Ecm Complete

Enrico Rava's 2004 outing, Easy Living, marked not only his return to the ECM label after a 17-year absence, but the complete maturation of his quintet, which at that time had been gigging together for four years. The Words and the Days sees most of the same band return with one major chair: Rava's great foil, pianist Stefano Bollani who released his acclaimed solo piano album on the label, has been replaced by the fluid, more percussive Andrea Pozza.

The legendary first lineup of Chick Corea's fusion band Return to Forever debuted on this classic album (titled after the group but credited to Corea), featuring Joe Farrell on soprano sax and flute, the Brazilian team of vocalist Flora Purim and drummer/percussionist Airto Moreira, and electric bass whiz Stanley Clarke. It wasn't actually released in the U.S. until 1975, which was why the group's second album, Light as a Feather, initially made the Return to Forever name. Nonetheless, Return to Forever is every bit as classic, using a similar blend of spacy electric-piano fusion and Brazilian and Latin rhythms. It's all very warm, light, and airy, like a soft breeze on a tropical beach – hardly the sort of firebrand approach to fusion that Miles Davis, Tony Williams, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra were exploring, and far less rooted in funk or rock.

The complete Hymns, Spheres, at last available on compact disc. Keith Jarrett’s first encounter with the Karl Joseph Riepp baroque organ of the Abbey of Ottobeuren – one of the great improvisers of the age communing with one of Europe’s most famous instruments – brought forth some truly unique music. The 1976 double LP release has long been a favourite amongst organ music aficionados as well as Jarrett’s loyal following, admired for Jarrett’s spontaneous improvisational resourcefulness, the variety of textures drawn from the instrument, and for the sheer physical power of the sound in the church, beautifully captured in the ECM recording.

Following his acclaimed recordings of sonatas by Biber, Schmelzer and Veracini and his no less lauded rendering of the complete unaccompanied works by Bach, British violinst John Holloway once again joins forces with his excellent partners Jaap ter Linden and Lars Ulrik Mortensen for an album of strikingly beautiful, yet little known chamber music from the baroque era. Jean-Marie Leclair (1697–1764) who trained as a dancer, lacemaker, violinist and composer and was murdered in Paris under obscure circumstances, laid the foundations for the French violin school. As a composer he is a master of mixed styles, providing a rare synthesis of Italian and French traits, of melodic beauty and dancelike vivacity. John Holloway has chosen sonatas from his “classical” period in which Leclair had gained a perfect balance of proportion, expressiveness and virtuosic display.

Keith Jarrett - At The Blue Note: The Complete Recordings (1994) {6CD Set ECM 1575-80 rel 2000}
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© 1994, 2000 ECM Records | ECM 1575-80
Jazz / Post Bop / Piano

The six-CD box set Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note fully documents three nights (six complete sets from June 3-5, 1994) by his trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Never mind that this same group has already had ten separate releases since 1983; this box is still well worth getting. The repertoire emphasizes (but is not exclusively) standards, with such songs as "In Your Own Sweet Way," "Now's the Time," "Oleo," "Days of Wine and Roses," and "My Romance" given colorful and at times surprising explorations.

Keith Jarrett - La Fenice (2018) {2CD Set ECM 2601~02} (Complete Artwork - Slipcase with 12 pages)
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© 2018 ECM Records | ECM 2601/02 / 676 5853
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Improvisation / Solo Piano

ECM continues the series of Keith Jarrett's live archival recordings with La Fenice. The recital occurred in 2006 at the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice, some four years after the pianist had resumed performing solo following his recovery from a long illness. Given that these outings are all spontaneously improvised, it stands to reason that no two are alike, from the spacious and lyrical Koln Concert from 1975 through the 1995's transcendent La Scala, through 2017's kaleidoscopic four-disc release of A Multitude of Angels, captured in four cities on a tour of Italy some 20 months after La Scala. Interestingly, the La Fenice show took place some ten months after Jarrett's triumphant July 2005 Carnegie Hall Concert.

Stephan Micus - Inland Sea (2017) {ECM 2569} (Complete Artwork)
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© 2017 ECM Records | ECM 2569
Folk / World Music / Experimental / Spiritual

Inland Sea is Stephan Micus’ 22nd solo album for ECM, each one taking his audience on musical journeys to far-flung places and unique sound worlds. For decades, he has been travelling, collecting and studying musical instruments from all over the world and creating new music for them. Micus often combines instruments from different cultures and continents that would never normally be played together, adapting and extending them, and rarely playing them in a traditional manner. The instruments then become a cast of characters that help tell the particular story of that album. While he plays nine different instruments on Inland Sea, the lead role belongs to the nyckelharpa – a keyed fiddle from Sweden, with an array of other instruments and vocals providing layers and textures throughout.

Bobo Stenson Trio - Contra La Indecisión (2018) {ECM 2582} (Complete Artwork)
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© 2018 ECM Records | ECM 2582 / 578 6976
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Post Bop / Light / Piano Trio

The great Swedish trio of Bobo Stenson takes a stand against indecision in a decisively beautiful new album. As ever, the trio draws upon a wide range of source materials. A yearning title song by Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, Bartók’s adaptation of a Slovak folk song, a piece from Mompou’s Cançons I Danses collection, and Erik Satie’s Elégie are integrated into the programme, alongside original compositions by Stenson and Anders Jormin and group improvising.

“Beethoven’s five sonatas for piano and cello show in a nutshell the same evolution that the 32 piano sonatas show. You have this wonderful young lion Beethoven in the opus 5 sonatas, you have the opus 69, the A major, which stands in the middle of his life, and then you have these wonderful two works, opus 102, which are at the gates of the late style, the last phase. And these are in a way experimental works, but fully crystallized.”

David Virelles - Gnosis (2017) {ECM 2526} (Complete Artwork - Slipcase with 20 pages)
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© 2017 ECM Records | ECM 2526 / 576 5115
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Modern Creative / Cuban / Piano

The 34-year-old Manhattan-resident Cuban pianist David Virelles can sound like a 21st-century jazz heir to Herbie Hancock in other people’s bands (Tomasz Stanko’s, Chris Potter’s) – but his own preferences are for avant-grooving, as on last year’s Antenna and the broadly sourced contemporary classical music that informs a good deal of Gnosis. This session, with strings, flute, vocals and four percussionists led by the Cuban drums guru Roman Diaz, sees Virelles deepening his exploration of the fission points between ancient African Cuban traditions and the music of his own era.