Trending

#ECMFirst100

Latest posts tagged with #ECMFirst100 on Bluesky

Latest Top
Trending
#U.S. Foreign Policy #F1 #Chinese Grand Prix #SNL #Venezuela Baseball #AEW Collision #Six Nations #Newcastle United #Arsenal vs Everton #Trump and Epstein #U.S. Foreign Policy #F1 #Chinese Grand Prix #SNL #Venezuela Baseball #AEW Collision #Six Nations #Newcastle United #Arsenal vs Everton #Trump and Epstein

Posts tagged #ECMFirst100

Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
2 weeks ago
The first time I heard this record, I barely noticed what was going on within it, subconsciously pitching it, I suppose, as a kind photo-ambient offering. But in more recent years, attentive listening reveals the movement and connectivity within the work of the two trios featured on the LP. Side one often just plays on repeat mode.

The first time I heard this record, I barely noticed what was going on within it, subconsciously pitching it, I suppose, as a kind photo-ambient offering. But in more recent years, attentive listening reveals the movement and connectivity within the work of the two trios featured on the LP. Side one often just plays on repeat mode.

Recorded in the hot New York summer of 1967, the 17-minute-long Ending slowly marks out each player’s respective areas as they slip in and out of trio formation. It’s a conversation that doesn’t encourage repetition, where reclusive piano notes skulk between the reverberations of snare and cymbal or the telling economy of laconic bass. As each player revolves within their respective sphere of influence, when they gradually overlap or align, fresh exchanges are sparked. It’s this process of gentle accretion and dissolution that gives Ballads its intense but quiet beauty.

Recorded in the hot New York summer of 1967, the 17-minute-long Ending slowly marks out each player’s respective areas as they slip in and out of trio formation. It’s a conversation that doesn’t encourage repetition, where reclusive piano notes skulk between the reverberations of snare and cymbal or the telling economy of laconic bass. As each player revolves within their respective sphere of influence, when they gradually overlap or align, fresh exchanges are sparked. It’s this process of gentle accretion and dissolution that gives Ballads its intense but quiet beauty.

This is the second vintage New York recording of Bley’s on ECM, and it’s easy to grasp Eicher’s attraction and why he sought to adopt them, given that the aural spaciousness that would come to define ECM recordings is present, albeit in nascent form, throughout Ballads. A minimalist painting in sound that stands well outside the decade of its creation, it possesses a timelessness that’s indicative of the best kind of art. That quality seems wholly appropriate for a man whose 1999 autobiography was entitled Stopping Time.

This is the second vintage New York recording of Bley’s on ECM, and it’s easy to grasp Eicher’s attraction and why he sought to adopt them, given that the aural spaciousness that would come to define ECM recordings is present, albeit in nascent form, throughout Ballads. A minimalist painting in sound that stands well outside the decade of its creation, it possesses a timelessness that’s indicative of the best kind of art. That quality seems wholly appropriate for a man whose 1999 autobiography was entitled Stopping Time.

Annette Peacock’s writing provides the conceptual underpinnings, while the respective trios do the heavy lifting. Her role here is crucial to the album's success, and she doesn't get anything like enough credit for her work. Speaking to The Wire in 1983 about working with Bley, she said, “I wrote music specifically for that time, that environment, and that particular person. Whatever I did for him had to be fresh and give the musicians something to work on or towards, creating an environment for them to work within. The free movement at that time was just pure energy, just chaos - ‘We’re free at last! - I looked at that, and I could see a balance had to be struck, so I started off writing music that wasn’t in time, it just had speeds. Music that didn’t deal with traditional chord shapes but relationships between harmony and dissonance, and how they interacted. That opened up a whole new world to me as a composer.”

Annette Peacock’s writing provides the conceptual underpinnings, while the respective trios do the heavy lifting. Her role here is crucial to the album's success, and she doesn't get anything like enough credit for her work. Speaking to The Wire in 1983 about working with Bley, she said, “I wrote music specifically for that time, that environment, and that particular person. Whatever I did for him had to be fresh and give the musicians something to work on or towards, creating an environment for them to work within. The free movement at that time was just pure energy, just chaos - ‘We’re free at last! - I looked at that, and I could see a balance had to be struck, so I started off writing music that wasn’t in time, it just had speeds. Music that didn’t deal with traditional chord shapes but relationships between harmony and dissonance, and how they interacted. That opened up a whole new world to me as a composer.”

