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ECM

Founded by producer Manfred Eicher in 1969, ECM has to date issued more than 1200 albums spanning many idioms. After establishing an early reputation with standard-setting jazz recordings by Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, Jan Garbarek, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and others, ECM began to include contemporary composition – including Steve Reich's landmark "Music for 18 Musicians" – in its programme in the late 1970s; Eicher's own background, as a musician active in both jazz and classical music, provided an unusually broad vantage point from which to survey, and influence, the genres.

ECM New Series was launched in 1984, originally to introduce Arvo Pärt's "Tabula Rasa", and has since become a broad platform for a wide variety of composed music from the pre-baroque era to the present day. The New Series continues to issue premiere recordings of Pärt's works, including the recent "4th Symphony", with further discs from the Estonian composer in preparation. Other regularly featured contemporary composers include Valentin Silvestrov, Tigran Mansurian, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Heinz Holliger, Giya Kancheli, György Kurtág, Meredith Monk, and Heiner Goebbels. A long line of distinguished interpreters has included Kim Kashkashian, András Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Thomas Demenga, the Hilliard Ensemble, Thomas Zehetmair, Carolin Widmann, Rolf Lislevand, Till Fellner, Herbert Henck, Alexei Lubimov, András Keller, Miklós Perényi, John Holloway, Trio Mediaeval, John Potter's Dowland Project and the Rosamunde Quartett with Anja Lechner – amongst many others. The New Series is also a platform on which newer names may be encountered, such as label debuts by Swiss clarinettist Reto Bieri and Italy's Duo Gazzana, as well as a first solo recital by Hungarian pianist Dénes Várjon.

The quality of ECM albums at all levels – from musicianship, production and engineering to cover art – has been widely recognised and the label has collected many awards. ECM has been hailed, by UK newspaper The Independent, as "the most important imprint in the world for jazz and new music." In 2007 ECM won prizes as both classical label of the year and jazz label of the year (from the MIDEM Classical Awards and the Jazz Journalists Association). In 2008, 2009 and 2010 other double-wins saw Eicher voted producer of the year and ECM label of the year in the Down Beat Critics Poll. Also in 2009, ECM New Series was chosen as label of the Year by UK magazine Gramophone.

The label has documented jazz and improvised music from both sides of the Atlantic and brought together many musicians in new and influential combinations, amongst them the Chick Corea/Gary Burton duo, the ‘Belonging' band with Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen, the ‘Magico' trio of Jan Garbarek, Egberto Gismonti and Charlie Haden... the list goes on.

ECM's recordings of jazz from across Europe have served to put many musicians on the map. Scandinavian jazz was highlighted in ECM's early years as Terje Rypdal, Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen were introduced in Garbarek's "Afric Pepperbird" Quartet in 1970, and Bobo Stenson added to the roster the following year. The label continues to support musicians of the Far North, with Trygve Seim, Christian Wallumrød, Mathias Eick, Tord Gustavsen, Arve Henriksen, and Sinikka Langeland all finding wider international recognition in the last decade. 

But the outflung net of ECM production is cast wide, and musicians from most compass points have been drawn to the label. Returning to ECM in 2003 after a long hiatus, Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava brought with him pianist Stefano Bollani, now also recognized as a major player (newest Bollani release, the live "Orvieto", a programme of duets with Chick Corea). Rava's own "Tribe" now features the next generation of Italian improvising talent, including trombonist Gianluca Petrella and pianist Giovanni Guidi. Clarinettist/saxophonist Gianluigi Trovesi has been heard in many contexts, freely celebrating Kurt Weill, Jacques Offenbach or Monteverdi in a jazz spirit. Pianist Stefano Battaglia's projects explore a wide range of artistic reference from literature to film. Battaglia's "Re: Pasolini", like French pianist François Couturier's Tarkovsky Quartet draws inspiration from the world of film.

ECM's interests likewise extend across the arts, and the label has released complete soundtracks of Jean-Luc Godard's "Nouvelle Vague" and "Histoire(s) du Cinéma" and a DVD of Godard's short films, as well as Eleni Karaindrou's music for film and theatre.

