OUTPOST OF DREAMS

BLUE LAND

VAGABOND

SEPTEMBER NIGHT

NEW DAY

2022 release. Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, an ECM musician for more than fifty years, is a masterful player who has always welcomed a challenge. His first recording with his new quartet - including rising stars Marius Neset and Helge Lien (both bandleaders in their own right) - is almost entirely improvised. The players make the leap of faith together and find and develop forms in the moment, an object lesson in spontaneous group creativity. Affirmation was recorded in 2021 at Oslo's Rainbow Studio.

Keith Jarrett's album, Book of Ways, was recorded on July 14, 1986 in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Rather amazing is the great variety of sound and rhythm - Jarrett played alternately one or two instruments simultaneously. Beyond unmistakable echoes of lute music and Japanese koto, the whole range of modes of expression the clavichord is capable of is being fathomed out. All this has been supported by studio techniques, which recorded the sound of the instrument with rarely heard intensity.

Stephan Micus is a unique musician and composer. He collects and studies instruments from all around the world and creates his own musical journeys with them. This is his 25th solo album for ECM and it's sound is dominated by the four-metre long Tibetan dung chen trumpet, an instrument he has recently learned and is using for the first time. It was the thunderous sound of this instrument that led to the album's name and it's nine tracks celebrating deities around the world.

Fred Hersch - "Silent, Listening" [LP] / Silent, Listening is a major addition to ECM's distinguished line of solo piano recordings, featuring one of the outstanding improvising pianists and jazz masters of our time: Fred Hersch. The album features seven original creations and a handful of well-chosen standards, all played with the focus, sensitivity and gracefulness for which Hersch is renowned. Developed with producer Manfred Eicher in the responsive acoustics of the Lugano studio, the album was recorded in May 2023.

DRIFTING

Vijay Iyer / Linda May Han Oh/Tyshawn Sorey - "Compassion" / 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 release as a leader for ECM, continues his drive to explore fresh territory while also referencing his forebears along the way, two of them long associated with the label. The album was produced by Manfred Eicher and Vijay Iyer.

Kenny Wheeler is among the most lyrically commanding yet daring of modern trumpeters. There's a palpable ease of execution, and a poignant human quality, to his distinctive timbre, as on the title tune where his fluttering descents into the lower register, the cracked yet powerful vocal inflections, and the sudden emission of high harmonics suggest a whistling column of air slowly leaking from a balloon. And from the moody Spanish tinge of "Present Past" to the raga-ish Nordic gravity of "Unti," alto player Lee Konitz matches Wheeler's lyric ease with a singing sound and rhythmic buoyancy all his own.

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. The New York Times captured the special qualities of this group, pointing to the trio's flair for playing "with a lithe range of motion and resplendent clarity... while stoking a kind of writhing internal tension. Crucial to that balance is their ability to connect with each other almost telepathically." Compassion, Iyer's eighth release as a leader for ECM, continues his drive to explore fresh territory while also referencing his forebears along the way, two of them long associated with the label. The album includes a lyrical homage to Chick Corea via the late pianist's valedictory interpretation of Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed." Another tip of the hat comes with "Nonaah," a whirlwind of a piece by avant-garde sage Roscoe Mitchell, a key mentor for the pianist. Then there are Iyer's own melodically alluring, rhythmically invigorating compositions, ranging from the pensive title track to the hook-laced highlights "Tempest" and "Ghostrumental."

Vinyl LP pressing. Ralph Alessi's fourth appearance as a leader for the ECM label follows a singular album run that's been met with nothing but praise from the New York Times to the Guardian. On his new album, Alessi's unique tone is as limber, piercing and present as ever, enveloped by a fresh quarter lineup including Florian Weber (piano), B"nz Oester (bass) and Gerry Hemingway (drums), that navigates through the trumpeter's idiosyncratically swinging compositions with a sixth sense.

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. On his new album, Alessi's unique tone is as limber, piercing and present as ever, enveloped by a fresh quartet line-up - pianist Florian Weber, B"nz Oester on bass and drummer Gerry Hemingway - that navigates through the trumpeter's idiosyncratically swinging compositions with a sixth sense.

Louis Sclavis / Benjamin Moussay -"Unfolding" - 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, playing expansive and well-received concerts throughout Europe. Now, in a program of originals (two-thirds from the pianist's pen, the remaining third by the clarinetist), the French duo dreams up a world of chamber conversations that juxtaposes lyrical contemplation with whimsical inventiveness in a joyous, concentrated collaboration. Verve Label Group; ECM; Jazz

Florian Weber - "Imaginary Cycle" [2 LP] Idiosyncratic, large-scale and in it's fundamental disposition one-of-a-kind, Florian Weber's Imaginary Cycle, conceived for the unique instrumentation of brass ensemble and piano, is a hybrid of multiple musical languages that seamlessly blends the harmonious with the oblique. Here, Weber presents a cycle in four parts, plus an opening and an epilogue, in which the German pianist is joined by a group of unexpected artists, together performing a work that blurs the line where improvisation ends and composition begins. 2 LP set. Verve Label Group; ECM; Jazz.

A new trio album from veteran guitarist John Scofield, who released his first career solo album last year. Vicente Archer replaces Steve Swallow on bass, and old friend and stablemate Bill Stewart takes over on drums. A change from his solo work released last year, Scofield, who says he loves bands, plays freely and uninhibitedly throughout the album on this two-disc set. He tackles a wide range of repertoire, from Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" to Neil Young's "Old Man," from Leonard Bernstein's "Sam Whore" from "West Side Story" to Miles Davis' classic "Badu. Jazz standards such as "Kizashi to Hoshi e no Kizashi" and "Raise Idea," along with seven Scofield originals with a variety of tastes including swing, funk, and folk, stand side by side with the album's title song, the Grateful Dead's "Uncle John's Band" to close the show. Uncle John's Band. The red thread that runs through the work is the trio's improvisational momentum. We feel like we could go anywhere," Scofield says of the trio's versatility. This guitar work will appeal to a wide range of jam band fans and jazz fans alike.

Delian Quartett/Claudia Barainsky - "I'm wachen Traume" / Named after a lyric from the first piece in Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben song cycle, the Delian Quartett's program of I'm wachen Traume combines said cycle - in a new arrangement for soprano and string quartet by the late Aribert Reimann - with music by Renaissance composer William Byrd and Baroque composer Henry Purcell. Most of the music appears in world premiere recordings here. The earlier English repertory bookends the album, framing Frauenliebe und Leben in a thematic embrace.

Oded Tzur - "My Prophet" / On his album, My Prophet, Oded Tzur - together with his quartet of pianist Nitai Hershkovits, bassist Petros Klampanis and new member Cyrano Almeida on drums - continues on the idiosyncratic musical path he has carved out for himself, a flowing jazz idiom that seamlessly combines multiple forms of expression while delving deeper into the meditative and highly concentrated realm of improvisation.

Recorded in Oslo in September 1970, Afric Pepperbird was released on New Year's Day in 1971. Half a century later, it still conveys the freshness and excitement of discoveries being made. The album signaled the arrival of four Norwegian improvisers - Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen - at the fledgling ECM label. It was the start of a lifelong association with each of the musicians, whose influence was soon to reach far beyond the borders of their homeland.

UNFOLDING

BRAHMS - SCHUMANN

IMAGINARY CYCLE

ZA GORAMI