ECM musicians on other labels

jonahpwll

This thread would've been more helpful before the addition of ECM to emu, but with all the encoding issues perhaps stopping people from picking up ECM titles there, maybe it's still good.
In any event, I saw three titles under new arrivals that inspired me to start this thread.




Thomas Stanko - "Bluish"
-Actually listed under Arild Andersen's name, it also has excellent ECM session guy John Christensen. Might as well be a 1980's ECM album. Flirts with new age and world jazz, but mostly just one of the soundscape albums that seemed to dominate the decade. Four and a half bucks, worth it if it sounds from the samples something you'd like.



http://www.emusic.com/album/Arild-Andersen-Bluish-MP3-Download/12333308.html

jonahpwll

Mokave - Vol. 1 & 2

Basically, these are Oregon albums. I own both on cd and they're both very good. When I'm in the mood for an Oregon album, sometimes I put these on. Hard to give it a greater rec than "more of the good stuff", but really that can be sufficient.
At four and a half bucks each, not a bad deal if you think it's your cup of tea.

Full song from album on youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT3dzRGKzA4

emu page...
http://www.emusic.com/artist/Mokave-MP3-Download/11611490.html

Just noticed they also have Afrique available, too, which I don't own, but will maybe pick up. I think my youtube video might be from that album now that I think upon it. Still, same sound.

Brighternow

- on New Albion
- Not jazz, though. . .

tim

You can obviously pick your favorite artists and search the usual ways, but I'm only going to include albums that I downloaded from emu and LIKE. (I've downloaded plenty of losers from artists I love of course.) I'm also leaving out guys like Paul Motian who did all their work as leaders and much of their best sidework on ECM, but who did so much sidework that it's impossible to track (although start with Paul M in some of Bill Evan's trios). I'm also explicitly excluding ECM folks who are now on other major labels - eg, Metheny on Nonesuch - and sticking to albums that were here pre-UMG.

Okay, I have to include two Oregon records that came with Sony, though, Roots in the Sky, Out of the Woods, both $3.89. Must must must haves.

Back to pre-majors, I also strongly recommend Oregon's Oregon in Moscow, classic Oregon songs played with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

A ton of Gary Burton, but the real keeper is Quartet Live!, a sort of reunion of his first ECM band, including Pat Metheny (Pat's first 3 recordings were as part of Gary's bands) and Steve Swallow, with Pat's trio-mate Antonio Sanchez - mostly playing Metheny tunes, dating as far back as 1976. One of my favorites in this post.

Quite a bit of Dave Holland, including two of my favorites of his, Critical Mass (includes Chris Potter), and Overtime (Potter and the wonderful Steve Nelson on vibes).

Even though he's all over ECM, I first started exploring Kenny Wheeler at emu, mostly through Soul Note and Cam: All the More (one of many of his that includes John Taylor, an artist also on ECM that I really like), Other People (Taylor and the Hugo Wolf String Quartet - Kenny's compositions, but he doesn't play - a gem), Butterfly Flutter By (Taylor, Holland), What Now? (a quartet with Taylor, Holland and Potter!) and It Takes Two, with a band that includes John Abercrombie.

Abercrombie is a special case. Ostensibly the "house guitarist" at ECM, he plays on a ridiculous number of those releases...and, it turns out, a ridiculous number of non-ECM releases too. He's definitely a guy that I've downloaded some records by that I don't care for, but here are some I can recommend: Where We Were, a live duet with Andy LaVerne on piano (more outside than it sounds), Speak Easy, a lovely 2-guitar quartet with Jarek Smietana (mostly mainstream, but Abercrombie always works at least a little blue), and check this: As We Speak, a trio headlined by Mark Egan, the first PMG bassist, with Danny Gottlieb, PMG's first drummer, and John A. on guitar!!! A lot of it is improvised, and it all swings.

(Pat has also done quite a bit of trio work of course, and each of those records offers an interesting compare/contrast with this one. In your spare time and all.)

Charlie Haden goes all the way back to Ornette Coleman, but is associated enough with ECM (and Pat M for that matter) that I'll include a couple of his records here. My favorite by far is Silence, the title track of which is a song of his that has become a near-standard, and appears on several ECM records that Charlie doesn't perform on. The band includes Billy Higgins (a looooongtime player who also appears on a number of ECM releases, esp. by Charles Lloyd), sometime-ECM-er Enrico Pieranunzi, and Chet Baker!!! Needless to say, emu fails to call this a Charlie Haden album, even though the cover says "Charlie Haden" on the top line, "with" on the second, and the other players on the next two lines....and whaddya know, the picture of the cover at emu actually cuts off Charlie's name!!!

Kind of like the Stanko tip - much appreciated, btw - that files the record under Arild A, even though Tom's name is a huge banner across the top.

A couple of Charlie H trios that include (oh, alright) Paul Motian, Etudes, with Gerri Allen on piano, and an Enrico Pieranunzi-led session with Charlie and Paul, Special Encounter.

Before I forget: John Taylor, a British pianist only now starting to get his due in his 60s, played with Kenny Wheeler off and on for over 20 years, including on several ECM dates. Truth be told, I enjoy him most as a sideman, but he leads two trio records with Martin France and ECM regular Palle Danielsson, Whirlpool (includes a couple of Kenny W compositions), and Angel of the Presence. I find that most piano trios either sound overshadowed by Bill Evans to me, or sound like they're trying too hard NOT to be. John is so strong, and gives so much rein to his compadres, that these stand nicely on their own.

There are others I've gotten from these and other ECM artists that I like okay, notably Paolo Fresu's Scores! and Enrico Rava's Andanda, and an album they did together as a tribute to Chet Baker, but they're not worth me tracking down the links. :-)

And in the varying of mileage, I downloaded several ECM records before I started paying attention to the whole bitrate thing, because the ones I downloaded sounded great. As a result, I kept downloading them, and am up to 30 of them, from every decade, with no issues. I'm not saying to ignore the facts about other albums with genuinely poor encoding. I'm just saying the mileage, she varies.

But I sure wouldn't want any ECM-ish fans to miss out on any of the ones I've listed here, encoding issues notwithstanding.

tim

Just found that Bluish is streaming at Stanko's MySpace page.

jonahpwll

Just found that Bluish is streaming at Stanko's MySpace page.

Also, here's a link to a free Mp3 from the album at the AAJ site...

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/jazzdownload.php?id=6161

Tim, great post above. I'll respond to it later.

Brighternow

I've just found out that there's some hidden ECM releases on a label called JAPO.
- or at least it seems so.

greg

@jonahpwll - thanks for the link to AAJ. I've joined and got some free downloads. I dabbled with jazz a couple of years ago and downloaded some albums from emusic, but then gave up as other musical interests surfaced. Since joining emusers I've got back into it and started downloading more. Thanks

jonahpwll

@greg

Hey, glad to be a part of it.
For all emusic's faults, selection really ain't one of them. There's plenty there in all genres to get distracted by, for better or for worse.

kargatron

Greg, there are quite a few decent recommendation threads for jazz at emu - if you want pointers to them, yell.