Paul Bley
Ballads ECM 1010
Recorded in 1967, in what could be a Morton Feldman score for jazz trio or a manifesto for The Necks' sonic minimalism, Bley’s poetic ear charts starry clusters that grow, glow, and fade within the gauzy expanse of Annette Peacock's stellar writing. #ECMFirst100 #ECM

41 4 2 1
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
3 weeks ago
The first piano trio since Mal Waldron’s Free At Last goes in a very different direction as these three engage in rapid cycles of hyperactive exchanges. Sometimes it’s too much, and they splutter and stutter for breath in the sheer exuberance of it all. But when it all works, and they get out of the way of each other, ka-pow!

The first piano trio since Mal Waldron’s Free At Last goes in a very different direction as these three engage in rapid cycles of hyperactive exchanges. Sometimes it’s too much, and they splutter and stutter for breath in the sheer exuberance of it all. But when it all works, and they get out of the way of each other, ka-pow!

The powerful reading of Wayne Shorter’s Nefertiti opening the album swings like the clappers and comes with none of the caution it had when the same trio recorded it for the previous year’s The Song Of Singing for Blue Note. Here at TonStudio Bauer in Ludwisburg, it barrels in with something approaching a swagger that is irresistible. Just over a month after this recording, Corea, Hollan,d and Altschul would perform Nefertiti on stage with Anthony Braxton, beautifully captured on Circle’s Paris-Concert.

The powerful reading of Wayne Shorter’s Nefertiti opening the album swings like the clappers and comes with none of the caution it had when the same trio recorded it for the previous year’s The Song Of Singing for Blue Note. Here at TonStudio Bauer in Ludwisburg, it barrels in with something approaching a swagger that is irresistible. Just over a month after this recording, Corea, Hollan,d and Altschul would perform Nefertiti on stage with Anthony Braxton, beautifully captured on Circle’s Paris-Concert.

Dave Holland’s Vadana is a real show-stealer with the bassist’s heartfelt shadow melodies burnishing Corea’s spacious framing. The real curio however, is Corea’s Thanatos. Taking over a minute and a half to fade in on what sounds like a typical improv, no sooner than it finally arrives, it immediately takes the same amount of time to fade back out into silence. With a title also alluding to death, the whole thing clocks in at a potentially significant 4.33. A Cagean coincidence? An oblique comment upon the ultimate silence?

Dave Holland’s Vadana is a real show-stealer with the bassist’s heartfelt shadow melodies burnishing Corea’s spacious framing. The real curio however, is Corea’s Thanatos. Taking over a minute and a half to fade in on what sounds like a typical improv, no sooner than it finally arrives, it immediately takes the same amount of time to fade back out into silence. With a title also alluding to death, the whole thing clocks in at a potentially significant 4.33. A Cagean coincidence? An oblique comment upon the ultimate silence?

This record has had three variant covers over the years. First, I think, there's the Scientology-inspired triangle graphic emblazoned with the letters ARC, which, as any acolyte will breathlessly tell you, stands for Affinity, Reality, and Communication. Then, the same year in Germany, ECM issued a quite atypical for the time photograph of a cinematic-looking landscape, the very first one to grace an ECM release. And thank goodness they did, as it means we get to enjoy Lajos Keresztes’s photograph of an open road stretching off to the distant mountains. It surely expresses more about the music’s wide-open aspirations than the dodgy cult speak quoted on the rear of the other pressing. Keresztes, who escaped the Hungarian uprising of 1956, first studied architecture in Munich and, in 1961, photography in Cologne, going on to travel the world gathering sublime images, several of which would appear on the covers of future ECM and JAPO releases.

