Agreed on Endless Days - one of the most gorgeous albums by anyone, and most certainly one of the tippy-top highlights at ECM.
I like Weber a lot, with two dozen or more records of his both as leader and sideman. A highlight as sideman, sitting in with the Gary Burton Quartet on Passengers. The rest of the quartet is Pat Metheny, Dan Gottlieb and Steve Swallow. Entirely agree that Pat became cheesy-ish, but until 1980, for me, he was a gem. This one is a steal at 2.94
BTW, check out Pat's first outing as a leader, Bright Size Life, understandably a highlight: a trio with Jaco Pastorius and Bob Moses, only 3.92:
Pat also had Eberhard guest on his second outing as a leader, Watercolors. Also Pat's first record with Lyle Mays. A little whiff of fine fromage on the 10-minute Sea Song in particular, and at 6.49 maybe a stretch for anyone who's not already a fan of EW or PM, but Pat is clearly building up to something special. For me, it peaks on his next one, the self-titled The Pat Metheny Group, which isn't yet at emu. Note that a bunch more has dropped today, and will probably keep rolling in.
Speaking of which, one of my very very favorite ECM releases just rolled up this morning, Diary, Ralph Towner's first solo album, playing both guitar and piano. This was a life-changing record for me. I can't promise that it will do the same for you...but it might. 3.92 If you only get one ECM track, I say it should be Icarus, a piano/guitar duet. Cheap enough to get it all, though.
I posted a couple of these on a thread over at emu, on a thread called Cheap ECM. You'll see several of the albums that Jonah recommended, but I promise I came to them independently. :-) I did a radio show in the late 70s/early 80s that was almost exclusively ECM music -- don't tell, but I took dozens of those albums with me when I left -- and I managed a concert hall in the mid-80s where a lot of ECM-ers played, including one of Collin Walcott's final dates with Oregon in the US. It was a special show: Leo Kottke opened on solo guitar, Gary Burton played a full solo set, Gary and Ralph did a short duo set, and then Oregon played an loooong set, touring on their ECM releases. Each song transitioned to an improv, which transitioned out to another song. These could go on for 15 or more at a time. At one point, Paul McCandless said, "Are you guys okay? You're so quiet when we play, and so loud when you applaud, that it's kind of creeping us out."
My ECM tastes were pretty well set in this 75-85 period, and other than following Ralph Towner (among a handful of musicians where my goal is to own every note they ever play) and Eberhard, I've missed a lot since then, and am using threads like these to start catching up. Thanks! Mathias Eick for one is at the top of my SFL.
Since Jonah brought up Ralph's Old Friends, New Friends, which I also recommend, here are a couple of other cheap Ralph highlights before I go: his two with Gary Burton, Matchbook and Slide Show, both 4.41. I paid $22 for the latter on an import CD, after spending $7.99 for it on LP. The former is currently Ralph's top seller at emu, which is fine by me. The guitar/vibes duet of Icarus on that record is also choice....and now that I think about it, this may have been my first ECM purchase, back in 1975.
Actually, one more: I agree with Jonah that Abercrombie takes a lot of work to get into, more than it's been worth for me so far, but I enjoyed his duet record with Ralph, called Sargasso Sea, only 3.92.
John and Ralph came to town after their follow-up five years later, called, appropriately enough, Five Years Later, still somehow only on vinyl. I didn't get to speak to John, but I asked Ralph if he'd ever played electric guitar. He said he only tried once, one time when John left the room. It was awful, and John walked in on it. Ralph put the guitar down, and neither one of them ever mentioned it. Ever.
I don't mean to be a dick with these stories - not like I have a ton of them or anything, but they reinforce why this was such a special era of ECM to me. I still play these all the time, and I hear them in my head when I'm not spinning those disks.
Tim, that was a great post. Stories accompanying a rec are not only good, but encouraged (at least by this guy).
Someone on that Cheap ECM thread suggested the Walcott-Elvoison "Dawn Dance", which I just downloaded and fully enjoyed my first listen to.
I'll have to give that Burton Passengers Quartet another listen.
Cheers.
