Forthcoming ECM releases

[paul secor]

Among the items listed in the print catalog but not yet on the site is one which I have not seen announced yet but which will no doubt interest people here when it comes:

Roscoe Mitchell

and the Note Factory

Far Side

Roscoe Mitchell: saxophones, flutes

Corey Wilkes: trumpet, flugelhorn

Craig Taborn: piano

Vijay Iyer: piano

Harrison Bankhead: cello, double_bass

Jaribu Shahid: double_bass

Tani Tabbal: drums

Vincent Davis: drums

ECM 2087 | CD 270 4801

That's the only upcoming ECM I have any interest in, but my interest in it is considerable.

[Leeway]

I have very little good to say about ECM, so I won't say much, but where are reissues of these:

Especially that Music Improvisation Company record is absolutely essential.

Also, I don't know if this anymore available:

Bloody well should be.

I think it was only out in Japan briefly a few years ago.

A curiosity for lovers of Larks era Crim!!!

I managed to pick the LP up recently for a nice price (cheap). Usually see it on EBAY for $30-60. Should really be reissued on CD. What a lineup, what with Derek Bailey and Evan Parker.

[Leeway]

This is one ECM forthcoming issue that caught my attention: Tim Berne on ECM! Rather surprising, really. With a fine group: Formanek (actually his album), Taborn, Cleaver (a terrific, underrated drummer).

Edited August 18, 2010 by Leeway

[sonnymax]

This is one ECM forthcoming issue that caught my attention: Tim Berne on ECM! Rather surprising, really. With a fine group: Formanek (actually his album), Taborn, Cleaver (a terrific, underrated drummer).

sound clips

[Chuck Nessa]

Just remember the label's name rhymes with phlegm.

[clifford_thornton]

It's really odd to see Fennesz on ECM.

[GA Russell]

I received today this press release regarding the new Charles Lloyd album called Mirror.

Charles Lloyd Quartet

Mirror

Charles Lloyd: tenor and alto saxophones

Jason Moran: piano

Reuben Rogers: double-bass

Eric Harland: drums

U.S. Release date: September 14, 2010

Many critics have opined that Lloyd’s “New Quartet”, with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland may be the best of all his groups. The quartet’s previous release in this line-up, the live-recorded Rabo de Nube, met with across-the-board approval and was voted #1 album of the year in both the Critics and Readers Polls of JazzTimes.

Mirror is the first studio album by the Lloyd-Moran-Rogers-Harland unit and it features beautiful, transformed versions of favorites including both Lloyd originals and tunes Charles has made his own over the years. There is a pair of Thelonious Monk tunes, “Ruby, My Dear” and “Monk’s Mood”, as well as hymns and traditionals including “Go Down Moses”, “Lift Every Voice And Sing”, and “The Water Is Wide”. Lloyd covers Brian Wilson’s’ “Caroline, No” (the saxophonist guested on several Beach Boys albums in the 70s, including the classic “Surf’s Up”), and plays an achingly lovely version of the the standard “I Fall In Love Too Easily”. Lloyd originals include “Desolation Sound”, “Mirror”, “Tagi” (which includes a Bhagavad Gita inspired spoken-word meditation by Lloyd) and “Being and Becoming”.

The band plays superbly. Interaction between Jason Moran and the elastic rhythm section of Harland and Rogers is agile and alert in every moment. While each of these three players is completely in tune with Lloyd's way of working, none of them had yet been born when Charles had his idiomatic breakthrough with "Forest Flower" in 1967. Moran recalls that his father encouraged him to listen to Forest Flower when he was just starting to check out jazz, and the album was part of the soundtrack of his childhood.

There is plenty of Lloyd’s graceful, mellifluous and poetic tenor sax: We also get to hear some of his rarely-showcased alto saxophone, the instrument that Billy Higgins called Charles’s “secret weapon”.

