The Definitive ECM 100

IMCollective said:
There appears to be over 400 of us in this group. If we each pick the three ECM recordings we each personally feel are THE definite ECM recordings, we'll end up with a list of 100 essential ECM recordings. If we weight our selections so that a #1 choice receives 10 points, a #2 choice receives 5 points and a #3 choice receives 2 points, we'll have ourselves a great list.

But it depends on two things:
1. Everyone contributes.
2. Everyone chooses their three personal faves.

Here are my three choices:

1. Deer Wan - Kenny Wheeler
2. Conference of the Birds - Dave Holland
3. Full Force - Art Ensemble of Chicago

What are your choices?

I'll tabulate the lists, if that will help...

That's exactly what we need to make this work: three personal choices! Thanks for weighing in! Everyone else?



jvaahtera said:
Maybe an odd selection but I like:

1) Michael Naura: Vanessa (any jazz record with bassoon gets my vote!)
2) Enrico Rava: The Plot
3) Arild Andersen: Clouds In My Head

I could add many more (especially Dave Holland) but these the three that are always so rewarding

Here's my favorite three:

1) Free At Last - Mal Waldron
2) Gateway - Gateway
3) Khmer - Nils Petter Molvær

There's many others that come damn close...

NOW WE'RE ROLLING!!!! GREAT CHOICES!!! I'LL POST THE MASTERLIST EACH MONTH. LET'S KEEP THIS ROLLING. PLEASE!!!

THANKS TO ALL THE CONTRIBUTORS!!!

Ariyo said:
Here you go, those are mine (in that order)

Tord Gustavsen Trio: The Ground
Keith Jarrett: The Melody At Night, With You
Marcin Wasilewski: January


More great choices! Thanks for contributing. This will be great fun to track as it takes form...

I'd like to propose three choices of ECM recordings: two preliminary and the final one.

I'm from Poland and about 20% of my jazz collection are albums by Polish artists so at the beginning I pick three of them:

1. Tomasz Stańko Septet, Litania -- Music of Krzysztof Komeda (1997, ECM 1636).
2. Tomasz Stańko, Balladyna (1976, ECM 1071).
3. Tomasz Stańko Quartet, Soul of Things (2002, ECM 1788).

Tomasz Stańko is considered the best Polish jazz trumpeter. The first picked album consists of a few pieces by great Polish jazz composer Krzysztof Komeda and is performed by Tomasz Stańko Septet -- the group of six Swedish musicians led by Stańko. The second album has the same title as Tomasz Stańko's album from 1994 containing the tracks to the theater play ``Balladyna''. Both Stańko's ``Balladynas'' include entirely different music. The recommended one is played by Tomasz Stańko (trumpet), Tomasz Szukalski (tenor and soprano saxophones), Dave Holland (bass), and Edward Vesala (drums). The third album is incredibly popular in Poland. Some Polish critic said ``Soul of Things'' is the only album worth to play immediately after ``Kind of Blue''. On that album Stańko performs his own music with three young Polish jazz musicians called Simple Acoustic Trio.

I considered also two other Stańko's albums: ``Leosia'' (1997, ECM 1603) and ``From the Green Hill'' (1999, ECM 1680). I rejected both because the first is similar in lineup and sound to ``Litania'' and the second was picked already by the other ECM group member (lklopotowski) and I didn't want to give it two more points at the beginning of the voting -- in my opinion it's very good album but not the brilliant one.

Remark: there are a lot of superb Polish jazz albums by other artists such as Krzysztof Komeda, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, Andrzej Trzaskowski, Urszula Dudziak, Adam Makowicz, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Michał Urbaniak, Zbigniew Seifert, Miłość, Mikołaj Trzaska, Marcin Oleś and Bartłomiej Brat Oleś but they weren't recorded by ECM as Tomasz Stańko's albums were.

About 80% of my jazz collection are world-wide albums so then I pick three of them:

1. David Holland Quartet, Conference of the Birds (1973, ECM 1027).
2. David Torn, Best Laid Plans (1985, ECM 1284).
3. Paul Bley, Open, to Love (1973, ECM 1023).

The first is classical generally acclaimed jazz album. The second is great post-jazz and post-rock fusion album played by David Torn (guitars) and Geoffrey Gordon (percussion). The third is a humble piano performance of a few compositions by Carla Bley and Annette Peacock.

I considered also incredibly popular Keith Jarrett's ``The Köln Concert'' (1975, ECM 1064/65) but Paul Bley won the competition because of his very atmospheric performances.

At the end I join both these lists into my final selection:

1. Tomasz Stańko Septet, Litania -- Music of Krzysztof Komeda (1997, ECM 1636).
2. David Holland Quartet, Conference of the Birds (1973, ECM 1027).
3. David Torn, Best Laid Plans (1985, ECM 1284).

***

My modest suggestion to IMCollective is to put slightly more effort into that voting. A lot of group members joined the ECM group in the past but they're permanently inactive -- they simply don't look here (I'm very good example of that kind of people). IMCollective, try to shout to all four hundreds of the members of our group encouraging them to the voting or ask our inactive leader -- yets -- to do it. I'm sure they'll reply.

I don't want to place these in any particular order so I'd like to give them all 5 points.

John Surman - Upon reflection
Tomasz Stanko - Suspended Night
Return to Forever - Return to Forever

I don't really like other RTF records (except perhaps the second one is ok) but the first one, self-titled, has a special feeling in it through the whole record.

I would like to name a dozen other records from ECM as my favourite, but since we can put only three records in here... My fourth record would of been Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds. Special magic in that too and it's great to see that so many of you like it also. And also Jan Garbarek's Dis is a fantastic record, top 5 for me.

1. Chick Corea - Return To Forever (poss' my fav'e album of all time)
2. Keith Jarrett Trio - The Cure
3. Art Ensemble of Chicago - Nice Guys

- Ian

Hehe, the same thing happened to me, now I want to hear nice guys too after a long time! Unfortunately I have it on vinyl and I don't have it here where I live now. But great choice for picking RTF self-titled ;) That is by the way an odd thing that that first record is named after Chick Corea and others are by RTF. But I like to scrobble it as Return To Forever and not just Chick Corea (or Chick Corea & Return to Forever) because I think that the music in it is so completely collectively created by the whole RTF and I don't see Chick Corea as a main character in it at any point.

But Art Ensemble, I gotta try to find some right now.

Ok, here is my contribution:

1) Kenny Wheeler - Gnu High
2) Ralph Towner - Solstice/Sound and Shadows
3) Keith Jarrett - Facing You

Let's see what comes out!
Greetings from a new member.

Just joined. Thought I'd make my contribution right away, even if the thread is rather slow to progress..

1. Tomasz Stanko Quartet: Suspended Night
2. Gary Peacock: Voice From The Past - Paradigm
3. Rypdal/Vitous/deJohnette: To Be Continued

Tord Gustavsen Trio (2003) Changing Places [ECM 1834]
Tord Gustavsen Trio (2007) Being There [ECM 2017]
Bobo Stenson Trio (2008) Cantando [ECM 2023]

it was hard to choose only three :)