ECM

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www.danielbennettgroup.com

 

Agreed and then some.

 

Sadly, for most music and jazz listeners, ECM mixes and matches and experiments way too much for the commercial jazz listener of today that pretty much is only tuned to the Blue Note or to the simplicity of some of the stuff that is often called "housewife jazz" in some of the "cool" FM stations.

 

While I would never criticize Blue Note and all that jazz that lived before the film studios killed it, I do think that the soft jazz and half baked jazz that most people tend to hear on the radio is not even close or indicative of what the description of the music is about, and ECM has been a total breath of fresh air, and it has never been afraid to try and do things that are totally out of the ordinary and different ... and in the middle you get some amazing things that would never get heard or released in America, because of the top ten design of things.

 

I have some favorites, but in the end, I have to tell you that I have never heard a single ECM album that was bad or I did not like ... though I will admit that some of the early Jan Garbarek used to send shivers up my spine ... that was jazz in its purest form and definition ... although we might disagree and often defy that description in lieu of some idealistic concept as to what jazz really is ... sort of like the sister board, that identifies "progressive music" with a non-definition that has nothing to do with music whatsoever, or the time, or the place, that it came from.

 

So after all that ... here are some things that I still listen to, and as I said before, I do not listen to "styles" ... I listen to music, meaning that I close my eyes and I fly away with it, and I don't care what it is supposed to be ... music is here for us all to fly and be free, not to be slaves to a social definition for everything.

 

Egberto Gismonti

Terje Rypdal

David Darling

Jan Garbarek

Pat Metheny

Keith Jarrett (the best piano player in the part 75 years, second to none!)

Eberhard Weber

Charlie Haden

Ralph Towner

John Abercrombie

Shankar

_____________ Khan (sorry, can never remember this name)

 

In the end, a lot of this stuff is considered "jazz" because it is nearly impossible to classify, but it is outstanding for my ear to hear eastern folks mixing with western folks and do music, regardless of what it is called.

 

The word "jazz" in America came about mostly because it needed to differentiate itself from more commercial, music that radio was offering you, augmented by many movie stars also singing, which kinda ended the beginning of the music recordings in America, almost all of which were the jazz and blues folks, who lost all of their voice in one swell foop. but the term survived, and described an attitude, a lot more than the music itself, and it wasn't until later that it developed into the behemoth that it is today ... so well separated from the rest of the music with its labels today that everyone has no excuse to not find something.

 

And thank you ... I have always thought that no label in music, has ever been so adventurous and so caring to so many artists, and the amount of music it has provided for 40 years is down right insane, and still to this day, few people can sit here and say ... ECM is about jazz ... because in the end ... ECM is about music and jazz is just one side of it.

 

And finally ... I wonder if someone did this for me, to get me here ... because in the sister board I was passionate about this label, and still think that it is the best music label ever ... and they have been at it 40 plus years ... which the majority of labels never do or have! You have to love the music itself to do that ...

 

BTW, the mention of jazz history and the recording came from the special DVD on Tom Dowd ... if you have never heard of it, or seen it, it will be one of the greatest lessons in music history in America that you will ever hear about and see it explained. That same man, had an amazing ear for music and captured one of rock music's enduring and bautiful duets ever, but you can see in the end, that it was his ear for music and ability that caught it in the first place, because if you don't have the ear and the love for the feel and the music ITSELF it doesn't matter what it is or what it becomes ... it will never have that special secret feeling that makes us all slaves to its beauty!

 

The side effect? ... you're not gonna like a lot of movies right off the bat!