“Charles is playing really beautiful,” Ornette Coleman says, in the documentary film The Monk and the Mermaid. “He’s expressing the qualities of what we experience. Trying to make a contribution to the quality of life, to do with knowledge.” The knowledge, experience, and wisdom conveyed through Lloyd’s tender saxophone soliloquies have drawn great musicians to him over the decades, and contributed to a reputation as one of the most insightful band leaders in all of jazz. Those qualities are reflected once more in Mirror, which is perhaps as succinct a portrait of Charles’ music as can be embraced by a single disc.

“Charles approaches the music with such openness”, pianist Jason Moran said recently “I like playing with leaders who let you bring what you’ve got to the table, and interpret the music however you’d like. Charles is a great promoter of free-thinking music, and letting it develop on the spot.”

Reuben Rogers was born in the Virgin Islands and grew up listening to calypso and reggae as well as jazz, exposure that seems to have impacted on the lyrical dancing swing of his bass playing. He works exceptionally well with Harland, exploring loose grooves behind Lloyd’s solos, and speaks of the joy of “being in the music in the moment,” when the Lloyd band is improvising collectively, “without any worries, just giving it all.” A much sought after sideman, Reuben has also worked extensively with Nicholas Payton, Joshua Redman, Dianne Reeves and more.

Eric Harland is increasingly regarded as one of the most important contemporary jazz drummers. In addition to his work with Lloyd in the quartet and in the Sangam trio (with Zakir Hussain) he has played and recorded with McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Greg Osby, Dave Holland and many others.

[GA Russell]

And here are the dates for Lloyd's two upcoming US tours to promote the album:

September 22 and 23 in Oakland, CA at Yoshi’s

September 24 in Santa Barbara, CA at the Lobero Theatre

September 25 in Los Angeles, CA at the Nate Holden Center Perf Arts

September 30 in Minneapolis, MN at the Dakota

October 2 in Quebec City, PQ at the Quebec City Jazz Festival

And in 2011

January 19 n Hanover, NH at Dartmouth College

January 21 and 22 in Boston, MA at the Regattabar

January 23 in Burlington, VT at the Flynn Center

January 26 in Amherst, MA at U Mass

January 28 in Middletown, CT at Wesleyan Univ.

January 29 in New York, NY at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall

January 30 in Buffalo, NY at the Albright-Knox Gallery

[Guy Berger]

Spoken word? Uggh.

[GregK]

Beach Boys?? Double ugggh.

[Guy Berger]

Beach Boys?? Double ugggh.

Now that's something I can't object to - "Caroline No" is an amazing tune; Lloyd has a way with ballads and this could be really great.

[GA Russell]

I have somewhere a Lloyd album from '72 that the Beach Boys appeared on called Warm Waters. It was an interesting experiment, but not a great record.

[mjzee]

I have somewhere a Lloyd album from '72 that the Beach Boys appeared on called Warm Waters. It was an interesting experiment, but not a great record.

I think they were both into Transcendental Meditation.

[GregK]

I was interested in the Lloyd until the 'Boys tune. Yuck. I have always hated them and their sickly poppish crap.

[Guy Berger]

I was interested in the Lloyd until the 'Boys tune. Yuck. I have always hated them and their sickly poppish crap.

<Shrug> Can't blame others for your blind spot.

[7/4]

I have somewhere a Lloyd album from '72 that the Beach Boys appeared on called Warm Waters. It was an interesting experiment, but not a great record.

I think they were both into Transcendental Meditation.

So is David Lynch...they should all do a movie together. Imagine the soundtrack.

[GregK]

I was interested in the Lloyd until the 'Boys tune. Yuck. I have always hated them and their sickly poppish crap.

<Shrug> Can't blame others for your blind spot.

or my own personal taste, you mean??

[Guy Berger]

I was interested in the Lloyd until the 'Boys tune. Yuck. I have always hated them and their sickly poppish crap.

<Shrug> Can't blame others for your blind spot.

or my own personal taste, you mean??

Well, your characterization of "Caroline No" suggests you are not very familiar with that song or much of their work.