EDIT: Also, anytime Oregon or Oregon-related musicians cover the song Icarus, it's always a winner. The Winter Consort comes to mind, but then there've been other covers of it, too.
Oh, weird, I think I own that cd. The cover is totally familiar. The Passengers samples, however, don't ring any bells for me. I wonder if I owned it back in the day and it was part of the cd collection that never made it with me back to Chicago. I'll have to search the stacks.
Jonah, you said: "anytime Oregon or Oregon-related musicians cover the song Icarus, it's always a winner. The Winter Consort comes to mind, but then there've been other covers of it, too."
Yeah, one night I played nothing but Icarus covers for most of an hour. One of my favorites came just a few years ago, on Oregon On Moscow. Well post-ECM of course, but at emu, and for anyone into Ralph or Oregon, a must-have. It really lets you hear that Ralph is one of our age's great composers.
For your trivia notebook: a crater on the moon is named for Ralph's song Icarus, and another for his song Ghost Beads. The astronauts of Apollo 15 were fans. No kidding.
"Someone on that Cheap ECM thread suggested the Walcott-Elvoison "Dawn Dance", which I just downloaded and fully enjoyed my first listen to."
I recommended it there. I love that thing. I never found it on CD, so this was a welcome surprise. On that thread, I told my only other major story from this time, which actually came after the Oregon concert I mentioned above. The short version: Collin told me that he had never heard of the guy, but when Manfred said to show up for the recording session, he did. Manfred had good instincts, and said Collin, these things tended to work out. No kidding.
I recently found out that this was Steve's only record. What I heard, he broke his leg skiing just before the session for his follow-up, and was too hurt to travel, even to play. He had been starving in a tiny apartment in New York, and when he was well enough to travel, he went straight back home to South Africa. He left his guitars behind, and has barely played since. Not to sound maudlin, but it reminded me that it's kind of amazing that anything good happens to anybody, and you have to go as far as you can with it. He did, and this album was as far as he got. I don't know what he's doing now, but every time I play this beautiful album, I hope he's safe and happy.
Thanks for the rec.
Man, sorry to hear about Elvoison. Unfortunately, not an uncommon story in jazz. Perhaps it's time that he's "rediscovered". I'll have to look to see if there's any reports on what he's doing now. I had never heard "Dawn Dance" before that rec.
Definitely, though depending on your familiarity with ECM, you might be surprised that it's actually got more life to it than some of their releases (especially in the current millenium). Some of the ECM these days barely registers a pulse. And a lot of it is often dismissed as closer to New Age instead of Jazz. It's a comment I find difficult to repudiate, but also not one that gets my blood racing. I dont' really care. If I like an album, I like it, doesn't matter what the name=callers say about it.
But, yeah, it gets pretty quiet on those albums. Check out Wasilewski's "January" if you want some more meditation in your life.
Some of the ECM these days barely registers a pulse.
Agreed. I just came across one today though - kind of trip-hoppy trumpet: Khmer by Nils Petter Molvaer. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I will. Although looking again, it's from 1997. The oughts remain o-fer for now for me.
Knowing that you love vibes, I recommend another I came across today for 3.92 Gary Burton, Times Square, with Steve Swallow, Roy Haynes and Tiger Okoshi. It swings harder than anything I've heard Burton do, including some of his early pre-ECM days. Very much worth checking out.
I've also got my eye on Dave Liebman, Drum Ode, with Richie Bierach, John Abercrombie, Bob Moses, Barry Altschul and our boy Collin Walcott. With all the under $4 juicy goodness, even under $3, it's a bit of a gamble at $6.49, but I really really like the sound of the samples. A goofy way to shop at ECM I know, but it's all I have....
Molvaer has been making the rounds on ECM and albums that might as well be on ECM. He has a new album out this year, can't remember what it's called. His style, odd bending guitar sounds with electronic flourishes, should really appeal to both the Frisellian and the Electronica guy in me, but nothing he's done so far has captured my imagination.
That Burton was pretty good. I hadn't noticed it in my ECM scan earlier.
