Brilliant ECM Luminessence Series Shines New Light On Classic Vinyl

Blue Note. Verve. Impulse! ESP-Disk. Just saying the name of such storied jazz record labels immediately conjures up each one's distinct aesthetic, from the music to the cover art. By the close of the 1960s, jazz was undergoing a period of intense change, with an unprecedented mixing and matching of styles and influences—both musical and political—that shuffled the deck and led labels to chase new markets. Blue Note and Impulse! got funky, Verve signed underground rock artists, ESP-Disk treaded water, barely a going concern. It was in this environment that three idealistic Germans, Karl Egger, Manfred Scheffner, and main man Manfred Eicher, founded in 1969 an independent Munich-based record label called ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music). Over the subsequent half-century, the ECM label has steadfastly followed its own vision, perhaps best summed up by its motto: "the most beautiful sound next to silence." The catalog is vast and more varied than the casual observer might presume, but generally speaking the ECM style is ethereal, intellectual, abstract, and adventurous, with a great emphasis on beauty of recorded sound and understated, classy cover art. In addition to a major focus on Scandinavian and Northern European artists (Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Bobo Stenson, Eberhard Weber), ECM also coaxed an impressive range of top American musicians to join the fold (Chick Corea, Gary Burton, Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, Jack DeJohnette), explored a rich seam of what eventually would be called "world music" (L. Shankar, Anouar Brahem , Nana Vasconcelos), and brought to the world new pieces by a variety of contemporary classical composers (Arvo Part, Steve Reich, Erkki-Sven Tüür).

ECM's new "Luminessence" series pays tribute to the label's impressive legacy. Several of its most historic and beloved releases are being reissued on audiophile vinyl cut from the original analog tapes (or, in the case of more recent albums, from high-resolution digital masters) and presented in heavy gatefold sleeves with original artwork and, in some cases, additional photos and new liner notes. The vinyl, reportedly pressed by Record Industry in the Netherlands, is flat, glossy, and nearly flawless, and the sound that Eicher produced has never been more gorgeously present. About a dozen albums in the series have been released at the time of writing, with many more to come. The group discussed below is suitably diverse, including one of ECM's earliest releases (Garbarek's Afric Pepperbird (1970)), a supergroup of jazz fusion luminaries (1975's Gateway, featuring DeJohnette, Dave Holland, and John Abercrombie), the debut of a new guitar star discovered by Burton (Pat Metheny's Bright Size Life, 1976), and a later double album by flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler featuring Lee Konitz, Holland, and Bill Frisell (Angel Song, 1997).

Jan Garbarek
Afric Pepperbird
ECM Records
1970

Jan Garbarek's second album as a leader was his first on ECM, and only the seventh release from the nascent label. At this stage in his career, the Norwegian saxophonist sounds like he is under the spell of Albert Ayler, and the largely gestural, discontinuous free jazz played by his quartet may come as a shock to those who only know his later, near-ambient music. Guitarist Terje Rypdal plays a Rickenbacker, of all things, and hasn't yet developed the distinctive jazz-rock-new age style he would later perfect on albums like Odyssey (ECM, 1975). Double bassist Arild Andersen focuses on repeated, rhythmic ostinatos and, on the pointillistic opener "Scarabee," doubles on African thumb piano. The meat of the album is contained in three long pieces that are linked by several short musical fragments. Drummer John Christensen has clearly been listening to Tony Williams, and propels the album's title track with a dancing backbeat that sounds straight out of Lifetime, especially given Rypdal's wah-wah interjections. The hypnotic 12-minute "Beast of Kommodo" is the highlight: driven by a rhythmically confounding, repeating bass and guitar figure (perhaps best counted as a measure of 5 followed by a measure of 3) that later slips into a swinging 6/8, this features Garbarek's best playing, a tenor solo that coils menacingly in and around the band. "Blow Away Zone" opens with a solo from Christensen before the group states an ascending riff that reappears every now and then, surrounding squawking guitar noise interludes and a Garbarek solo that alternately channels Ayler and John Coltrane. The album is exciting, perplexing, and even occasionally irritating (the concluding minute-long squiggle "Blupp" consists of the drummer pattering around his kit and vocalizing the title rather like a Muppet), but never less than intriguing and utterly sincere. It stands as a crucial document of the new directions taken by young fusion-oriented players at the dawn of the 1970s.