Trans-cultural collaboration has been a theme at ECM for decades, with the Codona trio of Don Cherry, Collin Walcott and Nana Vasconcelos amongst the trailblazers (their recordings of the 1970s and 80s have been reissued in the Old & New Masters boxed set series). The music of Anouar Brahem, mirroring the Tunisian oud master's life and experiences draws upon Arab, North African and European sources. Iranian kamanche player Kayhan Kalhor has been exploring East-meets-East hybrids, in the group Ghazal with Indian sitarist Shujaat Husain Khan and more recently in projects with Turkish baglama virtuoso Erdal Erzincan. Moroccan singer Amina Alaoui came to ECM as the lead singer of Jon Balke's spirit-of-Al-Andalus celebration "Siwan". Her own "Arco Iris" transcribes a poetic geography of the Iberian peninsular and touches on fado and flamenco music as well as the Garnati tradition that is at the core of Alaoui's work.

From the other side of the world, Argentinean bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi has continued to make a personal music outside the style categories and beyond the tango. In a current trio he works with saxophonist brother Felix Saluzzi and cellist Anja Lechner, telling stories with yearning melodies and textures redolent of both chamber music and Andean folk song. 

Charles Lloyd builds a bridge to Greek music on "Athens Concert" and Maria Farantouri crosses it to sing with Lloyd's outstanding jazz quartet. Jazz, itself a melting pot of musical influences, remains of crucial importance for ECM and while the label has waved a banner for idiosyncratic European improvisers from John Surman to Louis Sclavis and Miroslav Vitous, it has also kept the US jazz tradition firmly in view. Keith Jarrett's "Standards" trio with Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock has asserted the primacy of the Great American Songbook for the best part of 30 years. Standards, freely played, also provide the basis for the meeting of minds on "Live at Birdland" by Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.

For 40 years Jarrett's improvised solo piano concerts have established a tradition of their own, documented on recordings from "The Köln Concert" to "Rio", and in turn influencing successive generations of players.

Acoustic music, painstakingly recorded, has provided the focus of much work on ECM. A second stream, with music incorporating electronics, has also been present almost from the beginning of the label's history. In the Music Improvisation Company and, later, his own Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, Evan Parker blurred distinctions between new music composition and post-free improvising. John Potter and composer Ambrose Field have applied electronic processing to renaissance music and the Kurtágonals trio, with György Kurtág jr. on synthesizers, propose new collage techniques. Nils Petter Molvaer, with the influential "Khmer", kept one ear cocked to landscapes of dub, hiphop and drum'n'bass. And one of the most talked-about releases of 2011 was "Re: ECM", an album of sound structures, electronically transforming original ECM recordings. Here, Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer shaped music spanning several worlds, including ECM's world of space-conscious improvisation and composition and the worlds of ambient electronics and minimal techno.

An account of ECM's activities through four decades is encompassed in the book "Horizons Touched" (Granta Books, London, 2007). ECM's cover art was the subject of "Sleeves of Desire" (Lars Müller Publishers, Badem, 1996); a second volume of ECM covers, "Windfall Light"/Der Wind, das Licht" was published by Lars Müller in November 2009. A Festschrift, "Der Blaue Klang" based upon a symposium at Mannheim University in the framework of ECM's 40th anniversary events, was published in 2010. Documentation of ECM also continues in other media. Swiss filmmakers Norbert Wiedmer and Peter Guyer for five years followed Manfred Eicher to sessions around the world. Their documentary, "Sounds and Silence" received its first screenings in autumn 2009; a DVD edition and a soundtrack album were issued in 2011.

