Leo
Well-known member
oh man...picked up a cheap used copy of this on amazon and have been digging in nonstop. was previously unaware of him, thanks for the recommendation, francesco.
Ecm
- Thread starter Woebot
- Start date
oh man...picked up a cheap used copy of this on amazon and have been digging in nonstop. was previously unaware of him, thanks for the recommendation, francesco.
I disagree, for me Jan seems to murder all the records with Kieth jarret he's appeared on. Then again I never really been much a fan of the saxophone. unless played by roland kirk.
ECM wise,
tord gustavsen is dope.
2 very different beasts yeah? roland kirk hits some side-walk genius moments on certain records, drunken lopsided gypsy swing meets hobo mystic in some forgotten corner of mecca. amazing. inimitable. pure, unadulterated, in the moment, in the flesh magic.
tord is like perfect noir-ish smoove and melancholic cinematic sound scapes perfect accompaniment for a train ride through the netherlands.
i'm a bit drunken myself so excuse the similies and metaphors
''if ECM began with the aim of bringing classical music's meticulous recording standards to bear on jazz, it could be argued that that isn't appropriate to jazz - that you will lose the rawness, the heat and the funk ... And the second I let that last word out, I realize I've let him off the hook.
A disdainful froideur enters Eicher's voice. 'One must understand that I have never wanted to have any kind of funky project on ECM. So I can't lose the funkiness if I have never aspired to this quality. If I'm doing a lyrical recording of solo piano like Paul Bley's 'Open to Love', why the hell would I want that to be funky? What I wanted to introduce was a discipline, a concentration ... a care! If you look at the rawness and roughness of many classic jazz recordings, it often isn't deliberate. There are many exceptional albums which I love, that have very good ideas, but are very badly recorded. Is this funky - or just sloppy''
unnamed in conversation with Manfred Eicher ECM founder Observer Music Monthly (Sunday August 13, 2006)
how german. lol
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
Possibly...
Eicher must have had his ear plugs in when having to listen to 'Funky AEOC', then...
I've got a few jazz albums but never got into the ECM aesthetic apart from the incredible Art Ensemble, who didn't exactly 'fit the bill'. Unlike 'zhao', amongst my all-time favourite albums I would definitely include 'Urban Bushmen'.
Apart from that, ECM's...er...'New Age' (?) sound isn't my thing.
When it comes to neo-classical sophistication I'm more of an MJQ man.
Why won't digital have the dynamic range of analog? I thought it would have more if anything.
I could try and be boring and science but they'll be those who explain it better than I.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A882182
It has something to do with analogue signals allowing a huge amount of headroom because their continuous, and digital relies on binary on-of signals to encode audio. analogue signals can be allowed to distort also because they sound pleasing to the ear (saturation) where as digital clipping sounds horrible of course unless your kid 606, an Ecm breakcore record is unlikely to happen soon me thinks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A882182
It has something to do with analogue signals allowing a huge amount of headroom because their continuous, and digital relies on binary on-of signals to encode audio. analogue signals can be allowed to distort also because they sound pleasing to the ear (saturation) where as digital clipping sounds horrible of course unless your kid 606, an Ecm breakcore record is unlikely to happen soon me thinks.
Woebot
Well-known member
rofl.
i stand by that. though i suspect i said something along the lines of it doesn't do anything for me.
though it has to be said, bill monroe's keening violin, also hank williams and bobby womack's stuff has a tinge of country to it...... and isnt there a bootleg of la monte young singing cowboy songs?!?
This stuff is amazing. Thanks for mentioning it!
Provocative opening post and very cool thread but I must confess that I have a hard time with the "too slick" and (later in the thread) "too new agey" criticisms. I mean, yeah, of course, the unified aesthetic of packaging and production are completely obvious and easy objections, but they were equally so already twenty years ago, in the mid-80s, when I first began buying ECM records. Maybe it's just a critical taste kind of thing, but criticizing ECM on this basis feels a little bit like complaining that the sun is bright. I mean, it is what it is, and what it 'is' happens to be pretty much exactly what the guy set out to do: he had a vision and brought it to fruition in a very big way - that kind of commitment and ability to alter the industry landscape are not insignificant.
Regarding the ECM New imprint alone, to have published recordings by John Adams, Gyorgy, Kurtág, Alfred Schnittke, Heinz Holliger, Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt at the same time that you are doing major jazz and ambient jazz fusion-y releases is no mean feat, no matter what you think of the composers themselves (can't stand Part's music, personally).
In the mid-80s there was trad jazz and a huge spate of fusion-heavy music around, and ECM managed to create a little weirdo niche in between. There were clunkers but plenty of gems. You might get a beguiling John Abercrombie record or a weird synth-pop thing with L Shankar and his wife Caroline (The Epidemics). To take but one other example, Pat Metheny's first record was stunning and a very important introduction of a young artist to the jazz scene - though I'm sure that dissensians will heap loathing on him, I'll argue the merits of early Metheny with anyone, no reservations.
Major points to Eicher for his work with Godard, too.
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The one you leave out happens to be my favorite, probably because it was my first introduction to her music: Turtle Dreams. Absolutely fantastic record. I still have my copy on cassette, taped off from a friend in '91 :smiles fondly:
With ECM in the 80s though, because of the eclecticism of what he'd release, you had to keep your eyes on those records that Eicher did not produce. One of my all-time favorite releases on ECM was Steve Tibbetts' Exploded View, in 1987. At the time every single music magazine reviewed it in roughly the same terms (I paraphrase): 'We don't know how to describe this, we don't understand it, this is unlike anything we've ever heard.' Which of course provoked me to buy it immediately, lol. Feedback howls and loops, layered alternately tuned droning acoustic beds, tape manipulation, wordless chanting, and percussion, all cooked up in a basement in minneapolis: incendiary.
Another favorite ECM moment: a friend of mine, Michael Galasso, who is best known for his contributions to the soundtracks for Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express but who also happens to be one of Robert Wilson's resident composers, recorded two albums for ECM separated by twenty years. Rypdal played on the recent one, which I got to hear all about the last time that I saw Michael in Paris in the summer of 2005. Galasso was a part of the nyc Glass/Reich minimalist crowd but went a different direction, echoes of which can be heard on the two records, which are little gems in their own way.