1961 gathers both albums the Jimmy Giuffre 3 made for Verve that year, Fusion and Thesis, together with pieces left off the original LPs. With clarinet, piano and double bass and no drummer, the trio worked at a quiet, open kind of jazz, closer to chamber music than to the bebop of the day. ECM's own note calls the group "short-lived, but highly influential", and adds that with the growth of chamber jazz, "Giuffre's pioneering music has a context at last".

Jimmy Giuffre plays clarinet, Paul Bley piano and Steve Swallow double bass. Fusion was recorded in New York on 3 March 1961 and Thesis on 4 August, both produced by Creed Taylor with Dick Olmsted as engineer. For the reissue Manfred Eicher and Jan Erik Kongshaug remixed the whole programme at Rainbow Studio, Oslo, in June 1990. The booklet carries texts by Steve Lake and Philippe Carles and photographs by Herb Snitzer.

Giuffre described the trio as "searching for a free sense of tonality and form". Several pieces come from Carla Bley, whose songs, he said, "open new vistas for us to extemporize upon". Her Jesus Maria opens the first disc with a clear, lyrical clarinet line. On Giuffre's Scootin' About and Venture, Swallow's bass is so percussive that the missing drums hardly register. Ictus, another Carla Bley tune, opens the second disc in freely flowing exchanges between Bley and Giuffre, and Paul Bley's own Carla sets delicate clarinet arpeggios over steady bass.

The trio did not last long, but its repertoire did: ECM notes that Paul Bley went on playing Carla Bley's songs throughout his life. Reviewing the set for ECM Reviews, Tyran Grillo wrote that "Giuffre's vision spoke in shapes and colors". He called the set essential, music that will stay relevant "as long as there are ears to hear it".

This is the double CD edition on ECM Records, ECM 1438/39, first released in March 1992. Fusion fills the first disc; the second holds Thesis plus previously unissued pieces, including Me Too, Temporarily and Herb & Ictus.