Jazz /
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”.
Lonely Shadows
After critically-acclaimed ECM recordings with the Maciej Obara Quartet (Unloved, Three Crowns), Polish pianist Dominik Wania delivers a solo album recorded in November 2019 in Lugano. Wania’s sensitivity to touch, tone and texture is informed by his classical background. But he also has the in-the-moment instincts of a great improviser, acutely focused on the unfolding details of the music in the responsive interior of the Auditorio Stelio Molo studio. The balancing of influences from both disc…
Human
In its review of pianist Shai Maestro’s ECM leader debut The Dream Thief, All About Jazz spoke of “a searching lyrical atmosphere, emotional eloquence and communal virtuosity that serves the music.” All of which also applies to Human, where Maestro’s outgoing, highly-communicative band with fellow Israeli Ofri Nemya on drums and Peruvian bassist Jorge Roeder becomes a quartet with the inspired addition of US trumpeter Philip Dizack. Shai’s expansive pianism is well-matched by Dizack’s alert, …
Vermillion
Kit Downes joins forces with long-time collaborators Petter Eldh on bass and James Maddren on drums for a carefully assorted piano trio programme that treads gentle lyricism and bold creative outbursts in equal measures. Downes, whose prior ECM offering Dreamlife of Debris was termed a “work of otherworldly beauty” by BBC Music Magazine, carves out some of his most compendious pieces to date on Vermillion. Replete with subtle twists and turns, the trio offers its idiosyncratic take on the piano …
John Scofield
John Scofield’s first guitar-solo-recording ever gives a résumé of all the influences and idioms he has cultivated over his career in performances on guitar, accompanied by his own rhythmic pulse and chordal backing using a loop machine. Besides jazz, John is known to have always also had a soft spot for the rock and roll and country music he grew up with, revealed here in unencumbered renditions of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” and Hank Williams’ “You Win Again”. Between elegant and personal re…
Last Decade
German-American pianist Benjamin Lackner makes his highly melodious ECM debut with an all-star quartet of trumpeter Mathias Eick, the esteemed Manu Katché on drums and bassist Jérôme Regard. Mathias and Manu share an extensive recording history with ECM and their respectively unique instrumental signatures can be traced across this set of exclusively original material – eight pieces by Benjamin, one by Jérôme. The bassist and the leader’s partnership goes all the way back to 2002, when, in New Y…
The Song Is You
Their collaboration has been hailed as a summit meeting of two jazz masters. Enrico Rava, trumpeter from Trieste, and Fred Hersch, pianist from Cincinatti, share a deep affection for the tradition and a profound sense for melodic invention. In this recording, with flugelhorn and piano glowing in the superb acoustic of the Lugano studio, Rava and Hersch explore some much-loved standards: Jerome Kern’s “The Song Is You”, Thelonious Monk’s “Mysterioso” and “’Round Midnight”, Jobim’s “Retrato em Bra…
Our Daily Bread
The third album from Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry finds the group continuing to extend its spacious and lyrical approach, with deep listening and intense focus. “Our Daily Bread is fueled by the rhythm spirit of expression that projects the mysterious world of music that lies ahead,” says master saxophonist Lovano in his liner note, and these elegantly fluid pieces and free-floating ballads indeed feel like songs of the soul. “The intensity comes not from ferocity but from depth of feeling,” wrote…
DLW: Extended Beats
bastille musique presents its twenty-eighth release »DLW: Extended Beats« featuring world premiere recordings by Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard, Klangforum Wien, Sonar Quartett, Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Martin Adámek (clarinets) and Johannes Brecht (electronics). Together with the guests, Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard extend their beats in terms of co-composition and form as well as instrumentation. In addition to the recordings produced at the Paul-Robeson-Studio, the set also contains a 48-page bi…
Stefanovich, Dell, Lillinger, Westergaard: SDLW
*2024 stock* bastille musique presents its twenty-first release »Stefanovich, Dell, Lillinger, Westergaard: SDLW« featuring world premiere recordings by Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Christopher Dell (vibraphone), Christian Lillinger (drums, percussion) and Jonas Westergaard (double bass). Produced at the Teldex Studio Berlin, the album documents the collaboration between Dell-Lillinger-Westergaard and Tamara Stefanovich for the first time. In addition to the recordings, the set also contains a 48…
Ytinamuh
2024 stock. Natalia Kordiak is one of the most promising vocalists, we believe, not only on the Polish but also on the European jazz scene. Ytinamuh (Humanity) is her new album, the second in her career, recorded with a band composed of Poland's most talented young musicians. Maciej Lewenstein wrote in his review : "A clear Masterpiece, and one of the best Polish improvised vocal records of all times!!!"
