This interim web-site is bridging the gap while we are developing a new one. Our focus is to showcase new and recent releases until the full catalogue is back online.
The ECM Festival in San Francisco, presented in the context of the SF Jazz series, spotlights some of the newer tendencies among ECM’s musical directions, and also includes performances by artists long associated with the label. (…)
A Clear Midnight – Kurt Weill and America by the Julia Hülsmann Quartet featuring singer Theo Bleckmann has been met with immediate critical acclaim upon its release. In British daily The Guardian John Fordham granted the album a rare five-star rating, stating: “This might just be one of the great jazz treatments of the songs of Kurt Weill… Not a sound is of place on this beautifully crafted project, but it sounds open and spontaneous.” (…)
Hungarian composer György Kurtág has won a major award, The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Contemporary Music category. His work in the jury’s view stands out for its “rare expressive intensity.” “The novel dimension of his music,” the citation continues, “lies not in the material he uses but in its spirit, the authenticity of its language, and the way it crosses borders between spontaneity and reflection, between formalism and expression.” Kurtág’s voice, “defies any system, accepts no compromise, and has traced a path independent from the mainstream. Today it stands as an alternative to a vision of history apparently confined to the opposition between innovation and a return to old models, between a music withdrawn into itself and a music that aims to communicate as broadly as possible.” The award is accompanied by a cash prize of 400,000 Euros.
News of the award arrives as ECM releases a new film of György and Márta Kurtág. In memoriam Haydée is a document of a piano recital at Paris’s Cité de la Musique in which the the Kurtágs play Játékok and György Kurtág’s Bach transcriptions. The film, directed by Isabelle Soulard, is available now in DVD and Blu-ray versions from the ECM web shop.
Break Stuff by the Vijay Iyer Trio continues to attract acclaim by leading UK and US media
Pianist Vijay Iyer’s 11-year-old trio is a highly manoeuvrable vehicle for his African, Indian and maths-inspired rhythmic ideas, now at a dizzying pinnacle of contemporary jazz multitasking. […] This is cutting-edge music, but always accessible.
John Fordham, The Guardian
The fifth and best record of Mr. Iyer’s trio […] The band’s refractive language makes sense of whatever material it plays. You don’t hear the record and seize on its sense of rupture or argument. Instead, it sounds whole.
Ben Ratliff, The New York Times
While there's no doubt that much of this group's development has been the consequence of time spent together honing its unique complexion, beyond ‘Break Stuff's’ more pristine sonics there's little doubt, when compared to its ACT recordings, that this recording has benefited significantly from the "fourth" member of Iyer's trio: label head and producer Manfred Eicher. If the three recordings Iyer has prolifically released in just eleven months are any indication, the pianist's move to ECM—already yielding significant results—has only begun to deliver on even greater promises to come.
John Kelman, All About Jazz
Iyer, bassist Stephan Crump, and drummer Marcus Gilmore have fully incorporated electronica and hip-hop into a jazz vocabulary. Despite the album’s layered meters, you couldn’t ask for a more swinging ‘Work’, or a more moving solo-piano treatment of ‘Blood Count’.
Jon Garelick, Boston Globe
With ‘Break Stuff’, his third trio album and his first on the ECM label, Vijay Iyer comes into his own as a master pianist, composer, and conceptualizer—one of the truly great jazz musicians of our time.
Fred Kaplan, Stereophile
Within this flowing and well-programmed collection of 12 tunes are 1) a tribute to Detroit techno producer Robert Hood, 2) a similar nod to major influence Thelonious Monk and 3) a solo take of Billy Strayhorn’s final written composition ‘Blood Count.’ Within the tradition, but equally outside it, Iyer’s music knows no bounds—and it sounds thoroughly delightful here.
Dave DiMartino, Rollingstone.com
