Works Ecm

Carla Bley - Tropic Appetites (1974) {WATT Works–ECM Records WATT/1 557480-2 rel 1998}
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© 1974, 1998 WATT Works / ECM Records | WATT/1 557 480-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Experimental Big Band / Avant-Garde Jazz

Following their superb "chronotransduction," Escalator Over the Hill, composer Carla Bley and poet Paul Haines once again teamed up for Tropic Appetites, a somewhat different, but equally compelling effort. The instrumentation is scaled down to an octet and the lyrics revolve around trips to Southeast Asia, particularly Bali, made by Haines over the preceding years. Bley makes an inspired choice for lead vocalist by enlisting the extraordinary Julie Tippetts who had attained rock stardom in the late '60s (as Julie Driscoll) in Brian Auger's Trinity.

Carla Bley - Heavy Heart (1983) {WATT Works–ECM Records WATT/14–817 864-1 rel 1984}
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© 1984 WATT Works / ECM Records | WATT/14 / 817 864-1
Jazz / Post Bop / Neo Bop / Keyboards

In a fanciful press release for this record, Carla Bley wrote that she wanted to make a record that would "put people in a mellow, sensual mood" as opposed to getting them all riled up as usual. She must have meant some of this ironically, for while Heavy Heart is a somewhat bright, light-minded album, there are plenty of dark undercurrents to be heard. For example, take the fascinating "Light or Dark," where a light, happy texture is undercut by Hiram Bullock's intruding dissonant guitar and Kenny Kirkland's discordant comping.

Steve Swallow - Carla (1987) {Watt Works–ECM 833492-2}
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© 1987 Watt Works / ECM Records | XtraWATT/2 / 833 492-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Modern Jazz / Bass

Electric bassist Steve Swallow performs eight originals on this set, with such witty titles as "Crab Alley," "Fred and Ethel," "Read My Lips" and "Hold It Against Me." Most prominent of the soloists in the sextet is guitarist Hiram Bullock; pianist Larry Willis also gets in some good spots, and Carla Bley on organ mostly adds atmosphere. The group is filled out by drummer Victor Lewis, percussionist Don Alias, and on some cuts three strings. The post-bop music is reasonably unpredictable and, although not essential, holds one's interest.

If one considers that this 2005 CD presents music written in the early to middle twentieth century, and the latest of these is a "recomposition" of three Renaissance madrigals, then it seems a most peculiar offering in ECM's New Series line – certainly important for anyone interested in modern music but decidedly not the cutting-edge fare this label usually delivers.

The Book of Genesis tells us that in the beginning was the Word and that the Word was sound. But what if it was music? What if God, in contemplating the creation of Creation, sang being into being? If so, it might have sounded something like the Sacred Songs of Valentin Silvestrov. In this seventh ECM album devoted to the Ukrainian composer’s music, we thusly encounter a sense of space unique to the Russian liturgy: the more the voices unify in movement, the more they lift from one another like temporary tattoos, leaving behind mirror images that wash away with baptism into infinite oneness with the Holy Spirit. Sin as sun. Firmament as fundament.

Guitarist, composer, and bandleader Pat Metheny is one of the most successful jazz musicians in the world. He is the only artist to win 20 Grammy Awards in 10 different categories. A consummate stylist and risk-taker, his musical signature melds a singular, euphoric sense of harmony with Afro-Latin and Brazilian sounds, rock, funk, global folk musics, and jazz. His 1976 debut, Bright Size Life, and the self-titled Pat Metheny Group two years later resonated with audiences and critics for its euphoric lyricism, dynamics, and rhythmic ideas.

Under the title “Saltarello”, a 14th-century fast Italian dance in time that survives today as a folk dance, viola player Garth Knox couples works stretching from the 12th century to the present day and demonstrates how fragile, even arbitrary, is the line drawn between art and folk music, but also that between old music and new sounds. Taking up fiddle, viola and viola d’amore, accompanied by cellist Agnes Vesterman and percussionist Sylvain Lemetre, Knox presents his own works alongside music by Hildegard von Bingen; he juxtaposes the exquisite Renaissance sounds of John Dowland against pieces by Kaija Saariaho that make subtle use of electronics, and sets arrangements of traditional melodies and anonymous dance movements against Vivaldi’s D minor Viola d’amore Concerto – a sensuous survey of 1000 years of musical events.

Carla Bley - The Very Big Carla Bley Band (1991) {ECM Records 847 942-2}
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© 1991 WATT Works / ECM Records | WATT/23 / 847 942-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Experimental Big Band / Progressive Jazz / Piano

Five striking Bley compositions are featured here, including two extended works, 'United States' and 'All Fall Down'. The lasting impression is one of unusual voicings, adventurous soloists, unconventional arranging touches, and dissonant shadings. 'Delightfully quirky, chaotically dynamic, delicately impressionistic, buoyantly upbeat, and brashly bold.' - Downbeat

By the fall of 1992, Keith Jarrett had already spent 30 years as a notable jazz performer. What better way to celebrate than to return to this record’s eponymous venue in his birthplace of Allentown, Pennsylvania for a once-in-a-lifetime gig? Switching out his usual go-to, Jack DeJohnette, for Paul Motian (no stranger to Jarrett, with whom he’d worked in the 70s), the trio works wonders with the new colors the latter provides. Peacock and Jarrett are both verbose players who manage never to step on each other’s toes. With Motian backing them, they take longer pauses for reflection, listening to the wind as it blows through their leaves. His presence and panache are as palpable as the prevalence of alliterations in this sentence, bringing an irresistible brushed beat to the squint-eyed groove of Jaki Byard’s “Chandra.”

Staircase is Keith Jarrett’s fourth solo piano album for ECM, and his first after the previous year’s Köln Concert. In contrast to his earlier studio effort, Facing You, Jarrett elides romantic titles in favor of four singly marked suites in this entirely improvised studio session. Like every carefully chosen word of a William Carlos Williams verse, Jarrett’s equally lyrical insights plough to the heart of the matter like no others. The title work gives special insight into the pianist’s improvisational process. Atop a foundation of steady syncopation, he constructs a helical tower. Rather than expanding it into a broader sound palette, however, he works his way into every crevice.