Website:http://www.ecmrecords.com
Crossover Media Projects:
Avishai Cohen : Ashes to Gold
Florian Weber : Imaginary Circle
Yuuko Shiokawa - Andras Schiff : Brahms - Schumann
Tord Gustavsen Trio : Seeing
Various : Arvo Part - Tabula Rasa
Anja Lechner : Bach, Abel, Hume
Louis Sclavis - Benjamin Moussay : Unfolding
Alice Zawadzki, Fred Thomas, Mischa Mullov-Abbado : Za Gorami
Trygve Seim - Frode Haltli : Our Time
Delian Quartett : Im wachen Traume w/Barainsky, Timoshenko
Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri : Transylvanian Dance
Jordina Milla - Barry Guy : Live in Munich
Norma Winstone - Kit Downes : Outpost of Dreams
Giovanni Guidi : A New Day
Danish String Quartet : Keel Road
Anna Gourari : Paul Hindemith - Alfred Schnittke w/Orch. Svizzera
Tomasz Stanko Quartet : September Night
Oded Tzur : My Prophet
Fred Hersch : Silent, Listening
Various : LUMINESSENCE ECM VINYL
John Surman : Words Unspoken
Vijay Iyer : Compassion
Matthieu Bordenave : The Blue Land
Arve Henriksen - Harmen Fraanje : Touch Of Time
Gidon Kremer : Songs Of Fate-Kremerata Baltica,Vida Mikneviciute
Palle Mikkelborg/Jakob Bro/Marilyn Mazur : Strands - Live at the Danish Radio Concert Hall
Nitai Hershkovits : Call on the old wise
Arvo Part : Tractus
John Scofield : Uncle John's Band
The Gurdjieff Ensemble, Levon Eskenian : Zartir
Thomas Larcher : The Living Mountain
Zsofia Boros : El ultimo aliento
Heinz Holliger, Anton Kernjak : Eventail
Sinikka Langeland : Wind and Sun
Veljo Tormis : Reminiscentiae w/TCO & EPCC, Tonu Kaljuste
Maciej Obara Quartet : Frozen Silence
John Holloway : Henry Purcell - Fantazias
Wolfgang Muthspiel, Scott Colley, Brian Blade : Dance of the Elders
Vox Clamantis : Music by Henrik Odegaard
Keith Jarrett : Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Nils Okland, Sigbjorn Apeland : Glimmer
Elina Duni, Rob Luft, Fred Thomas, Matthieu Michel : A Time To Remember
Joe Lovano w/Trio Tapestry : Our Daily Bread
Jacob Young : Eventually
Ralph Towner : At First Light
Dominic Miller : Vagabond
Ralph Alessi Quartet : It's Always Now
Stephan Micus : Thunder
Killius - Zehetmair - Royal Northern Sinfonia : Bartok/Casken/Beethoven
Gianluigi Trovesi - Stefano Montanari : Stravaganze consonanti
Keith Jarrett : Book Of Ways
Bobo Stenson Trio : Sphere
Anders Jormin : Pasado en claro
Mette Henriette : Drifting
Andras Schiff : J.S. Bach - Clavichord
Sebastian Rochford : A Short Diary w/Kit Downes
Meredith Monk : The Recordings
Duo Gazzana : Tonu Korvits / Robert Schumann / Edvard Grieg
Benjamin Lackner : Last Decade
Wolfert Brederode : Ruins and Remains
Evgueni Galperine : Theory of Becoming
Kyiv Chamber Choir : Valentin Silvestrov - Maidan
Jakob Bro - Joe Lovano : Once Around the Room - A Tribute to Paul Motian
Keith Jarrett : Bordeaux Concert
Arild Andersen : Affirmation
Paul Giger : ars moriendi
Danish String Quartet : Prism IV
Carolin Widmann : L' Aurore
Enrico Rava - Fred Hersch : The Song Is You
Robert Levin : Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The Piano Sonatas
Barre Phillips - Gyorgy Kurtag : Face a Face
Julia Hulsmann Quartet : The Next Door
Steve Tibbetts : Hellbound Train
Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity : Elastic Wave
