ECM Records

ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres. ECM's motto is "the most beautiful sound next to silence", taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases in Coda, a Canadian jazz magazine.^[1]

ECM has been distributed in the U.S. by

History

The first ECM release produced by Manfred Scheffner was pianist Mal Waldron's 1969 recording Free at Last. The label went on to release recordings by many prominent jazz musicians, including Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Charlie Haden, John Abercrombie, Dave Liebman, Eberhard Weber, Egberto Gismonti, Dave Holland, Terje Rypdal, Stefano Bollani and Ralph Towner. The label has also released recordings in the world music genre by artists including Steve Tibbetts, Stephan Micus, Codona, Anouar Brahem, L. Shankar, Jon Hassell, and Naná Vasconcelos.

Manfred Eicher continues to take an active interest in the music released by ECM, acting as producer of the vast majority of its recordings, although Steve Lake, Thomas Stoewsand, Robert Hurwitz, Lee Townsend, Hans Wendl and Sun Chung have also produced discs for the label. The typical ECM session is just three days: two days to record, one day to mix. Many of the albums have been recorded with Jan Erik Kongshaug (of Talent Studios and later Rainbow Studios) in Oslo, Norway, as sound engineer; other engineers have included Martin Wieland (who recorded Jarrett's "The Köln Concert"), James Farber, Stefano Amerio and, on classical recordings, Peter Laenger.

New Series and commemorative editions

The ECM New Series was created in 1984 to document Western classical works. It has released works by composers from the early (Thomas Tallis, Carlo Gesualdo, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina) to the contemporary (John Cage, Elliott Carter, Steve Reich and John Adams). The series was initiated for Arvo Pärt's record debut Tabula Rasa, which Eicher recorded and produced in 1977, 1983, and 1984. Since then Pärt and Eicher have built a strong relationship: all works premiere on recordings for the label and all are done in presence of the composer. Keith Jarrett, better known as a jazz musician, contributed together with Gidon Kremer amongst others to Tabula Rasa. He later recorded several classical works by Bach, Mozart, Shostakovich, and others for the series.

The three albums Music for 18 Musicians, Octet/Music for a Large Ensemble/Violin Phase, and Tehillim by Reich were recorded before 1984 (all with the composer performing) and were later moved to the classical department together with some by Meredith Monk, Thomas Demenga and Harald Weiss.^[2] Several of John Adams' works from his minimalist period have been released through the label as well, including Harmonium and Harmonielehre.

Over the years, many other works by contemporary composers such as

On many releases, the orientations towards jazz and classical music of ECM are combined: For example, Garbarek's Officium (1994) features him playing saxophone solos over the Hilliard Ensemble singing Gregorian chant, early polyphony and Renaissance works. Garbarek's work with guitarist Ralph Towner continued, and has been influenced by 20th century chamber music as much as by jazz-oriented material. John Potter, formerly of the Hilliard Ensemble, recorded works by John Dowland with jazz saxophonist John Surman and others, and Surman's Proverbs and Songs is a suite of choral settings of Old Testament texts, recorded in Salisbury Cathedral. The label has also released unique works that fit into no obvious genre at all (like the records of composer Meredith Monk).

In 2002 and 2004, ECM released a series of compilation CDs titled :rarum. Twenty of the label's artists were asked to compile a single CD of their work. (Garbarek's and Jarrett's compilations are double CDs.) Artists who contributed to this series are Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Bill Frisell, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Terje Rypdal, Bobo Stenson, Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, Egberto Gismonti, Jack DeJohnette, John Surman, John Abercrombie, Carla Bley, Paul Motian, Tomasz Stańko, Eberhard Weber, Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen.

After working as a writer for Melody Maker magazine, Steve Lake first joined the ECM-staff in 1978.^[9] While working predominantly for the writing department he now has also produced more than 40 records which are more in the experimental areas of jazz like ones of Evan Parker, Roscoe Mitchell, Hal Russell, Robin Williamson, Joe Maneri or Mat Maneri.^[10] Furthermore, he published the book Horizons Touched: The Music of ECM (2007) with music critic/novelist Paul Griffiths and made contributions to the books Sleeves of Desire: a Cover Story (1996), Windfall Light: The Visual Language of ECM (2010) and ECM - A Cultural Archaeology (2012).^[11]

Recent developments in online distribution

On November 14, 2017, ECM announced in a press release that its entire catalog would be made available for streaming on all major music streaming platforms (Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify, Deezer, Tidal and Qobuz). Previously, ECM recordings had never been available for streaming, save for a few select compilations of major performers. In a press release on its website, ECM explained its decision:

In recent years, ECM and the musicians have had to face unauthorized streaming of recordings via video sharing websites, plus piracy, bootlegs, and a proliferation of illegal download sites. It was important to make the catalogue accessible within a framework, where copyrights are respected.^[12]

ECM further added that the physical recordings (CD & vinyl records) still constitute the "preferred mediums".^[12]

Exhibitions about ECM

In fall 2012, the Munich museum Haus der Kunst opened an exhibition about the work of the label called ECM – A Cultural Archaeology. It pointed out the early jazz-focused years until the mid-1980s, before the New Series was initiated. In close relation with Eicher and ECM, the exhibition was created by art curator Okwui Enwezor and Markus Müller. To complement the historically oriented content of the exhibition, it was accompanied with a concert series of current artists of the label, which included François Couturier, Enrico Rava, Meredith Monk, András Schiff, Evan Parker, Gidon Kremer or Tomasz Stańko.^[13] Some of these artists have a long relationship with the label—even if their 'home' is ECM or New Series.^[14][15]

Additionally, Eicher curated a film series of eleven selected movies, which relate to the label. While some of its filmmakers have been related to ECM, like

The connection with motion pictures spans further and is reflected in the design of the booklet of Mnemosyne (ECM NewSeries 1700) by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble—the successor of its highly successful album Officium (ECM 1525). It includes stills from The Seventh Seal (1957) by Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.^[35]

In 1986, director Jan Horne shot the 60-minute documentary Bare Stillheten about Eicher and the label in Munich, Oslo, and Tokyo for television with Garbarek,

Discography

Record label of the year awards

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• DownBeat: 1980, 2008–2010, 2012–2017
• Jazz Journalists Association: 2007, 2012–2014
• MIDEM
  : 2005, 2007
• JazzWeek: 2011
• JazzTimes: 2013

Further reading

• Sleeves of Desire: a Cover Story (1996). Edited by Lars Müller, Lars Müller Publishers
  ISBN 978-3-906700-85-4
  . 1996
• Horizons Touched: the Music of ECM (2007). Steve Lake and
  ISBN 978-1-86207-880-2
• Windfall Light: The Visual Language of ECM (2010). Edited by Lars Müller, Lars Müller Publishers
  ISBN 978-3-03778-197-5
  . 2009 [German]
• Der Blaue Klang (2010). Edited by Rainer Kern, Hans-Jürgen Linke and Wolfgang Sandner, Wolke Verlag
  ISBN 978-3-936000-83-2
  (German only)
• ECM: A Cultural Archaeology (2012). Edited by Okwui Enwezor and Markus Müller, Prestel Verlag
  ISBN 978-3-7913-5284-8
  [German]

External links

• ECM Records – official site
• ECM Records discography at Discogs
• Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond (fansite)