Release date: 27 August ECM
DEWEY REDMAN QUARTET The Struggle Continues CD 1742062
One of a pair of special ECM re-releases this month by great American reedmen. Dewey Redman’s one ECM leader date was recorded in 1982 but never before issued on CD. The influential tenor saxophonist moves through a range of styles from gently lilting balladry to free play, from the Texan tenor blues to bebop in a programme of Redman originals and Charlie Parker’s ‘Dewey Square’. It’s released exactly a year after his death.
BENNIE MAUPIN (w Herbie Hancock etc) The Jewel In The Lotus CD 1723520
First release on CD for the legendary 1974 record by saxophonist/bass clarinettist Bennie Maupin – his first date as leader. It features Herbie Hancock in his only ECM appearance and several players from the pianist’s circle at the time, but the music is a sequence of pulsing tone-poems, full of glowing, compound sound-colours and subtle interactions, a jazz-and-Buddhism-inspired floating chamber music that was way ahead of its time.
PAUL GIGER / MARIE-LOUISE DÄHLER Towards Silence (Bach & improvisation) CD 4766180
For his sixth ECM album, violinist Paul Giger – equally at home as a composer or improviser – includes classical compositions for the first time: music by J S Bach is interspersed between the free playing and original pieces by Giger and fellow Swiss, harpsichordist Marie-Louise Dähler. This modern listening adventure, meditative, playful and thought-provoking, should appeal to fans of Baroque music and jazz listeners alike
RECENT RELEASES
MIROSLAV VITOUS Universal Syncopations II CD 1718357
A follow-up to the hugely successful 2003 Universal Syncopations, this new album by Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous features a stellar line-up with some of the leading modern jazz soloists of the post-‘fusion’ era: Randy Brecker, Bob Malach, Bob Mintzer, Gary Campbell – all making their ECM debuts. It explores a wider musical range than the first CD, with choirs looming out of the mix and orchestral colours swirling around the shifting cast of nine jazz musicians.
PAUL BLEY Solo In Mondsee CD 1709775
One of the most influential pianists in the history of jazz, Paul Bley makes his first solo album in 35 years, a belated ‘sequel’ to the innovative, enduring classic Open, To Love. Recorded in Mondsee, Austria, on a superb Bösendorfer Imperial and released in his 75th birthday year, it’s a resolutely creative and characteristically profound set from a player who has inspired almost all of the pianists on ECM – from Keith Jarrett to Christian Wallumrød.
SINIKKA LANGELAND ENSEMBLE Starflowers CD 1714563
Folk singer and undisputed master of the kantele (sometimes known as the Finnish harp), Sinikka Langeland makes her ECM debut with some of Scandinavia’s finest jazz musicians – trumpeter Arve Henriksen and saxophonist Trygve Seim from her native Norway, Swedish bassist Anders Jormin and Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari – performing the poems of late lumberjack/writer Hans Børli to her own haunting, powerful music.
DINO SALUZZI / ANJA LECHNER Ojos Negros CD 1709757
The long-awaited first album by Argentinean bandoneon giant Dino Saluzzi and German cellist Anja Lechner - who have collaborated live for several years (“as close to perfection as any music-making I can recently recall” said Jazz Review editor Richard Cook of one of the duo’s concerts) - is a strong programme of heartfelt Saluzzi compositions, plus the beautiful old tango tune ‘Ojos Negros’ (‘Black Eyes’).
CHRISTIAN WALLUMROD ENSEMBLE The Zoo Is Far CD 1717820
Following his award-winning album A Year From Easter, Norwegian pianist/composer Christian Wallumrød introduces an expanded band, adding three string players - a violinist, a cellist and a baroque harpist - alongside long-standing associates star trumpeter Arve Henriksen and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen, performing music of extraordinary beauty, concentration and originality, and producing a uniquely nuanced and evocative sound.
