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The best of the ECM label

There is so much really good and well recorded music on the ECM label, but a lot is downright strange. Many of the artists are not well known and the music, new compositions, both the jazz and new label ECM, or classical. It is very hard to gauge what is worth a purchase, because of this.

I do find it interesting, that you can listen to the classical and more avant garde classical material and not find it easy to distinguish the two. Any choice is going to be highly personal, but some suggestions would be helpful.

To start, my personal favourite is
Khmer by Nils Petter Molvaer
david12
photon46
1,008 posts
 
This is, of course, subjective judgement, but here goes. I've bought ECM for decades, one of my favorite labels. Rockadanny is right, some of their releases are boring though. Some I definitely think aren't boring: Anything by Steve Tibbetts (great guitarist who is always channeling his inner percusionist.) In particular "Safe Journey," "Exploded View," & "A Man About a Horse." John Hassell's "Last Night the Moon Came Dropping its Clothes in the Street." Marcus Stockhausen/Terje Rypdal/Arild Andersen's "Karta." Charles Lloyd's "Sangam," "Canto," & "Voice in the NIght." Tomasz Stanko "From the Green Hill." Bobo Stenson Trio "War Orphans." Also greatly enjoy Terje Rypdal's entire catalog.
apperup
8 posts
 
Peter Erskine Trio; As it is.
Beautiful recorded piano trio album.
Fourth album from the subtle Erskine Trio continues to explore space and texture and what the dummer-leader refers to as the "underside of music-making". As on previous showings, pianist John Taylor's still-undervalued compositional skills are to the fore, but Erskine and bassist Danielsson also contribute material - ranging from a waltz to a 12 tone piece - and the tradition of including a Kenny Wheeler piece on each disc is also brought up to date. Down Beat described this as a "Zen" trio; Erskine says "We never solo but we always solo."
trytone
90 posts
 
Not sure we share the same opinion as to what avant garde classical is but I thought I would share an odd ECM story from this last week, Albert Porter was kind enough to give me one of the few ECM discs that he did not care for-Gismonti's "Danca des Cabecas" and one of the sides is not Gismonti, in fact it is a single track of solo piano, Keith Jarrett maybe. I have been handling vinyl intensively since the early 80's and have only come across such an oddity a few times.
kefas
60 posts
 
Keith Jarrett; Live at the Blue Note
czarivey
4,494 posts
 

None mentioned Nils Petter Molvaer around ECM since 1997

The members of his band are also unique and creative musicians such as Eivind Aarset.

Eivind Aarset often in my mind correlates to another similar yet also unique guitarist that had his ECM years which is Bill Frisell. Both of them aren't major ECM artists unlike Gismonti or Jarrett, but definitely worth the elite label of world's most creative musicians.

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