I'm already very familiar with (and love) Steve Tibbetts, Eberhard Weber, Keith Jarrett, Oregon, Ralph Towner, Nils Petter Molvaer, and Pat Metheny.

A year or so ago, someone on this forum made a post about Paul Bley's "Open, To Love" - and I was very impressed with that one, such a phenomenal, beautiful recording.

On the other hand, my wife and I went to see the Danish String Quartet last year, and I bought "Thomas Ades | Per Norgard | Hans Abrahamsen," and I find it almost un-listenable, it's just too abstract for me.

Thanks in advance...

Ten wondrous hyper to semi-melodic ECM-releases:

Bennie Maupin - The Jewel in the Lotus

John Abercrombie, Dave Holland & Jack DeJohnette - Gateway

I could recomend much more but all these should do the trick

Eberhard Weber-The Colours Of Chloe

Manfred Schoof Quintet Resonance

And even more special in my book, is his album with David Darling ... EOS.

Beware the first cut ... you've been warned. But the rest is the prettiest chamber music on electric guitar that you will never hear anyone else do, even if Jeff Beck copied the style some many years later!

I recommend EGBERTO GISMONTI, and just about anything in the early days ... Solo, Sol do Meio Dia, Danca das Cabecas, Magico, Sanfona .... for some really tasty material. Special in this list is No Caipira, which is more classical, but is a mix of intense and far out stuff ... that I seriously doubt most progressive listeners can handle ... I call it a Brazilian Stravinsky and then some on that one ... and it's weird to me that he never did any more of that, but I think that a lot of people were going ... wtf is all that? But it is phenomenal and I would love to use it on a stage or film ... it's truly special!

Jan Garbarek is an acquired taste. In the early days, it is probably totally "abstract" (your word I think), but in the experimental phase there is some far out stuff ... get EVENTYR. His two albums with Egberto Gismonti are magnificent ... truly beautiful and Charlie Haden is with them.

There are a lot of folks there that belong in the special category ... even Keith Jarrett in his early periods are worth the attention (the Koln album specially), though there is a side of things here that many folks do not like about Keith ... but in general, he's very enjoyable, but not for everyone. 

You gotta remember one thing ... ECM is not about a "band" and .... errrrrr .... you know ... "songs". It's a lot more about the music, than the crap that we are being given every day! So make sure that you adjust your listening style so that you do not get disappointed. A lot of folks, even here, would consider a lot of this stuff just "filler" and "too much improvisation" ... as if it were all some kind of meaningless musical exercise ... because it ain't composed! (... how British of you ... says Pete to Dud!)

Slightly off topic, but on topic ... years ago I heard something, that seemed to be a part of the ECM fold, however I have never found it ... it was a 20 minute piece, a symphony it seemed like, for harmonica or chromatic harp. I have never found this, and wondered who it was but it sure smelled, smiled and appeared to be something that ECM would definitely do, and had done before for several folks ... Garbarek had a Symphony done for him by Jarrett and probably other (and better!) examples.

It wasn't Norton Buffalo, or Toots Thielmans, btw ... both of which did smaller pieces of music and never did something that was very classical in its context and design. Toots, was also more related to jazz'y stuff that was well known and received ... 

If anyone has a "lead" on this ... I would appreciate it ... I can not be totally sure but it seems the name could have been "russell", but I have never found anything with first or last name in that vein.

ProfPanglos wrote: A year or so ago, someone on this forum made a post about Paul Bley's "Open, To Love" - and I was very impressed with that one, such a phenomenal, beautiful recording.

How could I forget this stunning 1970-album (titled Paul Bley with Gary Peacock)

I'm a big fan. I'd say any Paul Bley-album up to the one mentioned above is wonderful: Footloose, Touching, Closer, Ramblin', Blood, Mr Joy + lastly Barrage which is more of a standard (as in wild) free jazz-quintet and less of his "signature" sound if you're ok with that (none of them on ECM though)

You may find Meredith Monk too "abstract" but I am a big fan of hers, and who knows, maybe against the odds you get her.

Markus Stockhausen is cool, too.

Nahhhh ... but he has done a lot of nice things ... including two albums with Carlos Nakai, where the pieces of music that stand out the best are the ones that he features the most! It helped take some of this stuff off "new age", and make it a bit more serious music for me.

I have not kept up with him, but will look for a couple more of his albums. He has never disappointed for me.

The only "sad thing" for me, is that the more I listen to this stuff on ECM, the more I want to get away from the "Progressive" mold of things ... I'm just not into "form" or "style", and more often than not, hearing special, and different things is what MUSIC is all about for me. Thus, a lot of my cynical comments about some of the music, when it is ... just another song, the same as the last song!