Tough to go wrong with a Bierach album. I saw Drum Ode, but haven't really investigated it. If I were to pick up a 6.50 album, it would probably be Mike Nock's "Ondas" (not a lively album, but really damn pretty. I've always liked Nock's sound.)
As far as a guide to get through the ECM, we're in the same boat. I've found the sidemen thing pretty useless, the sound division between decades doesn't effectively narrow things down at all. I've been going through the emu ECM stuff like I do all the unknown albums under new arrivals... click on one sample after the other; they get ten seconds to grab my attention before I move onto the next.
I've been going through the emu ECM stuff like I do all the unknown albums under new arrivals... click on one sample after the other; they get ten seconds to grab my attention before I move onto the next.
Ten seconds? Almost nobody makes it that far with me. :-)
You know what works for me? YouTube. For example, here's a music video from our boy Nils.
And here's Richie, in a trio with George Mraz and Jack DeJohnette.
That one's totally illegal, just a clip from the album thrown up. It ain't illegal to watch, though.
I've found the sidemen thing pretty useless
Which for jazz is HEINOUS. A lot of jazz musicians do their best work on other people's records. One of my very favorite pianists is Rainer Bruninghaus, who has done almost nothing as a leader. I'm not a huge Jan Garbarek fan, but Rainer's work with him has been sublime. This also features Eberhard Weber and Manu Katche -- which you'd have NO WAY of knowing at emu. It's not listed at the album page, or on the pages for any of the artists besides JG in the Featuring section.
The thing I really like about YouTube for ECM is all the great live clips. I don't know that anybody really needs a 9-minute bass solo, but this is a lovely look at one of the true masters at work. Even a little Eberhard Weber is a good thing:
There's a TON of great Ralph Towner. Here's a guitar trio version of Icarus. The studio version was at emu briefly, then gone, then back even more briefly. The days before the majors arrived, so nothing more mysterious than usual.
One of my favorite Ralph compositions, an almost classical-sounding air:
Great Oregon version with Paul McCandless taking the lead line on oboe, and one of Glen Moore's most beautiful bass lines, a duet with Ralph in the middle. NOT nine minutes long. From a radio broadcast:
With Lala gone and the rash of Myspace viruses, I've come to rely on Youtube as a resource for hearing an album before purchasing (when the artist and label sites are too stingy to let a purchaser know what they're selling).
And some of the playlists constructed on there are pretty good. One of them reminded me of James Clay, an artist and album "Double Dose of Soul" I had completely forgotten about.
It seems self-defeating for any musician to object that songs from their albums are loaded onto youtube with the only video a picture of the album cover. For a seller, that's great free advertising. And for myself, as a buyer, it's led me to many purchases. My emu SFL has over 200 albums in it, many of which I would've purchased the album if I only could've found a better preview of it than some 30 second samples.
A BUNCH more ECM just dropped. I'll dig in a little deeper soon, but two of the label's truly iconic recordings are now available, starting with Ralph Towner's Solo Concert. It is what it sounds like, and it's magnificent as you think it should be, and it's only 3.43. I read somewhere that this was the first jazz solo guitar album in history. I'm too lazy to look it up, but it's certainly among the very best.
Not far behind, Pat Metheny's New Chautauqua. This is another ECM Touchstone recording, so no backing off the full price of 6.49, but worth it. If you're cherry-picking, go with the title track and Sue
Dang. This thread alone has me intrigued by a return to eMu - tons of solid jazz albums in the three dollar range. Way to advertise to me what I had just kicked. Normally, I would consider the year long thing, but not sure eMu will be around or even hopes to be around a year from now.
Alright, I got a free month at eMordac. Any comments on the quality of these d/ls? I'm all set to at least grab Endless Days, but if the encoding is suspect in the least I'll hold off.
I may be in the minority, but I've been listening to virtually nothing but Pat Metheny for days now, mostly on ECM, with records from iTunes, Amazon, my own CD rips and emu mixed together, and it's all good. It's ridiculous to say "and I used to be a recording engineer," or "and in another job I used to work with both Fraunhoefer and LAME for a living," because it doesn't matter. You'll hear it or you won't. I don't.