The House Of Memory
2024 stock. "João Pedro, Silvia, Adriano: three friends, three travel companions, three alchemists capable of giving infinite shades of color to music; listening to them is like enjoying the beauty of an exhibition of abstract paintings, yet full of warmth and sensitivity. A far cry from certain forms of art that are undoubtedly important, perhaps even necessary, but that creep into the darker side of emotions and life: in this case we are in that expressive sphere, so difficult to navigate, whi…
Duot With Strings
2024 stock. Saxophone player Albert Cirera one of the most important Spanish improvisers works with Ramon Prats fascinating drummer from many years. They both are one of the shinest points on the European musical scene. On the other hand ZARM Ensemble. ZARM Ensemble is an award-winning string quartet started by legendary Portugal violin master Carlos "Zíngaro”, David Magalhães Alves (Violin), Ulrich Mitzlaff (Cello), and Alvaro Rosso (Double bass).From an almost compulsive fascination with sound…
Live At The Hungry Brain
2024 stock. Trumpeter Russ Johnson is a recent Midwest transplant after spending 23 years as an important member of New York City’s jazz community. He has seven recordings as a leader or co-leader and performed on more than 75 recordings as a sideman. Russ has worked alongside many of the legendary figures in jazz including Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow, Bill Frisell, and Joe Lovano. In addition, he has recorded and/or performed with a long list of the most prominent musicians currently on the inter…
Welcome To The Troposphere
2024 stock. Three years ago, the eminent pianist Elisabeth Harnik and the great trombone master Steve Swell released for the first time their joint album Tonotopic Organisation, which is highly regarded by both critics and fans of both musicians. Three years have passed and the duo is now launching the second instalment of their improvisatory explorations. Listen to how the musicians have changed over this time, and how their art has changed. We are happy to give you the Welcome To The Stratosph…
Raging Bulgakov
Simon Nabatov has undertaken one of the most unusual projects in contemporary music, an intense scrutiny and setting to music of modernist Russian literature, much of it taken from the years of Stalinist censorship, repression and imprisonment. For 25 years, beginning with Josef Brodsky’s Nature Morte, he has set text in partially improvised settings, including excerpts from Isaac Babel’s grim Red Cavalry and poems by Daniil Kharms and the Gileya group. Along with that largely poetic enterprise,…
Six Hands Open As One
In 2019, a year before the onset of the pandemic and three years before the full-scale war in Ukraine broke out, we released Illuminated Silence. This was the first album of a new trio consisting of the young Japanese-born, Irish-based pianist and composer Izumi Kimura and the greats of the improvised music world Barry Guy and Gerry Hemingway. The album was very much liked by listeners and I heard from many of them the question whether there is a chance that this formation will survive, because …
The President
Kamil Piotrowicz - one of the brightest and most acclaimed for his creativity pianists on the artistic map of Poland, an artist associated with the new Scandinavian (Danish) improvised music scene accompanied by equally talented two musicians from Norway, trumpeter Erik Kimestad and drummer Simon Albertsen. The President is their first album recording. The material was created at DKDM studios in Copenhagen and mastered by another Polish artist highly regarded for his directorial efforts, Albert …
Seuil de Feu
Xavier Camarasa - Fender Rhodes, Jean-Marc Foussat - Synthi AKS, voix jouets and Marc Maffiolo saxophone baryton
Escale
Xavier Camarasa - Fender Rhodes, Jean-Marc Foussat - Synthi AKS, voix jouets and Marc Maffiolo saxophone baryton