ECM

A fresh and open music, delicate and space-conscious, is shaped as drummer Thomas Strønen and Ayumi Tanaka, previously heard in the ensemble Time Is A Blind Guide on Lucus, resurface in a new trio with clarinettist/singer/percussionist Marthe Lea. The gro

On Friday, January 24, 1975, legendary composer, pianist, soprano saxophonist and bandleader Keith Jarrett gave his famous, freely improvised solo concert at the Köln Opera House in Germany on a Bösendorfer baby grand. The captivating four-part set clocke

A fascinating solo album from the Swiss pianist, composer and conceptualist best known as leader of the bands Ronin and Mobile, Entendre offers deeper insight into Nik Bärtch's musical thinking. As the album title implies Entendre is about hearing as a cr

Revisited and remastered, with additional takes, texts and photos, here is the very first ECM session, recorded in November 1969, featuring the great American pianist Mal Waldron, whose resume included work with Coltrane, Mingus, Dolphy and Billie Holiday

A striking album of new music from pianist/composer Carla Bley, whose trio with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow is now in its 25th year. Individual associations among the players go back much further: bassist Swallow first recorded music by Carla in 1961.

With Seeing, Tord Gustavsen begins an intricate new chapter in his series of acclaimed trio recordings, initiated in 2003 with Changing Places – an album that is today considered a classic. “The new recording with its compact, concentrated song forms, ref

Estonian vocal ensemble Vox Clamantis and their leader Jaan-Eik Tulve have established themselves among the leading interpreters of Arvo Pärt's music over a quarter-century of close collaboration with the composer – a relationship that builds on the almos

“The music has the dash and the unabashed lyricism of Keith Jarrett’s best work,” wrote Stereophile in a rave review of the first selection from the intimate Deer Head Inn live recording, capturing Jarrett’s spontaneous, and in retrospect historic, return

New Vienna is the fourth concert recording to be released from Keith Jarrett’s final European solo tour. It follows Munich 2016, Budapest Concert and Bordeaux Concert. Keith Jarrett’s 2016 return to the Austrian capital brought the flames of inspiration t

Joe Lovano and his Polish conspirators from the Marcin Wasilewski Trio are endowed with an especially adventurous spirit on their second joint endeavor for ECM. On Homage, the quartet investigates the type of free-flowing interplay and expansive passages

Julia Hülsmann’s quartet resurfaces with a fresh Norwegian voice on horn in tow and presents an attractive batch of originals that finds the group thoughtfully exploring common ground with a knack for adventure. As on past outings, each quartet member con

Having previously joined forces on several Louis Sclavis recordings for ECM (including the clarinetist's last album, Characters on a Wall), Sclavis and pianist Benjamin Moussay have been increasingly focused on their two-way communication in recent years,

Rekindling the familiarly flowing interplay with fellow travellers Thomas Morgan and João Lobo – the trio’s musical partnership goes back over a decade at this point –, on A New Day Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi moreover expands the group’s instrumental

Pianist-composer Vijay Iyer follows his 2021 ECM disc Uneasy — the first to showcase his trio featuring bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey — with Compassion, another album in league with these two gifted partners. Compassion, Iyer’s eighth

Frozen Silence is the third ECM release from alto saxophonist Maciej Obara’s Polish-Norwegian quartet, bringing the story forward to its strongest musical statement to date. Alert interactivity is the hallmark of the group’s approach, in a program of new

Wolfgang Muthspiel and his trio, Scott Colley on bass and Brian Blade on drums, reach a new creative peak on Dance of the Elders. Here, Wolfgang’s successful stride continues with his unique compositional signature on one hand and the particularly vibrant

Ralph Alessi's fourth appearance as a leader for the label follows a singular album run that's been met with nothing but praise from The New York Times to The Guardian. The latter lauded Ralph's previous recording Imaginary Friends (2019) for its "elegant

Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell came together to celebrate the work of mentor Ornette Coleman, but the repertoire of their Old and New Dreams quartet soon blossomed into a project of much wider scope, addressing also the musical e

An ECM artist for his entire musical career, US guitarist Ralph Towner has built up a unique body of work in his recordings for the label. Central to his oeuvre are his solo albums, the first of which, Diary, was issued 50 years ago. At First Light extend

German-American pianist Benjamin Lackner makes his ECM debut with a star-studded quartet of Manu Katché on drums, trumpeter Mathias Eick and Jérôme Regard on bass. Mathias and Manu share a longstanding association with the label and their respectively u