It’s not news because everyone with an interest in jazz or design already knows: the Blue Note record label was in its prime one of the most perfectly made marriages of form and content, packaging and product ever devised, in [...]
A relatively little-heard but canonical classic of the solo jazz piano repertoire, Paul Bley’s ‘Open, to love’ forms a vital part of what amounted to producer Manfred Eicher’s quest to find a particular acoustic setting for an instrument that was [...]
Compiled by Colin Harper and Jon Harrington, with an introductory essay by Duncan Heining and notes on the selections by Lois Wilson, this 3 CD, 48 track compendium of British (well, mainly English) jazz and jazz-rock is – as collections [...]
The latest candidate for ECM’s audiophile vinyl Luminessence series is this 1981 album by keyboardist and composer Rainer Brüninghaus (b.1949), familiar to listeners from his long association with Jan Garbarek, and before that with Eberhard Weber in the group Colours [...]
Reissued in the Luminessence audiophile-vinyl series at the same time as Annette Peacock’s An Acrobat’s Heart, to which it forms a kind of companion piece, Amaryllis is a trio recording with Gary Peacock on double bass and Paul Motian on [...]
This is an absolutely outstanding album whose re-issue on vinyl is doubly welcome as it has been out of print as a CD for some time since its release, when it was probably heard by only a few dedicated admirers. [...]
I had to check the date online because I was lucky enough to see Sun Ra and the Arkestra in person, at the Brecon Jazz Festival, in 1990, three years before the leader’s death. It was great too, and every [...]
Arild Andersen is ECM royalty. He’s been with the label for almost as long as there’s been a label to be with, having played on Jan Garbarek’s ‘Afric Pepperbird’- the seventh release – in 1971. As bassist, bandleader and composer [...]
First time on vinyl – three limited edition 180g LPs – for this historic live performance from the first headline act of the first Montreux festival bill. At the time, saxophonist Lloyd’s quartet was the hottest jazz act around, fresh [...]
A full decade has elapsed between the recording of this remarkable album (at Avatar Studios in New York) and its debut release, but it still succeeds in sounding both contemporary and strangely timeless. In contrast to most superstar sessions, where [...]
