature element of his sound for years to come. Equally important is the arrival of the Argentine vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Pedr…
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…
Drumming / Music For Mallet Instruments Voices And Organ / Six Pianos (3LP box)
Mid/late 1970's re-press of essential 3LP box set on DGG with three seminal phasing minimalist compositions from the early 1970's of evocative beauty, with Cornelius Cardew, Joan La Barbara, Jay Clayton, Glen Velez and the composer himself among the performers. With booklet
Music For 18 Musicians (LP)
Rare original 1978 edition on ECM of one of the most beautiful and evocative Minimalist pieces ever, composed in 1976. Essential Minimalism.
Music For 18 Musicians (LP)
Rare mid-1980's re-issue on ECM New Series of one of the most beautiful and evocative Minimalist pieces ever, composed in 1976. Essential Minimalism.
Octet / Music For A Large Ensemble / Violin Phase (LP)
Mid-1980's re-issue on ECM New Series of the 1980 LP with two late 1970's beautiful classic Minimalist compositions for large and small ensamble, plus one for solo violin from 1967. Essential Minimalism.