ECM Records Catalog Now Streaming

My music nerd intuition told me that the news I learned of last Friday that the entire ECM Records catalog was now available on streaming services such as Spotify was a big deal. The knowledge registered as important - I had a sense that ECM was "cool" - but I honestly didn't know much at all about the German label until the last few days. Previously, I was probably only familiar with ECM because I knew it was the company for which Bill Frisell made some of his first recordings.

I hadn't really even thought about the fact that ECM wasn't streaming before, but past unsuccessful searches for some Pat Metheny and Vijay Iyer records make more sense now.

Over this past weekend I did some research into the ECM catalog and jumped in with open ears ready for discovery. One thing that quickly became apparent is that the music on ECM isn’t quite what I expected, because I wasn’t expecting it to be so “new agey” and “fusiony”, or maybe so minimalist and atmospheric. I’ve only scratched the surface, checking out about 2.5% of the more than 1,600 ECM titles, but so far it’s more Windham Hill than Tzadik; more Kenny G than Coltrane. That perspective will change I'm sure as I hone in on specific areas of interest.

One of the first albums I listened to was A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke by Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith because I had already been hoping to hear that one and it turns out that it is on ECM. Bill Frisell's new double album with Thomas Morgan called Small Town is among the many now streaming. I already own a copy of Small Town on vinyl. It's superb! And of course, my life-long neglect of Pat Metheny's Bright Size Life came to a satisfactory end. That one is a headphones jam for the Jaco effect.

Some other things have had my initial attention. A band called Codona featuring Don Cherry is definitely worth a listen. They offer a global music take on free jazz - bird sounds and sitar. Bassist Dave Holland has made a lot of recordings for ECM. His album Conference of the Birds under the name the David Holland Quartet is the first one of his I've been listening to. It features Anthony Braxton in a surprisingly melodic mood. Charles Lloyd is another ECM guy - at the least the latter half of his career. I don't know where to begin there...maybe The Water is Wide. Come to think of it, Charles Lloyd might be a pretty good example of the ECM sound.

This interest in ECM also offered an opportunity to finally listen to the legendary experimental group Art Ensemble of Chicago. I've run through Urban Bushmen and Nice Guys so far. You definitely have to be in the mood for this and already be accustomed to avant-garde music to appreciate, but I really liked Nice Guys on the second listen. It was too much the first time though.

I should have known about him already, but I learned of guitarist John Abercrombie through this ECM discovery. I can't say that I love his stuff so far, but there's a certain wah-wah funkiness to Gateway that's appealing; similar in some ways to the Jerry Garcia/Howard Wales album Hooteroll from that same time period. Oh yeah...it's not on ECM, but becoming aware of Abercrombie led to an early band he was in called Stark Reality that I really like so far! Stark Reality reminds me of a zonked-out take on Zappa style music.

There are some mainstays of ECM Records - people like Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and Tunisian oud player Anouar Brahem. The early Jan Garbarek stuff, like Afric Pepperbird, has a hip, driving sound. Garbarek's more recent recordings run dangerously close to Kenny G-land, but his keen sense of melody - often from a folk perspective - keeps even these New Age works interesting. In the case of Brahem, it is fascinating to hear his oud in a jazz context but I need more time to develop a better opinion on this type of world fusion music. At times it can sound like a hodge podge.

Other names on the ECM "to do" list include Chick Corea, Eberhard Weber, Paul Motian, Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich.  

Jazz and experimental music is pretty male dominated, but I was reading how ECM is known for featuring female artists. Carla Bley, Meredith Monk and Agnes Buenas Garnas are names that have come up.

I'm glad that ECM has put this music out there, allowing it to be heard by a wider audience. Obtaining vinyl copies of favorite standouts is the next logical step.

Playing an Instrument as an Extension of Music Appreciation

I finally jumped on the vinyl trend as of August 2015.  I was in high school and college in the early to mid-90’s when CDs were at their peak, and before that I had cassette tapes.  I only recall having a few actual vinyl records as a kid.  By the time I really got into buying albums it was all on tapes or disk.  The nudge to vinyl happened last month when a friend gave me an old Radio Shack turntable/amp/speaker setup and some old records to go along with it.

After upgrading to a new turntable and speakers, I thought it would be fun to try and get some of my favorite all-time albums on LP, such as Ween “The Mollusk”, The Flaming Lips “Yoshimi” and My Morning Jacket “Z”.  While that stuff is fun to hear in this way, I was surprised to discover how receptive I am to jazz music when played on the turntable:  Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra….the kind of thing that I have long respected but never really focused on until now.  I see a lot  more of that coming my way.

This retrograde to vinyl is an opportunity to reevaluate my musical tastes.  Do I really have more interest in hearing Pablo Casals play the Bach Cello Suites than in hearing the new Built to Spill album?  It depends on how much I've had to drink, but I think so, yes.

One reason it took me so long to get on the vinyl bandwagon was because that for most of the last 10 years I’ve been learning to play an instrument, and for much of that time my focus has been on learning fiddle tunes – music that may be fun to play but isn't exactly what you might throw on the record player and chill out to.  I saw no reason to listen to vinyl records because that had no correlation.  It would just have been a distraction.

However, now I think I’m ready for that distraction.  By using my instrument as a means to figure out what might be going on in the music that I love listening to, it not only deepens the appreciation of this music but puts the work I've been putting into learning about music to good use.