ROSCOE MITCHELL/Transatlantic Art Ensemble Composition/Improvisation Nos 1, 2 & 3 CD 1716989
Roscoe Mitchell and Evan Parker handpicked the personnel of this ‘Transatlantic Art Ensemble’, a fascinating and historic coming together of players from the US and UK, including members of Mitchell’s Note Factory group and Parker’s Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Recorded live in Munich, they premiere new pieces by Roscoe, making an epic journey through music of many changing - and surprising - moods, from lyrical episodes to plateaux of intensity.
JOHN ABERCROMBIE QUARTET The Third Quartet CD 1709776
Master guitarist John Abercrombie’s 25th ECM leader date, The Third Quartet is the strongest album yet from a band renowned for its outstanding group interaction. It features superlative playing from violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron, as well as the endlessly inventive leader, on eight new Abercrombie tunes and two classics of new jazz: Bill Evans’ pretty ‘Epilogue’ and Ornette Coleman’s galloping ‘Round Trip’.
GRANTA BOOKS
STEVE LAKE & PAUL GRIFFITHS (editors) Horizons Touched: The Music of ECM Book 1500011
In the first book devoted to the music of ECM, Steve Lake and Paul Griffiths present a multiple-perspective survey of the
work of an extraordinary record company.
This beautifully illustrated book includes extensive interviews with Manfred Eicher, more than twenty specially commissioned essays on every aspect of ECM’s achievement, and well over a hundred contributions from the artists, composers, designers, and engineers who have worked with the label, and whose voices form an oral history in counterpoint. 448 page hardback in a slipcase with 165 B+W pictures and 260 colour pictures.
STEFANO BOLLANI Piano Solo CD 987 7372
Piano solo is a modest title for this encyclopaedic recital that romps through the history of jazz and more, and which, in its rapid-fire,
quick-witted turnover of ideas, reveals a unique musical personality. Italian pianist Bollani (born 1972) is a major talent, armed with prodigious technique. A taste of this will already have been gleaned from his contributions to Enrico Rava’s Easy Living and Tati but here his imagination roams widely indeed. Bollani plays a Scott Joplin rag, improvises freely, plays tango music from the early 20th century, plays standards, plays his own compositions. He plays the Beach Boys’ “Don’t Talk” and tunes made famous by Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole. He improvises on a theme from Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto... And he makes this whirlwind journey through the genres seem both logical and necessary.
STEFANO BOLLANI see more>>
MOTIAN/FRISELL/ LOVANO Time and Time Again CD 1701137
Following their ecstatically-received “comeback” album I Have The Room Above Her in 2005, Paul Motian’s trio with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano – one of the great groups of modern jazz – returns with another recording that luxuriates in the sensuality of sound. Keenly attuned to each other in the improvisations, the trio play a gravity-defying, floating music that is at all moments free and intensely melodic.
GIANLUIGI TROVESI Vaghissimo Ritratto CD 1709774
Italian reed-master Gianluigi Trovesi, a central figure in the ‘reformulation’ taking place in European jazz, returns in a new trio with poetic pianist Umberto Petrin and subtle drummer Fulvio Maras. Their enchanting album looks at the European ‘songwriter’ in a very broad sense ranging from Monteverdi and Josquin Desprez to cellist Alfredo Piatti, Italian pop legend Luigi Tenco and Belgian chansonnier Jacques Brel – all connected by the quick-witted improvising that is Trovesi’s forte.
ENRICO RAVA QUINTET The Words and The Days CD 1709773
The Rava Quintet encapsulates much that is best about Italian jazz: one of Europe’s outstanding bands, fronted by one of jazz’s most authoritative trumpeters, a player with a beautiful, burnished tone. The Words and The Days is Enrico Rava’s eagerly awaited follow-up to 2003’s prize-winning album Easy Living, hailed as one of the “best jazz albums of the last decade.”
LOUIS SCLAVIS L'imparfait des langues CD 9877897
French clarinettist Louis Sclavis, one of the most highly regarded European jazz players and an exceptionally resourceful bandleader, returns with a fresh and vibrant project – and a new group of younger players bringing a strong influence from rock, pop and ambient music. The result is a bracing album of some of the most hard-driving music in Sclavis’s fine discography.
