HIEROGLYPHEN DER NACHT

The specially-priced 2-CD set documents a stunning live performance in front of a huge audience at the open air Odeon of Herodes Atticus, as the uniquely-expressive saxophonist Charles Lloyd, and Maria Farantouri, Greece's voice of resistance, come together beautifully and hauntingly.

IL PERGOLESE

2019 release. Dreamlife of Debris carries forward the story begun on Kit Downes's Obsidian, extending and developing it's processes and core ideas. But where Obsidian was (almost exclusively) a solo church organ album, part of Kit's plan for Dreamlife was to put the organ in a broader context, and also to bring the piano into the larger compositional picture. Musicians in the project are primarily players with whom Downes has had long associations saxophonist Tom Challenger, cellist Lucy Railton, drummer Seb Rochford and there is also a first musical encounter with Norwegian guitarist Stian Westerhus.

TIGRAN MANSURIAN: REQUIEM

Imaginary Cities is the recording premiere of saxophonist Chris Potter's new Underground Orchestra. At the core of this larger ensemble is the personnel of his long-established Underground quartet - with Adam Rogers, Craig Taborn and Nate Smith - now joined by two bassists, a string quartet, and Potter's old comrade from Dave Holland Quintet days, vibes and marimba man Steve Nelson. The title composition is a suite, panoramic in it's reach, with movements subtitled "Compassion", "Dualities", "Disintegration" and "Rebuilding". The scope of the work, and it's contrasting moods and thematic development, inspire some of Potter's finest playing. His saxes fly high above his idealized cityscapes or launch into dialogues or group improvising with it's gifted inhabitants. Four further pieces - "Lament", "Firefly", "Sky" and "Shadow Self" - extend the feeling of the suite, successfully combining both tightly written material and very open areas involving all members of the orchestra. References are multi-idiomatic and multicultural, and Potter, who counts Charlie Parker with Strings amongst his formative enthusiasms, had Arabic and Indian string sections in mind, as well as contemporary composition, when shaping this material. Imaginary Cities was recorded in December 2013 in New York's Avatar Studio and produced by Manfred Eicher. Release of the album is followed by US performances with the Underground Orchestra in New York and more.

Vinyl LP pressing. This album features music selected by Norwegian saxophonist, composer, improviser Mette Henriette from her critically-acclaimed double CD ECM debut, an arrestingly original musical statement. Jazz and classical players are drawn together in her ensembles, but the music shapes it's own world, outside genre definitions. In her sometimes disarmingly fragile music, vulnerability can be as potent a force as full-tilt blowing, but there is a place for both.

CD reissue. This single disc drawn from the At The Blue Note box embodies all the characteristics that made Jarrett's trio for many listeners the preeminent group in all of jazz. The qualities of respect for the material and the freedom to take liberties with it co-exist here as Jarrett, Peacock and DeJohnette play, with amazing gracefulness, the standards "Autumn Leaves", "Days of Wine and Roses", "You Don't Know what Love Is" and "When I Fall In Love", plus Keith's tunes "Bop-Be" and "Muezzin".

CD reissue. Triplicate is a studio album by British jazz bassist Dave Holland released on the ECM label in 1988.

END TO END

Double vinyl LP pressing. 2019 release. Like their acclaimed ECM release Small Town of 2017 which The Guardian called "wistful and mesmerizing... tonally ingenious and haunting" Epistrophy by guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan was recorded at New York City's Village Vanguard. The album once again captures the rare empathy these two players achieve together in this intimate environment. There are further poetic takes on pieces from the duo's beloved Americana songbook ("All in Fun," "Red River Valley," "Save the Last Dance for Me"), as well as another intense version of a composition by Paul Motian ("Mumbo Jumbo"), an artist whom both the guitarist and bassist knew well. Frisell and Morgan communicate the essence of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" and the Frank Sinatra hit "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," so much so that the famous words seem to hang in the air even without a singer. At the center of the album is a pair of pieces by Thelonious Monk: the funky, angular "Epistrophy" and the ruminative ballad "Pannonica." And as with "Goldfinger" on Small Town, Frisell and Morgan offer a glowing duo interpretation of a melody-rich John Barry title tune from a James Bond film "You Only Live Twice."

Vinyl LP pressing. The initial musical connection between saxophonist Mark Turner and pianist Ethan Iverson was made in 1990s jam sessions in New York City, with both going on to individual success Iverson in hit trio The Bad Plus and Turner as a solo leader and in such groups as the trio Fly (recording in both capacities for ECM). A decade after their first meeting, the saxophonist and pianist began an association in the Billy Hart Quartet, the two players featuring sympathetically on two widely lauded ECM albums by that band. Now with Temporary Kings, their debut on record as a duo, Turner and Iverson explore aesthetic common ground that encompasses the cool-toned intricacies of the Lennie Tristano/Warne Marsh school, as well as the heightened intimacy of modernist chamber music. The album presents six originals by Iverson (such as the nostalgic solo tune Yesterdays Bouquet) and two by Turner (including Myrons World, which has acquired near-classic status among contemporary jazz players). There's an off-kilter blues (Unclaimed Freight) and a strikingly melodic, almost Ravelian opening track dedicated to the Swiss town where the album was recorded (Lugano), plus an interpretation of Marshs playfully serpentine Dixies Dilemma.

MISERERE

2019 release. Improvising vocalist, folk singer, storyteller, pianist: on her ECM debut Areni Agbabian focuses the range of her skills in music that casts a quiet spell. A sparse music in which voice, piano and the subtle percussion of Nicolas Stocker, continually shade into silence. The California-born Agbabian, who came to international attention with the groups of Tigran Hamasyan, draws deeply upon her Armenian heritage, reinterpreting sacred hymns, a traditional tale, a folk melody transcribed by Komitas and more, and interspersing these elements among her own evocative compositions. Bloom was produced by Manfred Eicher.

Double vinyl LP pressing. A departure and a homecoming for the Memphis-born and California-based tenorist, introducing new music and revisiting archive favorites (including the epic 'Forest Flower'), and featuring an all-star line-up. "This top-flight quartet bristles with a silent, self-assured energy... It may be subdued and serene, but this album is absolutely luminescent." - CMJ New Music Report. Originally released 2/1999