Slipped into sleep last night and welcomed Friday with Dawn Dance an album by South African guitarist Steve Eliovson and American percussionist Collin Walcott, recorded in January 1981 and released on ECM later that year.

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

"This album is something of a legend in the annals of ECM lore, as it was the only ever recorded by the fantastically talented Steve Eliovson. With Collin Walcott on percussion for support, the since unheard-from guitarist carves lasting impressions ...The experience begins in “Venice” (as in California), where the guitar speaks with tabla like two continents connected by tectonic plates beneath an ocean. Eliovson’s sonorities are pristine, especially in “Earth End” and in “Slow Jazz,” where the precision of finger placement and the occasional bent note add a soulful turn of phrase...."

https://ecmreviews.com/2011/10/16/dawn-dance/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns2NT3003Ow&list=OLAK5uy_k_ltMu6RGWPuIuAnYjnr9zggpU3SHm4c4

A Molde Concert by Arild Anderson released on ECM in 1982.

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

"...Here, the bassist is joined by names which, though now celebrated, were still fledgling at the time: guitarist Bill Frisell (still seeking out his characteristic warble among the increasingly populated trees of the 1980s), pianist John Taylor, and ex-Weather Reporter Alphonse Mouzon on drums...

...After an elastic opening, “Cherry Tree” slingshots into a set consisting entirely of Andersen originals, save for the romping “Dual Mr. Tillman Anthony” (Miles Davis) that concludes the show. From the beginning, the breadth of arrangement is apparent, Frisell laying out embracing themes as Andersen and Mouzon work double time..."

https://ecmreviews.com/2011/11/20/molde-concert/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PfT52R6O0E&list=OLAK5uy_nW3e87dIgdopfFPflmvKGwyl3GJpmL_5Y

Ended the week and started the weekend with Melos by Tsabropoulos/Lechner/Gandhi released on ECM in 2008

Tyran Grillo wrote on ECM Reviews:

"The second album from Greek pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos and German cellist Anja Lechner, would seem to be a sequel to Chants, Hymns and Dances, but is in many ways a restructuring of that same cosmos rather than a parallel universe to it...

The title of Melos refers to the arrangement of notes into a discernible tune (hence: melody), and in this respect its contents succeed beautifully. The title track starts the album with an all-encompassing embrace. Lechner navigates Tsabropoulos’s delicate ostinato in such a way that, even as the pianist continues exploring the ripple effect of her measured silence, when the cello reprises the theme, it does so newly fortified with sacred energy..."

#ecm #ecmreviews #VassilisTsabropoulos #AnjaLechner #Gurdjieff

https://ecmreviews.com/2014/09/09/melos/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J47H0tX1iGQ&list=OLAK5uy_mhQUayEL3tf4ztgBoUlF6HIJiRrtPKB3A

Welcomed sleep yesterday then greeted Friday with an LP I first heard, having borrowed it from Cambridge Library during a brief sojourn there in my youth: Eréndira is the first album recorded by the British jazz quartet, First House. It was released by ECM. The album presents a studio performance of leader and saxophonist Ken Stubbs with Django Bates on piano, Mick Hutton on bass and Martin France on drums, recorded in July, 1985 in Norway.

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

“A Day Away” starts as if awakening, those first rustlings of the morning flittering across France’s kit, Bates opening his eyes as butterfly’s wings to sunlight, while Hutton takes our first steps, breathing in the saxophone’s crisp air...a beautiful, seemingly forgotten album from a quartet of musicians who tended to involve themselves in more progressive acts. Here, they take it back home. Don’t pass this one by."

#ecm #djangobates #kenstubbs #martinfrance #britjazz #ecmreviews

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6ffKlpKcVY&list=OLAK5uy_nhLOzgP4zFQlqNCiRfDWWJ1vPmqslyilQ

Grazing Dreams is the second album by American sitarist and composer Collin Walcott, recorded in February 1977 and released on ECM later that year. Walcott's quintet features trumpeter Don Cherry and rhythm section John Abercrombie, Palle Danielsson, and Dom Um Romão.

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

"A plaintive, leisurely journey from Collin Walcott, North American pioneer in the art of the jazz sitar and ECM visionary whose life ended all too soon at the age 39...