Alright, I got a free month at eMordac. Any comments on the quality of these d/ls? I'm all set to at least grab Endless Days, but if the encoding is suspect in the least I'll hold off.
First of all, how did you do that?
Second, I'm enjoying Endless Days just fine. Would I prefer to have it in LAME? Yes. Do I regret purchasing it? No, definitely not. I don't hear any substandard sound. HOWEVER... I'm listening through bad laptop speakers, so if you're planning on playing it on a real stereo or with real speakers, results may vary, y'know?
I would avoid anything on ECM that has a "soundscape" type of composition. That's where I'm noticing it.
I'll probably limit my ECM d/ls for now. Personally I am of the "probably blown out of proportion" mentality, but just wanted to verify that no one was noticing major issues on some of these.
First of all, how did you do that?
Threatened to cancel 2 accounts the day before the change. $23.75 in one that's been sitting there for a week. $23.75 in my original one tomorrow. Then I'm out. If I join up again it'll be for month at like 40 bucks to grab specific things and then cancel.
Well, as several of you will read over on the emu forum, the prices on ECM have been jacked way up. Many of the deals on this list are no longer deals at all. At this point, between the steep price hike and prevalent coding/sound issues, I no longer recommend buying any ECM from emu. There may still be some deals out there, but I have no intention of tracking them down.
Comments
I like Weber a lot, with two dozen or more records of his both as leader and sideman. A highlight as sideman, sitting in with the Gary Burton Quartet on Passengers. The rest of the quartet is Pat Metheny, Dan Gottlieb and Steve Swallow. Entirely agree that Pat became cheesy-ish, but until 1980, for me, he was a gem. This one is a steal at 2.94
BTW, check out Pat's first outing as a leader, Bright Size Life, understandably a highlight: a trio with Jaco Pastorius and Bob Moses, only 3.92:
Pat also had Eberhard guest on his second outing as a leader, Watercolors. Also Pat's first record with Lyle Mays. A little whiff of fine fromage on the 10-minute Sea Song in particular, and at 6.49 maybe a stretch for anyone who's not already a fan of EW or PM, but Pat is clearly building up to something special. For me, it peaks on his next one, the self-titled The Pat Metheny Group, which isn't yet at emu. Note that a bunch more has dropped today, and will probably keep rolling in.
Speaking of which, one of my very very favorite ECM releases just rolled up this morning, Diary, Ralph Towner's first solo album, playing both guitar and piano. This was a life-changing record for me. I can't promise that it will do the same for you...but it might. 3.92 If you only get one ECM track, I say it should be Icarus, a piano/guitar duet. Cheap enough to get it all, though.
I posted a couple of these on a thread over at emu, on a thread called Cheap ECM. You'll see several of the albums that Jonah recommended, but I promise I came to them independently. :-) I did a radio show in the late 70s/early 80s that was almost exclusively ECM music -- don't tell, but I took dozens of those albums with me when I left -- and I managed a concert hall in the mid-80s where a lot of ECM-ers played, including one of Collin Walcott's final dates with Oregon in the US. It was a special show: Leo Kottke opened on solo guitar, Gary Burton played a full solo set, Gary and Ralph did a short duo set, and then Oregon played an loooong set, touring on their ECM releases. Each song transitioned to an improv, which transitioned out to another song. These could go on for 15 or more at a time. At one point, Paul McCandless said, "Are you guys okay? You're so quiet when we play, and so loud when you applaud, that it's kind of creeping us out."
My ECM tastes were pretty well set in this 75-85 period, and other than following Ralph Towner (among a handful of musicians where my goal is to own every note they ever play) and Eberhard, I've missed a lot since then, and am using threads like these to start catching up. Thanks! Mathias Eick for one is at the top of my SFL.
Since Jonah brought up Ralph's Old Friends, New Friends, which I also recommend, here are a couple of other cheap Ralph highlights before I go: his two with Gary Burton, Matchbook and Slide Show, both 4.41. I paid $22 for the latter on an import CD, after spending $7.99 for it on LP. The former is currently Ralph's top seller at emu, which is fine by me. The guitar/vibes duet of Icarus on that record is also choice....and now that I think about it, this may have been my first ECM purchase, back in 1975.
