In founding Edition of Contemporary Music (ECM) in 1969, producer Manfred Eicher sought records with the ambience of ideal concert venues; with crystalline clarity and extraordinarily three‑dimensional spatial sense. His commitment to excellence, idiom-crossing collaborations and artistic freedom swiftly attracted the world’s finest musicians.
We asked Manfred Eicher to reflect on the work of another iconic label – Blue Note Records – and share with us his top 5 Blue Note Records albums.
Blue Note Records president Don Was’s shares his top 5 ECM Records albums
Ornette Coleman – The Empty Foxhole
Blue Note Records (1966)
Ornette’s Atlantic albums were so striking that they still overshadow other Coleman discs from the 1960s, including Blue Note’s live recordings from Stockholm’s Golden Circle and this studio date from 1966. It has Ornette on alto sax, trumpet and violin, Charlie Haden on bass and 10-year-old Denardo Coleman on drums. It’s a recording that effectively elevates feeling above technique and it has a purity and a naïve freshness that endures somehow, vibrant as folk art. Some great tunes here too, including ‘Zig Zag’ and especially ‘Faithful’. We introduced the Marcin Wasilewski Trio to this album; they subsequently made ‘Faithful’ the title track of one of their own recordings.
Anthony Williams – Spring
Blue Note Records (1965)
An impressive band on Tony Williams’s second Blue Note album, recorded in 1965, with Sam Rivers and Wayne Shorter on saxophones, Herbie Hancock on piano and Gary Peacock on bass. Among other admirable qualities, this album provides one of the best early instances of Peacock’s innovative approach, and you can hear him much better than on Albert Ayler’s ESP discs released around the same time. In Williams’s well-crafted music, Gary is a lead voice from the first moment, interacting with the saxophones, as well as with Tony’s fanatically-detailed brushwork.
Chick Corea – The Song of Singing
Blue Note Records (1971)
Featuring the trio with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul, this was recorded in 1970, about six months before ECM’s A.R.C. album. Chick was on fire, creatively, in this period, expanding his artistic reach in many directions. And of course, Dave and Barry were a wonderful combination, too. The three of them were about to be joined by Anthony Braxton to form the great but short-lived band Circle and record Paris Concert.
Don Cherry – Complete Communion
Blue Note Records (1966)
It’s hard to choose between Complete Communion, Symphony for Improvisers and Where Is Brooklyn. Recorded within the space of a year in 1965 and ’66 , the albums form a trilogy. At the start of the cycle Gato Barbieri is the tenor player, at the end it’s Pharoah Sanders, and on the middle album it’s both of them. Complete Communion lays out the basic concept. Don’s lyricism and sense of space, and his open ear to the sounds of the world, and Ed Blackwell’s dancing rhythms are the keys to everything. The musical evolution from here to El Corazón and Old and New Dreams is not quite straightforward but poetically logical.
Pete La Roca – Basra
Blue Note Records (1965)
I had loved the combination of drummer La Roca and bassist Steve Swallow on Paul Bley’s Footloose (1963), and on Basra (1965) Pete and Steve reunited to explore more outgoing music, joined by the ever-inspiring Steve Kuhn on piano and Joe Henderson on tenor. Among the many Blue Notes with Henderson, this one stands out for its spirit and energy. La Roca disappeared from the scene for a long time to study and then practice law. After his return he played with John Abercrombie and there was talk for a while about a recording project with Pete, John, and Kenny Wheeler – which remained unrealized, unfortunately.
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