[David Ayers]

Roscoe Mitchell's Far Side is due for UK release on 18 October. I listed the personnel below. There are three other titles due that day, one by Stephan Micus, one by Markku Ounaskari, Samuli Mikkonen, and Per Jorgensen, and one by Trygve Seim and Andreas Utnem. In a departure for this label, all four have very moody cover art, and contain a parental advisory not to play before the children are in bed and you are on your third helping of Nordic Melancholy Vodka.

Roscoe Mitchell

and the Note Factory

Far Side

Roscoe Mitchell: saxophones, flutes

Corey Wilkes: trumpet, flugelhorn

Craig Taborn: piano

Vijay Iyer: piano

Harrison Bankhead: cello, double_bass

Jaribu Shahid: double_bass

Tani Tabbal: drums

Vincent Davis: drums

ECM 2087 | CD 270 4801

Edited September 16, 2010 by David Ayers

[paul secor]

Roscoe Mitchell's Far Side is due for UK release on 18 October. I listed the personnel below. There are three other titles due that day, one by Stephan Micus, one by Markku Ounaskari, Samuli Mikkonen, and Per Jorgensen, and one by Trygve Seim and Andreas Utnem. In a departure for this label, all four have very moody cover art, and contain a parental advisory not to play before the children are in bed and you are on your third helping of Nordic Melancholy Vodka.

Roscoe Mitchell

and the Note Factory

Far Side

Roscoe Mitchell: saxophones, flutes

Corey Wilkes: trumpet, flugelhorn

Craig Taborn: piano

Vijay Iyer: piano

Harrison Bankhead: cello, double_bass

Jaribu Shahid: double_bass

Tani Tabbal: drums

Vincent Davis: drums

ECM 2087 | CD 270 4801

Thanks for the heads up on the Roscoe Mitchell. I look forward to hearing it. No listing here on Amazon.com or CDU yet.

[GA Russell]

Charles Lloyd's Mirror does not stray far afield from his past few ECM albums. I find it a little easier to digest initially than the others.

I suppose the primary difference between the various albums is the pianist. Jason Moran is fine here, but he doesn't do anything here that would make you want to rush out to buy one of his own albums.

I particularly like Monk's Mood and Caroline, No.

[jlhoots]

Charles Lloyd's Mirror does not stray far afield from his past few ECM albums. I find it a little easier to digest initially than the others.

I suppose the primary difference between the various albums is the pianist. Jason Moran is fine here, but he doesn't do anything here that would make you want to rush out to buy one of his own albums.

I particularly like Monk's Mood and Caroline, No.

I'm not sure what you mean, but you should buy (IMHO) the Jason Moran trio CD titled Ten.

[GregK]

Charles Lloyd's Mirror does not stray far afield from his past few ECM albums. I find it a little easier to digest initially than the others.

I suppose the primary difference between the various albums is the pianist. Jason Moran is fine here, but he doesn't do anything here that would make you want to rush out to buy one of his own albums.

I particularly like Monk's Mood and Caroline, No.

The last one was much better. Maybe because it was live, I don't know.

[GA Russell]

I have mixed feelings about Norma Winstone's new album Stories Yet to Tell. I've always loved her voice, and after forty years in the business she still sounds great. But I feel that she needs someone to give her advice regarding song selection for her albums.

Only one song here is the least bit uptempo. I don't dislike any of the tracks. Any one would be welcome as a respite in an album. But the songs are emotionally flat, and listening to an hour of that kind of music becomes a downer before it reaches its end.

As with her last album, she is joined only by Glauco Venier on piano and Klaus Gesing on bass clarinet and soprano sax. The absence of bass violin and drums gives the album more of a cabaret feeling than a jazz date.

This isn't an album I would recommend to someone to introduce him to Winstone.

[David Ayers]

It's as if ECM are turning jazz into some sort of lifestyle music. What next? Live jazz as background music for people drinking or having dinner? (I was going to put 'or dancing' but, come on.) Or maybe even some form of 'analogue' or 'digital' jazz recorded medium for people to 'throw on' while they partay or (more likely) do geeky things on their computer?

Only kidding. None of this could ever happen.