This record has had three variant covers over the years. First, I think, there's the Scientology-inspired triangle graphic emblazoned with the letters ARC, which, as any acolyte will breathlessly tell you, stands for Affinity, Reality, and Communication. Then, the same year in Germany, ECM issued a quite atypical for the time photograph of a cinematic-looking landscape, the very first one to grace an ECM release. And thank goodness they did, as it means we get to enjoy Lajos Keresztes’s photograph of an open road stretching off to the distant mountains. It surely expresses more about the music’s wide-open aspirations than the dodgy cult speak quoted on the rear of the other pressing. Keresztes, who escaped the Hungarian uprising of 1956, first studied architecture in Munich and, in 1961, photography in Cologne, going on to travel the world gathering sublime images, several of which would appear on the covers of future ECM and JAPO releases.

Chick Corea/David Holland/Barry Altschul
A.R.C. ECM 1009
Having guested on ECM 1004, Corea’s first album as leader lands with a flashy impact. Forever busy and bustling, they generate a lot of heat triangulating between splintery improv, riotous patterns, and euphoric swing.
#ECMFirst100 #ECM

17 2 1 1
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
1 month ago
Post image Kenyatta is in good company here. Braceful was still stationed in Germany as a member of the 82nd Army Band when he began playing in Dauner’s trio in November 1963. While Braceful would appear appear on later ECM albums, this is Dauner’s second and last session for the label.

Kenyatta is in good company here. Braceful was still stationed in Germany as a member of the 82nd Army Band when he began playing in Dauner’s trio in November 1963. While Braceful would appear appear on later ECM albums, this is Dauner’s second and last session for the label.

Arild Andersen’s work with Braceful is exemplary. The title track has a wonderful psych-vibe to it as Kenyatta’s echo-laden flute dances with Dauner’s processed clavinet but things really take off when Andersen’s mighty groove gets underway.

Arild Andersen’s work with Braceful is exemplary. The title track has a wonderful psych-vibe to it as Kenyatta’s echo-laden flute dances with Dauner’s processed clavinet but things really take off when Andersen’s mighty groove gets underway.

Kenyatta’s next album, Gypsy Man on Atlantic, released in 1972, goes in a very different direction with smooth strings, funky beats, chunky bass grooves, wah-wah guitar, airy synths, all wrapped up in a period jazz-funk production that gets collectors hot under the collar. While placing Kenyatta in a very different context from Girl From Martinique, his playing still hits home.

Kenyatta’s next album, Gypsy Man on Atlantic, released in 1972, goes in a very different direction with smooth strings, funky beats, chunky bass grooves, wah-wah guitar, airy synths, all wrapped up in a period jazz-funk production that gets collectors hot under the collar. While placing Kenyatta in a very different context from Girl From Martinique, his playing still hits home.

Robin Kenyatta
Girl From Martinique
ECM 1008
With psych-tinged flute, yowling sax, spidery reverb-soaked clavinet, zesty groove-seeking drums, and bass embroiled in swampy Mwandishi-style vibes, why isn't this overlooked curio a contender for buried treasure/cult classic status?
#ECMFirst100 #ECM

9 1 0 0
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
1 month ago
Those paying attention to this particular journey will notice that I've leapt from ECM 1005 to ECM 1007. That's because I don't own ECM 1006, Output by Wolfgang Dauner. It's so expensive, I'm afraid it will have to wait until I win the lottery. The same eye-watering prices apply to this album, which I've never come across in the wild. Thankfully, knowing I planned on doing these posts at some point, those nice people at ECM issued this 2024 repress in their Luminessence series. Manfred, my bank manager salutes you!

Those paying attention to this particular journey will notice that I've leapt from ECM 1005 to ECM 1007. That's because I don't own ECM 1006, Output by Wolfgang Dauner. It's so expensive, I'm afraid it will have to wait until I win the lottery. The same eye-watering prices apply to this album, which I've never come across in the wild. Thankfully, knowing I planned on doing these posts at some point, those nice people at ECM issued this 2024 repress in their Luminessence series. Manfred, my bank manager salutes you!

While the smoke drifting over from his American sax heroes billowed through the quartet’s non-ECM 1969-recorded album, Esoteric Circle, there’s a different tang in the air of this record, with Garbarek exploring his own way. It’s impressive stuff, and he’s 23 years old, folks.

