Some people could think that I'm paid by eMusic to promote their download business, but trust me, that is unfortunately not the case. Just for your information, eMusic now has a quite substantial number of the ECM catalogue available for download, including many of the Keith Jarrett trio recordings with Peacock and DeJohnette. Regardless of this great service, the people at eMusic are most of the time wrong with the name of the artist, as they are also very often with the indication of the musical genre (sometimes not able to tell the difference between jazz and punk, between easy listening and avant-garde).ECM brought me to jazz, mainly through Abercrombie, Jarrett, Rypdal and Garbarek. And in a way ECM also made me appreciate my then girlfriend, now wife, so many years ago, who had this album by Chick Corea, Dave Holland & Barry Altschul, called A.R.C., an interesting avant-garde piano trio for a 18-year old to have, and which she liked. At that age, that was exceptional (and she still is!). In a way, ECM was instrumental to get me hooked to my wife (but pleae don't tell her, and don't tell ECM).
These are some of my favorite ECM albums that are now available for download :
Keith Jarrett - Eyes Of The Heart (the great American quartet!)
Keith Jarrett - The Survivor's Suite (brilliant, an absolute masterpiece)
Charlie Haden - The Ballad Of The Fallen (another masterpiece)
Terje Rypdal - Oddissey (catalogued underBrynjulf Blix) (a fantastic album)
Terje Rypdal, Miroslav Vitous, Jack DeJohnette (great)
Don Cherry & Ed Blackwell - El Corazon (my favorite musician in the simplest possible dynamic format)
John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette - Gateway (great)
Anouar Brahem, John Surman, Dave Holland - Thimar (world music by great musicians)
Anouar Brahem -Conte De L'Incroyable Amour (a masterpiece of sensitive world music)
Jack DeJohnette - New Directions (under Eddie Gomez) (an underrated album introduced me to free music, all brilliant musicans and great music, with Lester Bowie and John Abercrombie)
Egberto Gismonti - Solo (the master of the 8-string guitar, and a wonderful composer)
Old & New Dreams - Old & New Dreams (WOW! absolutely essential!)
Jan Garbarek - Ragas & Sagas (mister cold & icy meets warmth)
Rabih Abou-Khalil - Nafas (world music, among the best)
Nils Petter Molvaer - Solid Ether (Nu jazz, among the best)
David Torn - Cloud About Mercury (daring adventure into new musical realms)
Jan Garbarek, Egberto Gismonti, Charlie Haden - Magico, Folk Songs (two great chamber jazz/world jazz albums)
I can recommend all of the above, yet I haven't heard all of the albums now made available. There still might be some treasures to find here.
© stef
4 comments:
Hi Stef
I don't see anything from ECM on E-music website.I wonder if it's only available in Europe.Or maybe it will be available in the future ?.Do you know something about this ?
Hi Wojtek,
It's indeed the European eMusic version. Too bad they don't share ECM on the US version.
Stef
Dagnabit - I got really excited there, but no ECM for me.
A small correction: Old & New Dreams is off the Black Saint label, a new arrival that is happily available in the US too.
Adam,
Old & New Dreams has luckily produced four CDs of which two were released on ECM, "Playing" (1980)and "Old & New Dreams" (1979).
Two were released on Black Saint, the first "Old & New Dreams" (1977)(same title as on ECM, yet different pieces) and "A Tribute To Blackwell" (1990).
Cheers,
stef
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