Michael Mantler : Coda - Orchestra Suites
Heinz Holliger : Lunea
Jon Balke's Siwan : Hafla
John Scofield : John Scofield
Heiner Goebbels : A House of Call, My Imaginary Notebook
Oded Tzur : Isabela
Tord Gustavsen Trio : Opening
Mark Turner : Return from the Stars
Kit Downes : Vermillion
Avishai Cohen : Naked Truth
Keith Jarrett : Facing You
Jorge Rossy, Robert Landfermann, Jeff Ballard : Puerta
Camerata Zurich : Leos Janacek - On an overgrown pathe
Eberhard Weber : Once Upon A Time - Live In Avignon
Enrico Rava : Edizione Speciale
Ayumi Tanaka Trio : Subaqueous Silence
Marcin Wasilewski Trio : En attendant
Fred Thomas : Three Or One
Gidon Kremer : Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Sonatas for Violin Solo
Mathias Eick : When we leave
Craig Taborn : Shadow Plays
Marc Johnson : Overpass
Andrew Cyrille : The News
Konstantia Gourzi : Anajikon
Cymin Samawatie - Ketan Bhatti : Trickster Orchestra
Sinikka Langeland : Wolf Rune
Thomas Stronen : Bayou
Andras Schiff : Brahms-Piano Concertos w/ Orch of the Age of Enlig
Michelle Makarski | Keith Jarrett : Bach: Six Sonatas for Violin and Piano
Stephan Micus : Winter's End
Vijay Iyer : Uneasy
Danish String Quartet : Prism III - Beethoven / Bartok / Bach
Tre Voci : Takemitsu / Debussy / Gubaidulina
Nik Bartsch : Entendre
Momo Kodama : Hosokawa - Mozart w/Mito Chamber Orchestra, Ozawa
Ferenc Snetberger, Keller Quartet : Hallgato
Vijay Iyer : Mutations
Jakob Bro - Arve Henriksen - Jorge Rossy : Uma Elmo
Joe Lovano w/Trio Tapestry : Garden of Expression
Shai Maestro : Human
Erkki-Sven Tüür : Lost Prayers
Tigran Mansurian : Con Anima
Elina Duni, Rob Luft, Fred Thomas, Matthieu Michel : Lost Ships
Dino Saluzzi : Albores
Keith Jarrett : Budapest Concert
Andras Schiff / Jorg Widmann : Johannes Brahms - Sonatas | Widmann - Intermezzi
Anja Lechner | Francois Couturier : Lontano
Trio Mediaeval : Aquilonis
John Holloway : Pavans and Fantasies from the Age of Dowland
Marcin Wasilewski Trio : Arctic Riff w/ Joe Lovano
John Scofield : Swallow Tales
Vox Clamantis : Cyrillus Kreek - The Suspended Harp of Babel
Carla Bley/Andy Sheppard/Steve Swallow : Life Goes On
Avishai Cohen : Big Vicious
Wolfgang Muthspiel : Angular Blues
Oded Tzur : Here Be Dragons
Jan Garbarek, The Hilliard Ensemble : Remember Me, My Dear
Thomas Zehetmair : Sei Solo - JSBach, The Sonatas and Partitas
Danish String Quartet : Prism II - Beethoven / Schnittke / Bach
Keith Jarrett : J.S. Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier, LIVE
Andras Schiff : Franz Schubert Sonatas and Impromptus
Kim Kashkashian : JS Bach: Six Suites For Viola Solo BWV 1007-1012
Theo Bleckmann : Elegy
Vox Clamantis : The Deer's Cry music by Arvo Part
Steve Reich : The ECM Recordings
Rolf Lislevand : La Mascarade
Thomas Zehetmair : Robert Schumann
Arvo Part : Musica Selecta
Anthony de Mare : Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the piano
Keith Jarrett : Barber/Bartok/Jarrett
John Potter : Amores Pasados
Pablo Marquez : Gustavo Leguizamon - El Cuchi bien temperado
Saskia Lankhoorn : Kate Moore - Dances & Canons
The Hilliard Ensemble : Transeamus
Anja Lechner | Francois Couturier : Moderato cantabile
Myung Whun Chung : Piano
Duo Gazzana : Poulenc/Walton/Dallapiccola/Schnittke/Silvestrov