While the smoke drifting over from his American sax heroes billowed through the quartet’s non-ECM 1969-recorded album, Esoteric Circle, there’s a different tang in the air of this record, with Garbarek exploring his own way. It’s impressive stuff, and he’s 23 years old, folks.

Looking like he’s just rocked up from a garage band, Rypdal traces brittle flurries and chordal slurs that skip across the rhythmic tide of Beast Of Kommodo. On Blow Away Zone, he’s doing the muted pick-up scratches and slides that all aspiring avant-gardists are wont to do. His occasional, tentative blasts on the bugle, while less welcome, don’t get in the way.

Looking like he’s just rocked up from a garage band, Rypdal traces brittle flurries and chordal slurs that skip across the rhythmic tide of Beast Of Kommodo. On Blow Away Zone, he’s doing the muted pick-up scratches and slides that all aspiring avant-gardists are wont to do. His occasional, tentative blasts on the bugle, while less welcome, don’t get in the way.

If their colleagues are still undergoing a process of transition as players, Arild Anderson, having just turned 25, and the 27-year-old Jon Christensen, are both authoritative and fully formed. In many respects, it's their album really.

If their colleagues are still undergoing a process of transition as players, Arild Anderson, having just turned 25, and the 27-year-old Jon Christensen, are both authoritative and fully formed. In many respects, it's their album really.

Jan Garbarek Quartet
Afric Pepperbird ECM 1007
A significant album, not just because all four players would loom large in ECM's development, but it's the first with that 'ECM sound' about the production. Clarity, space, and depth apply to the music as much as the audio.
#ECMFirst100 #ECM

27 3 3 0
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
1 month ago
Manfred Eicher’s survey of contemporary music turns its attention to the UK’s free music scene for the label’s fifth release. On first listen, it’s as if one has stumbled into a chaotic brawl; nothing seems fixed, everything is in constant motion. Yet those volleys of fragmentary notes and noises surge with an unrelenting energy throughout these incandescent performances.

Manfred Eicher’s survey of contemporary music turns its attention to the UK’s free music scene for the label’s fifth release. On first listen, it’s as if one has stumbled into a chaotic brawl; nothing seems fixed, everything is in constant motion. Yet those volleys of fragmentary notes and noises surge with an unrelenting energy throughout these incandescent performances.

Six Degrees of Separation fans can fill their boots with the players here whose individual credits forge links, in no particular order, to the likes of Stockhausen, King Crimson, Talk Talk, The Rolling Stones, and Morecambe and Wise, to name but a few.

Six Degrees of Separation fans can fill their boots with the players here whose individual credits forge links, in no particular order, to the likes of Stockhausen, King Crimson, Talk Talk, The Rolling Stones, and Morecambe and Wise, to name but a few.

The group represents a kind of partial snapshot or distillation of the scene that began life in the mid-1960s around The Little Theatre Club, which would spawn the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Gentle Fire, Isra 1903, and other ad hoc groupings whose work is generally referred to in hushed, revered tones.

The group represents a kind of partial snapshot or distillation of the scene that began life in the mid-1960s around The Little Theatre Club, which would spawn the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Gentle Fire, Isra 1903, and other ad hoc groupings whose work is generally referred to in hushed, revered tones.

For King Crimson fans, there’s a frisson to be had in being able to hear the baking tray, metal sheet, chimes, and sundry other percussion and all sorts that would still be part of Jamie Muir’s rig on Larks’ Tongues In Aspic three years after this album was made. I didn’t hear this album until at least ten years after that, and certainly didn’t own a copy until the early 2000s. This one is a US pressing - the original German being hard to find.

For King Crimson fans, there’s a frisson to be had in being able to hear the baking tray, metal sheet, chimes, and sundry other percussion and all sorts that would still be part of Jamie Muir’s rig on Larks’ Tongues In Aspic three years after this album was made. I didn’t hear this album until at least ten years after that, and certainly didn’t own a copy until the early 2000s. This one is a US pressing - the original German being hard to find.