 

 

 

Chick Corea - Return To Forever

Mal Waldron - The Call

Terje Rypdal - Whenever I seem To Be So Far Away  & What Comes After

Julian Priester & Pepo Mtoto - Love, Love

Bernie Maupin - The Jewel In The Lotus

John Surman/John Warren - The Brass Project

 

 

Metheny's New Chateauqua, Offramp  and American Garage

Abercrombie's Gateway series

 

 

Kenny Wheeler's Music For Large Ensemble (90) and Long Time Ago (98)

Miroslav Vitous's The Journey (82) and Universal Syncopations (03)

John Surman Stranger Than Fiction (93) and Adventure Playground (91)

The Music Improvisation Company 's ST album with Jamie Muir (70)

Globe Unity Improvisation's Compositions and Improvisations (79 & 77)

Jan Garbarek's Sart (71) Afric Pepperbird (72) and Places (77)

Steve Khun's Trance (74)

Dave Holland Quintet's Jumping In and Shades Of Time (83 & 84)

Holland/Phillips's Music For Two Basses (71)

 

 

 

Anyway, loads of great reccomendations. My own most obvious omission was Love, Love - It's so "un-ECM-like" I keep forgetting. Everyone's love for Keith Jarrett I will never understand. Something about his playing just rubs me the wrong way. Not among personal top 100 jazz-pianists that's for sure.

I think that it looks that way because it was so different and so experimental ... and I was already aware of it through Keith Jarrett, but had not gotten anything as yet, until I saw a Melody Maker advertisement for a concert in London ... Ash Ra Tempel and Terje Rypdal's Odyssey ... and I went after Odyssey right away, which is a nicer album (for me) than the one you mentioned, and the rest was history ... right about the same time I heard my first Egberto Gismonti album (No Caipira) which was astounding to say the least ... a Brazilian Stravinsky and then some .... the soundtrack (FOR ME) for the novel "Briefing for a Descent Into Hell" by Doris Lessing ... and not because of its strangeness and such ... it was just far out and out there ... !!! That got me into the other Gismonti albums that I maintained for the next 10 years and each one is better than the other ... and you MUST GET the album "MAGICO", for one of the prettiest album ever ... and then you look at it and go ... what? Charlie Haden? Jan Garbarek?

I kinda stopped picking up a lot of stuff when I was busy managing a restaurant, the last album I remember getting for a while on ECM was EVENTYR (Garbarek) which is an absolute must get ... PERIOD.

The last 20 years have been weird ... I have not been able to "connect" with many of the artists in ECM for some reason, and I think that a lot of the music was too much centered on traditional forms and designs and lost its aesthetic and introspective side of the music for me ... at least I have not heard a whole lot of new things that stood out like a Gismonti did for me, or a Rypdal, or even a Jarrett on his experimental phase. 

I miss the "experimental" periods, and the works of so many folks on ECM ... I don't see it continuing, and I am almost positive that it has to do with the commercial view and attitudes of the whole generation, that is not able, or willing to hear new things, and the presentations, for me, are sad, and uninspired. 

One worse thing ... one group from ECM made it here to Portland to the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival (one group every 20 years!!!!!) ... and when I spec'd it ... it felt like esoteric traditional ... not even ECM. Even the group OREGON is better and more enjoyable, although I think that they are mostly out of ECM these days ... haven't checked. Glenn Moore does bass lessons here in Portland for advanced players!

1. Ralph Towner/Gary Burton - Matchbook (1975)

2. Tomasz Stanko Quartet - Suspended Night (2004)

3. Chick Corea/Gary Burton - Crystal Silence (1973)

4. Enrico Rava - The Plot (1977)

5. Jan Garbarek/Bobo Stenson - Witchi-Tai-To (1974)

6. John Abercrombie - Current Events (1986)

7. Old and New Dreams - Playing (1980)

8. Eberhard Weber - Yellow Fields (1976)

9. Tomasz Stanko Quartet - Soul of Things (2002)

10. Kenny Wheeler - Double Double You (1984)

11. Gary Burton Quintet - Passengers (1977)

12. Haden / Garbarek / Gismonti - Magico (1980) 

Of interest, although not quite a mention, at least 2 pieces of music from ECM got the Oscar one fine night.

Jan Garbarek from EVENTYR and Terje Rypdal from EOS ... were two of the pieces of music used in a film (Journey of Hope) about the plight of some Kurdish people if I remember it correctly. The visuals on it, allow the music to live and they become the "pensive" side of the "hope" for the folks in the film.

Really well done and beautifully used! Highly recommended listening and if you can watching!