John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette
Gateway
ECM Records
1975

Adorned in a gatefold sleeve featuring a beautiful painting by Maya Weber (wife of ECM recording artist Eberhard Weber) and new liner notes by guitarist Nels Cline, the Luminessence reissue of 1975's Gateway presents this monumental summit of three jazz-rock greats in its best light. Bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette had famously played together in the band that recorded and toured Miles Davis's epochal Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970). Holland had been making records for ECM since 1971, including luminous duos with bassist Barre Phillips and guitarist Derek Bailey and the all-time masterpiece Conference of the Birds (ECM, 1972) with Anthony Braxton, Barre Phillips, and Barry Altschul. DeJohnette had recorded a duo album with Keith Jarrett (Ruta and Daitya) in 1971, which only came out on ECM two years later, presumably because the drummer had still been under contract to Prestige. The drummer had also recently played on Abercrombie's ECM debut, Timeless (ECM, 1975), alongside keyboardist Jan Hammer. The meeting of these three musical minds, beautifully recorded by Eicher at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, Germany in March 1975, is simply one of the label's best releases, and one of the greatest guitar-bass-drums jazz trio records in existence.

Dave Holland's unique compositional voice is heard throughout side one, beginning with the folk-jazz "Back-Woods Song." This infectious tune is centered around a gospel-ish double-stopped bass figure over which Abercrombie comps, riffs, and solos, bending strings and using volume swells to suggest a pedal steel while DeJohnette dances between swing and rock beats as only he can. After the short interlude of "Waiting," the trio erupts again in the 11-minute "May Dance." This is a much more abstract piece framed by a catchy guitar riff, with each man wandering around his instrument for a while before coalescing on a typically propulsive and swinging DeJohnette beat. Abercrombie unleashes a solo with thrilling swoops and swerves courtesy of his guitar's vibrato arm, while Holland's distinctive, meaty bass tone is on display during his own following solo. Side two kicks off with "Unshielded Desire," an astonishing duet for Abercrombie and DeJohnette that recalls nothing so much as those on Interstellar Space (Impulse!, 1974; recorded 1967) between Coltrane and drummer Rashied Ali. Here, the guitarist utilizes his distinct modulated guitar distortion to exciting effect. On Holland's gentle but mysterious "Jamala," bass and guitar lines weave in and out of sync while DeJohnette confines himself to his cymbals. The final song, DeJohnette's loping "Sorcery I," had recently appeared on his 1974 album Sorcery for Prestige, but that version isn't a patch on Gateway's, despite Holland and Abercrombie appearing on both. This may be due to the musicians' growing experience with the tune or to the much more salubrious environment provided by ECM; in any case, this long track provides a dramatic and forceful climax to an outstanding record. The same month, this trio recorded Cloud Dance (ECM, 1976) alongside sitarist and tabla player Collin Walcott; one can hope that this jazz-world music fusion classic might soon see a Luminessence reissue as well.

Pat Metheny
Bright Size Life
ECM
1976

In the original liner notes to this album—one of jazz's greatest debuts ever—vibraphonist Gary Burton recalls meeting teenage Missourian Pat Metheny in Wichita, Kansas. The kid, "all smile, teeth everywhere," begged the bandleader to sit in. Though skeptical, Burton acquiesced and was pleasantly surprised by the kid's chops (both the guitar and the dental kind). A few years later, the kid, now nineteen, was in Burton's band playing electric 12-string guitar alongside drummer Bob Moses, who also plays on Bright Size Life, Metheny's first of many for the ECM label. The third leg of this album's stool is the astonishing Jaco Pastorius, master of the fretless electric bass, whom Metheny had befriended the year before, when both men were teaching at the University of Miami. When Metheny's ECM debut was first mooted in early 1974, Burton advised the young guitarist to take his time before recording, and to think about how he really wanted to present himself to the world. Metheny took this advice, writing 7 beguiling tunes that seem to conjure up his Midwestern home and showcase his glassy guitar tone and gift for melodic invention. These, along with an Ornette Coleman tune, were laid down in Ludwigsburg in December 1975 and released the following March.

Title track "Bright Size Life"'s melodic line, traded back and forth between Metheny and Pastorius throughout the track, will be instantly recognizable to many jazz fans. The bassist's fluid and jaunty solo featuring his trademark harmonics is an early indication of his abilities, which took the jazz world by storm when he released his own debut record just months later (Jaco Pastorius, Columbia, 1976). "Sirabhorn" is a pretty, bell-like tune named after one of Metheny's friends, a rare (at the time) female jazz guitar student at Berklee in Boston, where Metheny also taught. On "Unity Village," Metheny utilizes double-tracking to good effect, accompanying his own rhythm part with an almost pop-like melody while the band sits out. "Missouri Uncompromised" closes side one with a swinging tune whose theme somehow sounds like a view across a wide-open prairie.

