Ecm

Elixir is the first album Danish percussionist Marilyn Mazur has recorded as a leader for ECM in 14 years. It is an interesting number for Mazur, because she has also spent 14 years as a member of saxophonist Jan Garbarek's recording and touring ensembles. He appears on about half of Elixir as Mazur's only collaborator (apart from producer Manfred Eicher). That said, the solo pieces are the first remarkable aspect of this set. When Mazur works alone, her pieces defy everything we think we know about solo percussion recordings: there is a warmth and directness in these proceedings that is songlike rather than merely hypnotic or virtuosic.

Tenor saxophonist George Adams' third recording as a leader (following two obscure releases for the Italian Horo label) is a little unusual in that the extroverted soloist is heard on the usually introverted ECM label. Adams is teamed with fellow tenor Heinz Sauer (who has a cooler sound), trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, pianist Richard Beirach, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette for five group originals. The playing is advanced but not as fiery as most of Adams' later sets.

For over forty years, Carla Bley has written music that infuses jazz traditions with her own personality. She continues to lead a variety of ensembles, from small combos to large-scale big bands. With Looking for America, Bley returns to the big band format. Totaling 18 pieces, the group is a rich blend of 13 horns, two keyboards, and a rhythm section. She has worked with many of the featured musicians for decades, and Bley consequently composes and arranges with their individual voices in mind.

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.

Carla Bley, Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow revisit classic Bley compositions on an exceptional album recorded in Lugano last year by Manfred Eicher. Included here are spirited new versions of Utviklingssang and Vashkar, and the suites Les Trois Lagons, Wildlife and The Girl Who Cried Champagne. Carlas robust tunes are vividly conveyed, all members solo compellingly, and the trio has never sounded better.

Marilyn Mazur is best known today as the flamboyant percussionist at the heart of the Jan Garbarek Group (Twelve Moons, Visible World), speeding around an ever burgeoning array of multi-ethnic metal, wood and clay instruments. Garbarek: "Marilyn is like the wind. An elemental force." Prior employers Gil Evans, Wayne Shorter, and Miles Davis have similarly valued her pervasive, penetrating percussion. Marilyn drew up the blueprint for Future Song - an American-Danish-Nowegian-Yugoslavian musical alliance - while working the stadiums with Miles in 1989 and the group has survived with intact personnel for eight years. Mazur says: "The music is intended to be like a living organism, expanding through specific dramatic sequences into more open structures. It represents a wide dynamic spectrum, explores many emotions."

John Abercrombie Quartet: Up and Coming Starting the new year with, if not precisely a bang, a nevertheless unforgettable record whose strength lies in pristine lyricism, nuanced group interplay and writing that capitalizes on the entire quartet's appreciation of subtlety over gymnastics and refined lyricism over angularity, John Abercrombie's Up and Coming—ECM's first release of the year—is also founded strongly on the concept of relationship.

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.

Kenny Wheeler's beautiful sound on trumpet and his wide range are well-displayed on his four compositions, three of which are given performances over ten minutes long. With the assistance of ECM regulars Jan Garbarek (on tenor and soprano), guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Dave Holland, drummer Jack DeJohnette and (on one song) guitarist Ralph Towner, Wheeler emphasizes lyricism and romantic moods on this fine set of original music.

Although atmosphere and ambience can take priority over compositional focus on some ECM releases, this is far from the case with CLASS TRIP. The product of guitarist John Abercrombie's collaboration with violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Marc Johnson, and drummer Joey Baron (their follow-up to 2002's CAT 'N' MOUSE), CLASS TRIP is an exemplar of what ECM does best. This is spare, brilliantly conceived chamber jazz with the artists' superior improvisational skills–which draw equally on jazz, modern classical, avant-garde, and even pop idioms–on abundant display.