Ecm Dvd

Hasretim (“My Longing”) is a multi-media exploration of musical roots, and a musical search for cultural identity. In 2009, Guitarist and composer Marc Sinan embarked on an unusual journey, its route leading from the Black Sea coast, where his grandparents lived, to the Armenian border. En route he located and filmed traditional musicians, players whose craft is dying today, capturing a music that speaks of restlessness and temperament, and bears the footprints of Anatolia’s cultural and ethnic diversity. In Hasretim, Marc Sinan’s musical findings are integrated into his own contemporary music for mixed ensemble (orchestrated and arranged by Andrea Molino) with Turkish and Armenian guests.

"Egberto Gismonti’s first new ECM recording in 14 years is a double-album that indicates the range of his artistry. Disc one features Gismonti the composer on a 70-minute journey through Brazil: “Sertões Veredas – tribute to miscegenation”. It is a work that takes account of Brazil’s culture and history, landscapes and cityscapes, vividly evoked by Cuba’s all-women orchestra the Camerta Romeu, under the leadership of Zenaida Romeu. Disc two features Gismonti the guitarist in an exciting duo recital with his similarly-gifted son Alexandre, romping through a programme that includes such well-known pieces as “Zig Zag”, “Lundú” and “Dança dos Escravos”.

The Keith Jarrett Standards Trio gets back down to business with two CDs' worth of familiar and perhaps not-so-familiar tunes, recorded in one evening in Cologne, Germany. There is a concept this time, for all the standards carry a dedication to some jazz man or woman who performed them – and they are not predictable choices; Lee Konitz for "Lover Man," "It's Easy to Remember" for John Coltrane, "All of You" for Miles Davis, etc. Almost every number has a reflective solo piano introduction, with one of the notable exceptions being Jarrett's rolling, convoluted opening variations on "All the Things You Are" (Sonny Rollins). "Solar" (the Bill Evans tribute) has challenging, fractured interplay between Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock, and it directly segues into Jarrett's own obsessive "Sun Prayer," which seems to lose its way after a fine start.

Eleni Karaindrou - Elegy Of The Uprooting (2008) {2CD + DVD9 NTSC ECM New Series 5506 & 1952/53}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 395 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 219 Mb
DVD9 -> 6.09 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 16:9 | LPCM, 2 ch | ~ 103 min | ISO Image
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 60 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2006, 2008 ECM Records | ECM New Series 5506 & 1952/53
Classical / Orchestral / Contemporary Classics / Choral / Stage & Screen

In March 2005 Eleni Karaindrou presented what she called “a scenic cantata” at the Megaron in Athens, a tour through her music for film and theatre, with musical themes newly combined and contrasted. A live audio recording, “Elegy of the Uprooting”, was issued in 2006: “The two-CD set interweaves excerpts of her music from 13 different scores spanning more than two decades, although the irresistible congruence of the music is such that newcomers to Karaindrou’s oeuvre would be forgiven for thinking this is newly composed. The music seduces by its profound beauty, tenderness and candour.”. – International Record Review. Here is the video and audio document of the event.

Once Keith Jarrett gets into a concept, he likes to keep those tapes rolling. This two-disc live outpouring from a Standards Trio gig at Munich's Philharmonic Hall was the biggest offering from this group up to that time (it wouldn't hold that distinction for long) – and once again, Jarrett treats his brace of pop and jazz standards with unpredictable, often eloquently melodic and structural originality. To cite a pair of highlights: "Autumn Leaves" always seems to bring out an endless flow of invention from Jarrett, and "The Song Is You" gets off to a rollicking start and maintains a nearly relentless energy level for 17 minutes, closing with a Spanish vamp. Again, the rapport with his onetime jazz-rock associate, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and bassist Gary Peacock is total; DeJohnette's mastery of shifting cymbal patterns while maintaining the pulse acts on the trio like a loose tether made of carbon steel.

Fasil, based on an idea by guitarist Marc Sinan and author Marc Schiffer, tells of the life of Aisha, the great love and youngest wife of the prophet Mohammed, in the course of an inspired song cycle. The improvisations take as their inspirational starting point fragments of Koran recitations recorded by Marc Sinan in Turkey. Together with Julia Hulsmann’s songs they form an Ottoman suite, a Fasil. Highlights in this transcultural project include exceptional performances by Sinan himself, and by Yelena Kuljic in the role of Aisha. The singer was recently described by the Frankfurter Rundschau as “the most thrilling new voice in the current jazz scene.”

“Anat Fort has a charming way of dispensing pastoralism and an insightful way of lining that pastoralism with depth”, wrote Jim Macnie, in the Village Voice, adding that “her trio has the kind of poise that lets her move from terra firma to the stratosphere". In the Jewish Week, George Robinson observed that Fort “writes music that is a skillful mix of the romantic and the cerebral, like watching a flower open, an enthralling combination of geometry and color…” The Israeli pianist made a lot of friends with her widely-praised ECM debut “A Long Story” in 2007, and the new disc, with her regular working band, will make some more.

As if playing one violin within the Western art music tradition wasn't difficult enough, the virtuoso L. Shankar has made it his trade to both sing and play a customized double violin within the contexts of Hindustani, Carnatic, Western, and experimental musical sensibilities. On this 1990 ECM release, Pancha Nadai Pallavi, he lays down two tracks, the first without percussion and the second in collaboration with Zakir Hussain on tabla and Vikku Vinayakram on ghatam.

For his fourth ECM album, titled just “Manu Katché”, the great French-Ivorian drummer reshuffles the line-up of his band once more, and presents a new programme of compact, self-penned tunes. The revolving door policy is part of Katché’s songwriting concept: “If you write all your own music, you’re aware of your limitations. It helps to have a changing cast of musicians, because they naturally bring in things you wouldn’t have expected. It’s really been the idea since the first album [2004’s “Neighbourhood”] to keep on changing the band.” Choices of musicians have usually been inspired by meetings and encounters. “I’ll get to play with someone and then try to have his style, or at least the essence of his style, in mind when I write the music at the piano.”

Enrico Rava's debut for ECM, 1975's The Pilgrim and the Stars, is a stellar progressive jazz effort from the Italian trumpeter who was then just coming into his own. Previously, Rava had spent his formative years working with such artists as saxophonist Steve Lacy, trombonist Roswell Rudd, and pianist Carla Bley, and obviously took much to heart when approaching his own music.