The Music Improvisation Company ECM 1005
Bristling with coarse textures, energetic bursts, and Jamie Muir's atomised clattering, the microscopic hurly-burly of what, in 1970, felt bruisingly new comes with a cover that hints at something insurgent and wild about to break through.
#ECMFirst100 #ECM

28 1 2 1
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
2 months ago
The cover image looks like one of those scenes in a movie, just before they pull focus and reveal the blobs in detail, suddenly becoming sharp outlines of light, people, or some other object. This suggestion of shapeshifting and movement echoes the music's slightly amorphous, ambiguous nature well.

The cover image looks like one of those scenes in a movie, just before they pull focus and reveal the blobs in detail, suddenly becoming sharp outlines of light, people, or some other object. This suggestion of shapeshifting and movement echoes the music's slightly amorphous, ambiguous nature well.

Having made his debut as a leader on the ESP label in 1965, he presents a radically different musical approach five years later.

Having made his debut as a leader on the ESP label in 1965, he presents a radically different musical approach five years later.

Pictured with his wife, the album, though recorded in New York in the summer of 1970, was inspired by his winter in Georgia. "Although I am responsible for initiating the music, I take no credit for the results. Whatever they may be, it goes to the musicians collectively," he writes in the expansive sleeve notes.

Pictured with his wife, the album, though recorded in New York in the summer of 1970, was inspired by his winter in Georgia. "Although I am responsible for initiating the music, I take no credit for the results. Whatever they may be, it goes to the musicians collectively," he writes in the expansive sleeve notes.

Brown writes about his desire to further develop pieces that allow non-musicians to work alongside professional players as they do on this recording. "My idea here is that it is possible for non-musicians to participate in a musical experience without being technically proficient in a theoretical sense." It sounds something akin to Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra, which also included Brian Eno. Speaking of whom, the first time I saw the name Marion Brown was on the sleeve of Harold Budd's The Pavilion Of Dreams, released on Eno's Obscure Records in 1978. Come to think of it, there are moments on that record that remind me of this one.

Brown writes about his desire to further develop pieces that allow non-musicians to work alongside professional players as they do on this recording. "My idea here is that it is possible for non-musicians to participate in a musical experience without being technically proficient in a theoretical sense." It sounds something akin to Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra, which also included Brian Eno. Speaking of whom, the first time I saw the name Marion Brown was on the sleeve of Harold Budd's The Pavilion Of Dreams, released on Eno's Obscure Records in 1978. Come to think of it, there are moments on that record that remind me of this one.

Marion Brown
Afternoon Of A Georgia Faun ECM 1004
Elusive, scurrying figures reveal flashes of bright, exotic colours in an exotic forest of sound. As much about listening as playing, it's reminiscent in its feel to Wayne Shorter’s Moto Grosso Feio, also recorded in August 1970.
#ECMFirst100 #ECM

32 2 5 0
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
2 months ago
The cover seems to suggest light, dark, texture, and tone in a perfect frame. Alternatively, the designers could be playing a longer game. Free At Last was dominated by black, while Just Music shone an unflinching white light around the text. Here, there's a degree of ambiguity between those two extremes.

The cover seems to suggest light, dark, texture, and tone in a perfect frame. Alternatively, the designers could be playing a longer game. Free At Last was dominated by black, while Just Music shone an unflinching white light around the text. Here, there's a degree of ambiguity between those two extremes.

You might be cool, but you'll never be Paul Bley cool.

You might be cool, but you'll never be Paul Bley cool.

Bley lays it out in black and white.

Bley lays it out in black and white.

Of the eight compositions on the album, two come from Ornette Coleman, two from Annette Peacock, and two from Bley. Gary Peacock takes one credit, as does Jerome Kern. Incidentally, Kern is the composer of a tune that makes me weep like a child whenever I hear it, no exceptions. Happily, no tears were mopped up during the listening to this lovely record.

Of the eight compositions on the album, two come from Ornette Coleman, two from Annette Peacock, and two from Bley. Gary Peacock takes one credit, as does Jerome Kern. Incidentally, Kern is the composer of a tune that makes me weep like a child whenever I hear it, no exceptions. Happily, no tears were mopped up during the listening to this lovely record.