FRODE HALTLI with Arve Henriksen etc Passing Images CD 9856022
Frode Haltli, one of the best-known accordionists in the contemporary music world, was firstly a folk musician and here he offers a kaleidoscopic view of traditional music - from a very fresh and non-traditional angle - together with a unique cast of highly-gifted performers: innovative jazz trumpeter Arve Henriksen and vocalist extraordinaire Maja Ratjke – both fellow Norwegians – and Scottish/ Irish violist Garth Knox (formerly of the Arditti Quartet).
ANAT FORT A Long Story CD 1701416
with Perry Robinson, Ed Schuller, Paul Motian
Young Israeli pianist Anat Fort is currently based in New York where she is becoming an influential figure on the alternative jazz scene. Her ECM debut - in the distinguished company of drummer Paul Motian (who introduced her to the label), clarinettist Perry Robinson and bassist Ed Schuller - is a perfectly poised album of her own music combining attractive melodic jazz writing with subtle Middle Eastern flavour and strong improvising.
STEVE SWALLOW / ROBERT CREELEY So There CD 1700494
The world’s most outstanding electric bassist, Steve Swallow, sets dryly witty work spoken by the great American poet Robert Creeley (his last recordings before his death in 2005) to adventurous, attractive and approachable music performed also by pianist Steve Kuhn – in exceptional form – and the prize-winning Cikada String Quartet. Humorous yet also profound, this album will attract lovers of jazz, chamber music and literature alike.
MICHAEL MANTLER Review (1968-2000) CD 9853283
Austrian master musician, trumpeter and composer Michael Mantler offers a personal ‘best-of’ drawn from over three decades of recordings on JCOA, WATT and ECM featuring a truly stellar line-up from the worlds of jazz, classical music and rock – including Jack Bruce, Robert Wyatt, Marianne Faithful, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Nick Mason, Carla Bley, Terje Rypdal and the London Symphony Orchestra.
DINO SALUZZI GROUP Juan Condori CD 9859237
Universally accessible, this soulful and sunny album by Argentinean bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi, credited alongside his friend Astor Piazzola with setting directions in Tango Nuevo, salutes a childhood friend from the little village of Campo Santo. Recorded in Argentina and full of strong new melodies, tenderness, love and yearning, this is the first Saluzzi family band disc for ECM in 15 years – and it dances in its own special way.
PIERRE FAVRE ENSEMBLE Fleuve CD 9856355
One of the great originals of European jazz, Swiss drummer Pierre Favre returns to ECM for the first time in a decade with a fine new seven-piece group and beautiful sinuous writing for its unorthodox line-up, with hints of renaissance music and early jazz integrated in a thoroughly contemporary band concept. It’s released to coincide with a new film portrait of Favre.
KEITH JARRETT THE CARNEGIE HALL CONCERT 2CD 9856224
Tipped to be Keith Jarrett’s best-selling album since The Köln Concert and certain to be one of 2006’s jazz best-sellers, this 2-CD set is his first North American solo concert in a decade, a major event that included five encores for its frenzied audience. A suite of songs, improvised and otherwise, it incorporates all of the styles Jarrett has traversed over the years, from boogie-woogie and funky gospel-blues to free play, with lyrical moments abounding.
TOMASZ STANKO QUARTET Lontano CD 9877380
Following the best-selling and critically-lauded Soul of Things and Suspended Night, the third album by trumpeter Tomasz Stanko’s much loved Polish quartet has a strong emphasis on soulful ballads. Lontano, recorded by the band in the south of France and at the peak of their form, mixes impressive new material, old favourites, and inspired in-the-moment creations.
STEPHAN MICUS On the Wing CD 9854516
Bavarian multi-instrumentalist Stephan Micus’ 17th record for ECM introduces the hné and mudbedsh, reed instruments from Burma and Iraq, the rare stringed Indian bass mandobahar, and the hang, a percussion instrument inspired by Caribbean steel drums, but also includes his first composition for solo sitar for over 30 years. The ten-part suite featuring 16 instruments from around the world underlines the individuality of Micus’ idiosyncratic transcultural music.
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