Actually, one more: I agree with Jonah that Abercrombie takes a lot of work to get into, more than it's been worth for me so far, but I enjoyed his duet record with Ralph, called Sargasso Sea, only 3.92.
John and Ralph came to town after their follow-up five years later, called, appropriately enough, Five Years Later, still somehow only on vinyl. I didn't get to speak to John, but I asked Ralph if he'd ever played electric guitar. He said he only tried once, one time when John left the room. It was awful, and John walked in on it. Ralph put the guitar down, and neither one of them ever mentioned it. Ever.
I don't mean to be a dick with these stories - not like I have a ton of them or anything, but they reinforce why this was such a special era of ECM to me. I still play these all the time, and I hear them in my head when I'm not spinning those disks.
Here's the rest of that Cheap ECM thread, where I've posted in my guise as timabouttown: http://www.emusic.com/messageboard/viewTopic.html?topicId=263400
Thanks again for the more contemporary tips....
Tim
Someone on that Cheap ECM thread suggested the Walcott-Elvoison "Dawn Dance", which I just downloaded and fully enjoyed my first listen to.
I'll have to give that Burton Passengers Quartet another listen.
Cheers.
EDIT: Also, anytime Oregon or Oregon-related musicians cover the song Icarus, it's always a winner. The Winter Consort comes to mind, but then there've been other covers of it, too.
Yeah, one night I played nothing but Icarus covers for most of an hour. One of my favorites came just a few years ago, on Oregon On Moscow. Well post-ECM of course, but at emu, and for anyone into Ralph or Oregon, a must-have. It really lets you hear that Ralph is one of our age's great composers.
For your trivia notebook: a crater on the moon is named for Ralph's song Icarus, and another for his song Ghost Beads. The astronauts of Apollo 15 were fans. No kidding.
I recommended it there. I love that thing. I never found it on CD, so this was a welcome surprise. On that thread, I told my only other major story from this time, which actually came after the Oregon concert I mentioned above. The short version: Collin told me that he had never heard of the guy, but when Manfred said to show up for the recording session, he did. Manfred had good instincts, and said Collin, these things tended to work out. No kidding.
I recently found out that this was Steve's only record. What I heard, he broke his leg skiing just before the session for his follow-up, and was too hurt to travel, even to play. He had been starving in a tiny apartment in New York, and when he was well enough to travel, he went straight back home to South Africa. He left his guitars behind, and has barely played since. Not to sound maudlin, but it reminded me that it's kind of amazing that anything good happens to anybody, and you have to go as far as you can with it. He did, and this album was as far as he got. I don't know what he's doing now, but every time I play this beautiful album, I hope he's safe and happy.
Man, sorry to hear about Elvoison. Unfortunately, not an uncommon story in jazz. Perhaps it's time that he's "rediscovered". I'll have to look to see if there's any reports on what he's doing now. I had never heard "Dawn Dance" before that rec.
Great recommendation.
Definitely, though depending on your familiarity with ECM, you might be surprised that it's actually got more life to it than some of their releases (especially in the current millenium). Some of the ECM these days barely registers a pulse. And a lot of it is often dismissed as closer to New Age instead of Jazz. It's a comment I find difficult to repudiate, but also not one that gets my blood racing. I dont' really care. If I like an album, I like it, doesn't matter what the name=callers say about it.
But, yeah, it gets pretty quiet on those albums. Check out Wasilewski's "January" if you want some more meditation in your life.
Agreed. I just came across one today though - kind of trip-hoppy trumpet: Khmer by Nils Petter Molvaer. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I will. Although looking again, it's from 1997. The oughts remain o-fer for now for me.
Knowing that you love vibes, I recommend another I came across today for 3.92 Gary Burton, Times Square, with Steve Swallow, Roy Haynes and Tiger Okoshi. It swings harder than anything I've heard Burton do, including some of his early pre-ECM days. Very much worth checking out.
