Sono Naxos Linn Ecm

Trumpeter Arve Henriksen's brand of contemporary improvised music could easily be compared to ECM labelmates Jon Hassell and Nils Petter Molvaer. Yet there are certain distinctions that separate the voodoo economic vistas of Hassell and the film noir style of Molvaer from the spacious, more organic sound that Henriksen has created on this recording, as the title suggests. Using the slightest of note clusters or phrases, Henriksen also surrounds himself with a certain yin-yang concept, where 180-degree polar opposites congeal without clashing.

Together and separately these Swiss musicians, violinist Paul Giger and harpsichordist Marie-Louise Dähler present a symbiosis of old and new music that spans Bach, pulsating improvisation and strikingly original compositions. In all, a journey through musical and personal history which also, in “Bombay II”, reflects upon Giger’s years traveling in Asia. A sixth remarkable ECM album from Giger, a distinguished label debut for Dähler, and an important New Series release.

In 2017, Naxos Records celebrates its 30th anniversary. Founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, the label now boasts a catalogue of over 9,000 albums spanning every genre of classical music. This limited edition anniversary boxed set comprises thirty CDs spanning the wide range of the label's repertoire. Featuring releases from 1987 to 2016 and a host of stellar artists, every one of these discs has received critical acclaim and has contributed towards the huge success of Naxos: the world's largest independent classical record label. Naxos was launched in 1987 as a budget classical CD label, offering CDs at teh price of an LP when CDs cost about three times more than LPs.

The purely magical, tonal, dancing alto or bass clarinet and soprano saxophone of Louis Sclavis are heard fully on this recording with his quintet, where he explores a variety of ethnically inspired motifs guaranteed to delight one and all. Where improvisation has always been his strong suit, here it is relegated to solos, as his written music takes center stage. Fellow front-liner Matthieu Metzger plays alto and soprano sax – together he and Sclavis create a whirling dervish cone of sound that reflects a definite European stance removed from American jazz.

Film composer Eleni Karaindou was born in the Greek mountain village of Teichio and raised in Athens, going on to study piano and music theory at the Hellenikon Odion. Relocating to Paris in 1969, she studied ethnomusicology for five years before returning to Greece to found the Laboratory for Traditional Instruments at the ORA Cultural Centre. Karaindrou's most successful collaboration was with filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos, with whom she first teamed in 1982, going on to score features including 1991's The Suspended Step of the Stork, 1995's Ulysses' Gaze and 1998's Palme d'Or-winning Eternity and a Day. Although primarily aligned with the Greek film industry, Karaindrou also worked with noted European directors including Jules Dassin and the great Chris Marker.

The distinctive cry of Sokratis Sinopoulos’ Constantinople lyra has previously been heard on ECM recordings of Eleni Karaindrou (The Weeping Meadow, Elegy of the Uprooting, Medea) and Charles Lloyd/Maria Farantouri (Athens Concert). The Athens-born Sinopoulos has played a key role in the revival of interest in the lyra in Greece, both in traditional music contexts and in the shaping of new music. Sinopoulos’s reflective compositions and yearning ballads on Eight Winds cede the central melodic role to the lyra, sensitively supported by the piano of Yann Keerim and the subtle bass and drums of Dimitris Tsekouras and Dimitris Emmanuel.

Plenty has happened since Enrico Rava last recorded with his working quintet. All but the piano chair remained stable between Easy Living (ECM, 2004) and The Words And The Days (ECM, 2007), but trombonist Gianluca Petrella is the sole remnant on Tribe. "Change is good," they say, and if the rest of Rava's quintet consists of largely fresh (and young) faces, the lack of name power shouldn't be mistaken for lack of firepower.

The ECM folks do much better by Wadada Leo Smith than ever before with this solo recording, a true masterwork of its kind and one of the purest, most enlightening demonstrations of the connected natures of folk, blues, jazz, and creative music. That Smith is the man to do this is certainly no surprise; he laid it all down in print years before this release in his self-published books and liner notes. But the way he does it, with so much grace and style (and with the excellent production by Steve Lake), really results in a totally polished statement. It is a deep and rich recording, with Smith playing in a manner that incorporates both versatility and the genius of simplicity, sometimes all in one note. Not just for fans of "out" music, this is one to pull out when you are trying to get friends to go beyond their Phish records.

"The Ground" reveals a stronger sense of purpose and a greater conceptual rigour than "Changing Places" , the trio's debut album. Without sacrificing the clear-edged melodic sensibility that can already be considered one of the hallmarks of Gustavsen’s writing, the musicians are better able to do improvise within the structure of the pieces. An immediate popular success, "The Ground" topped Norway's pop charts in its second week of release.

Innovative Tunisian oud virtuoso Anouar Brahem presents this highly-acclaimed album of typically Middle Eastern music, recorded in 1999 with a trio that had been his first priority for several years. The improvisational exchanges between Brahem, clarinettist Barbaros Erköse and percussionist Lassad Hosni are exceptionally fluid and the atmospheres they create here are by turns mysterious, hypnotic and dramatic.