Paul Bley
Paul Bley with Gary Peacock
ECM 1003
Two NY sessions from 64 & 68, co-opted by Eicher as a public service. Tightrope-walking Bley drops into the silence between the bass and drums as he runs away with a melody. Annette Peacock’s tender ballad, Gary, is a timeless gift.
#ECMFirst100 #ECM

19 1 2 0
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
2 months ago
No messing about, this album design is as uncluttered as it is possible to get and does exactly what it says on the tin. Just Music. Formed in Frankfurt in the late 60s, saxophonist/brass player Alfred Harth steers this loose-limbed collective of classical and jazz players through free improv and pre-determined exercises.

No messing about, this album design is as uncluttered as it is possible to get and does exactly what it says on the tin. Just Music. Formed in Frankfurt in the late 60s, saxophonist/brass player Alfred Harth steers this loose-limbed collective of classical and jazz players through free improv and pre-determined exercises.

I have no idea how these stains appeared on the cover, nor what they might be. Tea? Coffee? Blood? Somebody trained in forensics might be able to tell. I've opted not to try to clean the cover but accept and embrace the spatter as a point where the outside world mingles with the spirit of the music contained therein.

I have no idea how these stains appeared on the cover, nor what they might be. Tea? Coffee? Blood? Somebody trained in forensics might be able to tell. I've opted not to try to clean the cover but accept and embrace the spatter as a point where the outside world mingles with the spirit of the music contained therein.

Recorded on the same day as the last concert performed by the original King Crimson. No connection at all between the two events, of course. It's just the nerd in me that notices such correspondences.

Recorded on the same day as the last concert performed by the original King Crimson. No connection at all between the two events, of course. It's just the nerd in me that notices such correspondences.

Dirty minimalism, ingrained arc, black on white. Stark matter holds this particular musical universe together.

Dirty minimalism, ingrained arc, black on white. Stark matter holds this particular musical universe together.

Just Music
Just Music ECM 1002
Germany's Just Music collective ride expressive peaks and troughs, searching for moments of magical connection that border on the ecstatic. Sometimes they grasp it, sometimes it slips away in a recording that's part performance art and part therapy. #ECMfirst100 #ECM

11 0 0 0
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
2 months ago

Yesterday I posted the first in my occasional series of pictures of the LPs I own from the first 100 ECM Records releases. It's nice to have a hobby. #vinyl #Jazz #ECM #ECMFirst100

19 0 3 0
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
2 months ago
The cover of the expanded edition of Free At Last (Expanded Edition) by the Mal Waldron Trio stands next to the turntable playing the LP. Released in 2019, it is an affordable alternative to the original 1970 release, which now changes hands for a king's ransom.

The cover of the expanded edition of Free At Last (Expanded Edition) by the Mal Waldron Trio stands next to the turntable playing the LP. Released in 2019, it is an affordable alternative to the original 1970 release, which now changes hands for a king's ransom.

I love this picture from the gatefold. Mal listening, keeping an eye on what's happening, pen in his breast pocket at the ready.

I love this picture from the gatefold. Mal listening, keeping an eye on what's happening, pen in his breast pocket at the ready.

Moving to Munich in 1967 gave Waldron a chance to reevaluate and rebuild. This shot from the 1969 recording sessions of Free At Last is of a hand laying down his new approach, which placed rhythm above changes and melody. There's a choice being made in the moment.

Moving to Munich in 1967 gave Waldron a chance to reevaluate and rebuild. This shot from the 1969 recording sessions of Free At Last is of a hand laying down his new approach, which placed rhythm above changes and melody. There's a choice being made in the moment.

I reckon Keith Emerson was a Mal Waldron fan. No, really., hear me out. Take a listen to ELP's debut album and tell me that the Three Fates piano trio section is not a dead ringer for the track 1-3-234.

I reckon Keith Emerson was a Mal Waldron fan. No, really., hear me out. Take a listen to ELP's debut album and tell me that the Three Fates piano trio section is not a dead ringer for the track 1-3-234.

Mal Waldron Trio
Free At Last
ECM 1001
Bright and spiky, Mal and the team hit the spot with minimal fuss but achieve maximum clout. Some have questioned the rhythm section's chops, but I like their tenacity. As a freelancer, I'm mostly broke, so this is the expanded reissue.
#ECMFirst100 #ECM

24 0 1 2