take us with you!
ecm stands for edition of contemporary music, and it’s a label based out of munich, germany. their back catalogue spans as far back as 1969 with the release of free at last by pianist mal waldron, and even though it’s mostly known for releasing jazz recordings, it has also released music from the likes of steve reich (music for 18 musicians, 1978) or philip glass. on this post we will focus on their rather interesting series called: rarum.
the series is focused on allowing the featured artist to create a selection of their own recordings, either as a frontman or sideman. this is done solely to emphasize the input of the artist rather than that of label excecs, and in turn create a more introspective selection of tunes. as an additive, the label has remastered all the tracks to 24 bit. if that wasn’t enough, the inserts include rare photography, as well as extended biographies and artist notes.
up to date there are 20 editions of the series, all of which are offered through the ecm shop
here’s a list of what’s out there so far:
:rarum I Keith Jarrett
:rarum II Jan Garbarek
:rarum III Chick Corea
:rarum IV Gary Burton
:rarum V Bill Frisell
:rarum VI Art Ensemble of Chicago
:rarum VII Terje Rypdal
:rarum VIII Bobo Stenson
:rarum IX Pat Metheny
:rarum X Dave Holland
:rarum XI Egberto Gismonti
:rarum XII Jack DeJohnette
:rarum XIII John Surman
:rarum XIV John Abercrombie
:rarum XV Carla Bley
:rarum XVI Paul Motian
:rarum XVIITomasz Stanko
:rarum XVIII Eberhard Weber
:rarum XIX Arild Andersen
:rarum XX Jon Christensen
we certainly hope ecm doesn’t stop there!!
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