Side two opens with a guitar soliloquy leading into the repeating chordal riff of "Midwestern Nights Dream," against which Pastorius' growling bass counterpoint offers continuous comment. Now it is Jaco's turn to indulge in double tracking, adding a chorus-effected bass melody in the middle of the stereo image while his main bass line continues in the left channel. "Unquity Road" has an arching guitar line that would not be out of place on an album by British prog jazz-rockers such as Henry Cow or Hatfield and the North, while "Omaha Celebration" is a suitably happy tune with Moses —as he does throughout the album—providing gentle, swinging support that allows the guitar and bass lines to shine. The album closer, a medley of Coleman's "Round Trip" and "Broadway Blues" (from his New York is Now! album (Blue Note, 1968)) is another highlight, showcasing Metheny's tougher side on the former's fast bebop tune. Pastorius' impressive solo pulls out all the (double) stops, glissandos, and harmonics in his bag of tricks.

Listening to Bright Size Life with 50 years of hindsight, what stands out is how much Metheny's debut album laid out the path he would take in his long and illustrious career. His adventurous nature, his melodic gift, and his distinctive guitar phrasing is all here. So too is his tendency towards tender tunes with pop-like melodies, sometimes sitting awkwardly alongside his contrasting interest in abstraction (the reaction of his growing fan base to Song X (Geffen, 1986), his curveball album with Ornette Coleman, is indicative of that awkwardness).

Kenny Wheeler
Angel Song
ECM Records
1997

Angel Song is the second ECM album led by the late Canadian, London-based trumpet and flugelhorn player Kenny Wheeler to receive the Luminessence reissue treatment, the first being 1975's Gnu High, a much-lauded classic featuring Holland, DeJohnette, and Keith Jarrett. Here, Wheeler essays 9 of his expansive tunes accompanied by alto sax legend Lee Konitz, stylistic magpie Bill Frisell on guitar, and the near-ubiquitous Holland. In the absence of a drummer, Holland is the hero of this 70-minute double album, brilliantly providing rhythmic as well as harmonic support. Listen to the way he uses a slow triplet on a single note to imply a ride cymbal on "Present Past" and its later reprise "Past Present," plays a repeated pattern at different tempos during "Unti" to create a directional path through Konitz's and Wheeler's musings, and creates a deep swing on "Onmo," a tune that slightly recalls the standard "Without a Song." Frisell's plangent, reverb-drenched guitar constantly switches between ambient brushstrokes, melodic single-note and chordal runs, and more traditional jazz comping. The leader's trumpet and mellower flugelhorn and Konitz's ripe alto sax often declaim lines in unison, and each man is afforded plenty of time for poignant soloing across these lengthy tracks. It is all very beautiful, indeed, though by the end of side four the listener may feel it rather a bit too much of a good thing. While "Unti," "Onmo," and "Nicolette" stand out, the other tracks plow a similarly haunting, ethereal furrow, and this sense of sameness isn't helped by a full 20 minutes being taken up by the duplicate "Present Past"/"Past Present" takes. That said, it's wonderful to hear Konitz in this setting and to be reminded once again of Holland's artistry, which—as on so many ECM classics—lifts the record to another level of musicality and sheer sonic pleasure.

Four very different albums, then, which provide a microcosm of the ECM label's vast catalog: ethereal, intellectual, abstract, and adventurous. The Luminessence series of reissues is a boon for vinyl fans, making it easy for listeners to hear ECM classics in pristine analog sound without endless crate digging for clean original copies. With new batches of titles being released several times a year, Luminessence seems set to delight jazz fans for years to come.

Tracks and Personnel

Afric Pepperbird

Tracks: Scarabee; Mah-Jong; Beast of Kommodo; Blow Away Zone; Myb; Concentus; Afric Pepperbird; Blupp.

Personnel: Jan Garbarek: saxophones; Terje Rypdal: guitar, bugle; Arild Andersen: bass, African thumb piano, xylophone; Jon Christensen: drums.

Gateway

Tracks: Back-Woods Song; Waiting; May Dance; Unshielded Desire; Jamala; Sorcery 1.

Personnel: Jack DeJohnette: drums; Dave Holland: bass; John Abercrombie: guitar

Bright Size Life

Tracks: Bright Size Life; Sirabhorn; Unity Village; Missouri Uncompromised; Midwestern Nights Dream; Unquity Road; Omaha Celebration; Round Trip/Broadway Blues.

Personnel: Pat Metheny: guitar; Jaco Pastorius: electric bass; Bob Moses: drums.

Angel Song

Tracks: Nicolette; Present Past; Kind Folk; Unti; Angel Song; Onmo; Nonetheless; Past Present; Kind Of Gentle.

Personnel: Kenny Wheeler: flugelhorn, trumpet; Lee Konitz: alto saxophone; Dave Holland: bass; Bill Frisell: guitar.

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