I've also got my eye on Dave Liebman, Drum Ode, with Richie Bierach, John Abercrombie, Bob Moses, Barry Altschul and our boy Collin Walcott. With all the under $4 juicy goodness, even under $3, it's a bit of a gamble at $6.49, but I really really like the sound of the samples. A goofy way to shop at ECM I know, but it's all I have....
....unless you know something to guide me....
That Burton was pretty good. I hadn't noticed it in my ECM scan earlier.
Tough to go wrong with a Bierach album. I saw Drum Ode, but haven't really investigated it. If I were to pick up a 6.50 album, it would probably be Mike Nock's "Ondas" (not a lively album, but really damn pretty. I've always liked Nock's sound.)
As far as a guide to get through the ECM, we're in the same boat. I've found the sidemen thing pretty useless, the sound division between decades doesn't effectively narrow things down at all. I've been going through the emu ECM stuff like I do all the unknown albums under new arrivals... click on one sample after the other; they get ten seconds to grab my attention before I move onto the next.
Ten seconds? Almost nobody makes it that far with me. :-)
You know what works for me? YouTube. For example, here's a music video from our boy Nils.
And here's Richie, in a trio with George Mraz and Jack DeJohnette.
That one's totally illegal, just a clip from the album thrown up. It ain't illegal to watch, though.
Which for jazz is HEINOUS. A lot of jazz musicians do their best work on other people's records. One of my very favorite pianists is Rainer Bruninghaus, who has done almost nothing as a leader. I'm not a huge Jan Garbarek fan, but Rainer's work with him has been sublime. This also features Eberhard Weber and Manu Katche -- which you'd have NO WAY of knowing at emu. It's not listed at the album page, or on the pages for any of the artists besides JG in the Featuring section.
The thing I really like about YouTube for ECM is all the great live clips. I don't know that anybody really needs a 9-minute bass solo, but this is a lovely look at one of the true masters at work. Even a little Eberhard Weber is a good thing:
There's a TON of great Ralph Towner. Here's a guitar trio version of Icarus. The studio version was at emu briefly, then gone, then back even more briefly. The days before the majors arrived, so nothing more mysterious than usual.
One of my favorite Ralph compositions, an almost classical-sounding air:
Great Oregon version with Paul McCandless taking the lead line on oboe, and one of Glen Moore's most beautiful bass lines, a duet with Ralph in the middle. NOT nine minutes long. From a radio broadcast:
Got it at emu, too, an even better version on a wonderful record called Live at Yoshi's, so consider the YouTube version to be the extended preview. Yours for only 49 centimes: http://www.emusic.com/samples/m3u/song/10904885/13888247.m3u
Anyway, I do that as often as I can. A lot more ECM and related stuff at YouTube than you might think....
And some of the playlists constructed on there are pretty good. One of them reminded me of James Clay, an artist and album "Double Dose of Soul" I had completely forgotten about.
It seems self-defeating for any musician to object that songs from their albums are loaded onto youtube with the only video a picture of the album cover. For a seller, that's great free advertising. And for myself, as a buyer, it's led me to many purchases. My emu SFL has over 200 albums in it, many of which I would've purchased the album if I only could've found a better preview of it than some 30 second samples.
Not far behind, Pat Metheny's New Chautauqua. This is another ECM Touchstone recording, so no backing off the full price of 6.49, but worth it. If you're cherry-picking, go with the title track and Sue
First of all, how did you do that?
Second, I'm enjoying Endless Days just fine. Would I prefer to have it in LAME? Yes. Do I regret purchasing it? No, definitely not. I don't hear any substandard sound. HOWEVER... I'm listening through bad laptop speakers, so if you're planning on playing it on a real stereo or with real speakers, results may vary, y'know?
I would avoid anything on ECM that has a "soundscape" type of composition. That's where I'm noticing it.
Threatened to cancel 2 accounts the day before the change. $23.75 in one that's been sitting there for a week. $23.75 in my original one tomorrow. Then I'm out. If I join up again it'll be for month at like 40 bucks to grab specific things and then cancel.
As always on emu... buyer beware.