...Grazing Dreams is structured as long-form whole in which individual tracks blend into the overarching power that binds them. “Song Of The Morrow” starts things off right with flirtatious sitar riffs appearing and disappearing against a reverberant wash of guitar and trumpet while subtle and varied percussion sections sneak past in the background."

https://ecmreviews.com/2010/02/14/grazing-dreams/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aZEf6JXxjk&list=OLAK5uy_lGhOnBkbO6VzW8cC_UAnDxFmox_5YK9x0

Witchi-Tai-To is an album by the Jan Garbarek–Bobo Stenson Quartet recorded over two days in November 1973 and released on ECM the following year. The quartet features rhythm section Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen.

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

"...Last but not least is “Desireless.” This Don Cherry tune is given a 20-minute treatment that surpasses all expectations. It’s a mournful closer, a song of parting, an unrequited wish. It tries to hold on to a rope that is slipping through its fingers, even as it struggles with all the strength at its disposal to keep the music alive. Garbarek refuses to go down without an incendiary swan song, however, and by the end it is all we have left..."

#jangarbarek #bobostenson #ecm #ecmreviews #palledanielsson #JonChristensen

https://ecmreviews.com/2014/12/27/dansere-old-and-new-masters/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_fMDQv_mhc&list=OLAK5uy_nII9roVrpeasXwoefCjoPEppEECDXnC-Y

Ended the weekend and started the week after a swim with Chants, Hymns and Dances on ECM New Series by Anja Lechner and Vassilis Tsabropoulos from 2004.

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

"The enigmatic sound-world of G. I. Gurdjieff (c.1877-1948) made its first appearance on ECM via the spirited renditions of pianist Keith Jarrett. Now another wizard at the keyboard, Vassilis Tsabropoulos, joins kindred spirit cellist Anja Lechner for a redrawing of old maps alongside the newly discovered continents of Tsabropoulos’s own stilling compositions around Byzantine hymns. The result is less a hybrid and more of a conversation across (and of) time. Harmonically a simple world, it elides the trappings of the social, forging its own divine concept in the grip of ideological binds.."

https://ecmreviews.com/2012/04/07/chants-hymns-and-dances/

#Gurdjieff #ecm #ecmreviews #VassilisTsabropoulos #AnjaLechner #morningmadnessmusic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8ueZ8dtl2o&list=OLAK5uy_nrBuAMA5ZrftqBFTlt0EL9uDGk3kaVCWs&index=1

Welcomed sleep at the end of the week and greeted the weekend with Journal October the debut album by cellist David Darling, recorded in October 1979 and released on the ECM label

Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:

"... His electric cello bays like a resurrected voice, an insight in and of itself into the lucidity of “Slow Return.” This introductory track is also the longest, drawing every jagged line like the echo of a mountainous horizon. From this potent doorway issues a host of transient forms.

...The closing piece sails like an entire biography gathered into one vessel. Notes ascend into birdcalls, circling a teetering falsetto that reshapes the drone dynamic as one suspended rather than suspending."

#ecm #ecmreviews #davidarling #cello

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X63lx-uJeYs&list=OLAK5uy_kEaB3YFEprEgBLeWYMeMRTJVYlcvzT5GA

Ended the week and welcomed the weekend with The Triangle by Arild Andersen w/Vassilis Tsabropoulos and John Marshall released on ECM in 2003.
Tyran Grillo wrote for ECM Reviews:
"Classical pianist and late jazz bloomer Vassilis Tsabropoulos turned heads with his ECM debut, Achirana, for which he redefined the piano trio under the leadership of bassist Arild Andersen and guidance of drummer John Marshall, both improvisers of proven stamina and invention. Whereas Tsabropoulos’s playing felt at times muddied and inattentive to negative space on that nevertheless enchanting record, this sophomore effort ushers us into a new and vibrant chapter with “Straight.” Immediately one can tell in this Tsabropoulos original that its composer has already tapped into the qualities of a fine improviser, treating his hands more like feet engaged in dance, leaping and bounding their way through turns of phrase..."

#ecm #ecmreviews #arildanderson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQdbqDEYNE