ECM Records (Edition of Contemporary
Music) is a German record label founded in 1969, in Munich, Germany,
by a record producer and double-bass player Manfred Eicher.
Musically, the origins of the label lay in jazz music, and especially
in modern jazz, but nowadays ECM has broadened its' catalogue to
western art music and various world music traditions. However, many
ECM artists and Mister Eicher himself have been reluctant to
categorize their music and move fluently across the borders and
boundaries of traditional genres. To date, ECM has released over 1200
albums covering a wide variety of different musical idioms.
The first release of ECM was Free at
Last by American pianist Mal
Waldron, and at first the label was known for releasing records by
great modern American jazz masters such as Keith Jarrett, Chick
Corea, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner.
Nonetheless, from very early on the label served also as a medium for
putting many gifted jazz musicians from all over Europe on the map
and bringing various musicians, often with very different
backgrounds, together in new and exciting combinations and ensembles.
In 1984 ECM New Series saw its' daylight originally launched to
introduce the composition Tabula Rasa by
Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Since then, the series has become an
essential part of the label as a platform for documenting the works
of western art music ranging from early music to modern compositions.
Eventough lacking its' own series, world music has also become an
important ”genre” of the ECM catalogue. In the label's true
fashion, their catalogue also include a great deal of releases where
the idioms of jazz, classical music and different world music
traditions are mixed seamlessly.
ECM
has also a very special relation to the art of cinema. Founder
Manfred Eicher is himself a passionate aficionado of cinema, and thus
his label has been active in various film projects. For example, ECM
has released the soundtracks of the films of such directors as Theo
Angelopoulos, Jean-Luc Godard and Andrey Zvyagintsev. The
collaborations with Godard have expanded to the usage of various
still photos of numerous Godard's movies as album covers and to
Eicher's involvement on Godard's films as a musical director.
Additionally, a number of prolific European actors have released
spoken word-albums for the label and some projects and albums are
dedicated to iconic people in motion picture history. ECM has also
released a couple of concert performances of its' artists, a
collection of short films by Godard as well as a quality documentary
named Sounds and Silence which
captures the daily routine and work of Manfred Eicher with various
musicians.
The
founder and producer of ECM Manfred Eicher continues to the date to
take active interest in the music which is released by the label by
picking new artists usually based on his own very wide musical taste
and he is also close friends with many of the artists. Yet, the
integrity and the musicians' control over their art and creations has
always been an important policy of the philosophy of the label.
Eicher acts as the producer on the majority of the releases being
almost always present in the recording sessions which usually last
only three days: two for recording and one for mixing. The ECM's
motto, taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases by Canadian jazz
magazine called CODA, is the Most Beautiful Sound Next to Silence.
This motto sums up very well the very prolific, iconic and
recognisable sound which the ECM albums are known for. Despite the
difficulty of verbal expression of sound, one could use such words as
”ascetic”, ”pure”, ”clear”, ”meditative”, ”ethreal”,
”dreamy”, ”peaceful” and ”reflective” while trying to
capture the general atmosphere of a typical soundscape of an ECM
record. The importance of texture and atmosphere are usually the key
elements of the sound engineering on an ECM album. Part of it is
based on producer Eicher's tendency to approach the sound engineering
with the aesthetics normally associated with classical music
production which aims for clarity and detail.
Altough
ECM is without a doubt a familiar name to many music connoisseurs,
such a fine and quality record label can never get too much
attention. For the end, I have picked a number of less known samples
of the vast catalogue of ECM.
A
piece from the soundtrack of the the film The Return:
A
collaboration between Norwegian saxophone player Jan Garbarek and
musicians from Pakistan:
Modern
jazz by the masters, Kenny Wheeler, Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell and Dave
Holland:
Modern
classical music by Slovakian composer Vladimir Godar:
New
age-ish music by interesting world music artist Stephan Micus:
Nu-jazz
by Nil Petter Molvaer:
Modern
art music in memory of the great film director Andrei Tarkovsky:
Written
by Παναγιωτιης
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