Avishai Cohen – Naked Truth (with Yonathan Avishai, Barak Mori & Ziv Ravitz)

The next morning I drove to my hometown. At night I went out with friends and I told them about her. And I wrote to her that I talked about her to a girl I knew. And she got slightly jealous saying that that girl was smarter and cooler than her. While driving back home in the night I listened to this album in my car and I sent her a link to the second track. And I texted her that I don't know what other women I like, because you are the only woman ever. And how I much I ache that I can't have you here in my arms, listen to this song and run my fingers all over your beautiful body.

I won't see her ever again, I'm sure. And I won't even try to call her or text her. I will listen to this and cry and ache and wake up in the night. And bang my head because I was stupid enough to block her and not see what she wrote to me for the final time. Hoping that one day she will call me and with just a look in her eyes I will follow her and be her slave. 2022 cd on ECM.

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PS:

Yes, I know I will never see your eyes again, I will never hear your voice again. You hurt me so much. I could be anything you would ask me to be, apart from what you asked me to be. I refused that. But I love you and I cry every night. Every time a woman comes to have sex with me, I think only of you and I regret having sex with them, because all I want to do is mourn your absence. If you ever read this, just know that 

For you and I to be born 

Just for this 

Just to meet you 

Just for this was the world made my eyes

Just for this 

Just to meet you

Danish String Quartet - Prism IV: Beethoven / Mendelssohn / Bach

 

Aaaaand the most recent one.

2022 cd on ECM. 

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Danish String Quartet - Prism III: Beethoven / Bartók / Bach – Prism III

 

 Was about to post their latest (Prism IV), and I realized I hadn't posted this one, so there. Not much to be said.

2021 cd on ECM.

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Konstantia Gourzi – Anájikon

Greek modern classical composer, moods alternating between mournful homages to Mozart, ominous percussive ballet improvisations and epic string quartets. One of the best ECM releases in a long time. 2021 cd on ECM.

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Tom Van Der Geld And Children At Play ‎– Patience (ECM)

Atmospheric improvised jazz led by vibraphonist Tom Van Der Geld. 1978 LP on ECM.

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Louis Sclavis ‎– Characters On A Wall cd

Melancholic jazz dominates on the new album by Louis Sclavis, the two highlights of which are his beautiful bass clarinet playing and the very expressive drummer Christophe Lavergne. 2019 cd on ECM.

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Heinz Holliger, György Kurtág ‎– Zwiegespräche

Heinz Holliger's Beiseit / Alb-Chehr was the first ECM-released recording I had ever heard and I still spin it quite often. In this recording, Holliger tracks are interwoven with tracks by Romanian composer György Kurtág, many of which are sung by a soprano singer. The tone of Holliger's oboe is unmistakable and the atmosphere here is so fragile and wintry, that it makes you just need to lie down and listen to this without doing anything. Superb. 2019 cd on ECM.

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Danish String Quartet - Prism II: Beethoven / Schnittke / Bach

On this second installation they start with Bach's "Fugue In B Minor BWV 869," continue with Alfred Schnittke's unsettling "String Quartet No. 3" and finish with Beethoven's lengthy "
String Quartet No. 13 In B-flat Major." Excellent again. 2019 cd on ECM.

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Danish String Quartet - Prism I: Beethoven / Shostakovich / Bach

Some music for the Xmas dinner. I find the concept of Danish String Quartet's Prism albums very interesting, as they start and finish them with tracks by Beethoven and Bach which envelope another, more modern composer. In this first installation, they set off with Bach's "Fugue in E-Flat Major" from The Well-Tempered Clavier and continue with Shostakovich's "String Quarter No.15 in E-Flat Minor," which is super-dark and droney (written juts a year before his death), with the violins occassionally sounding as if they had been played with an e-bow. They round the recording off on a much more optimistic tone with Beethoven's "String Quartet No. 12 In E-flat Major." DSQ is a talented group with great dialogue between the instruments and I think they are one of the most forward-looking classical music groups at the moment. 2018 cd on ECM.

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Avishai Cohen / Yonathan Avishai ‎– Playing The Room

Avishai Cohen's previous album on  ECM Cross My Palm With Silver was excellent and in this new collaboration with pianist Yonathan Avishai he continues offering beautiful nightly jazz. I love his trumpet tone, he is very close both in accent and feeling to Chet Baker, and I dig that there are no Euro-jazz elements, the ones that ECM keeps releasing and I keep avoiding,but there are huge blues undertones, reminding of Keith Jarret's best moments. Excellent album, highly recommended. 2019 cd on ECM

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Kit Downes - Dreamlife Of Debris

The second album of Kit Downes on ECM retains the church organ basis of the previous album Obsidian, but incorporates other instruments, namely piano played by him, saxophone (already present in Obsidian), cello, guitar, and drums. The sound is deeper, more unsettling, with the instruments creating worrying atmospheres, reaching drone levels at times, and the reverberating sound giving the album a very unique quality. 2019 cd on ECM.

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Don Cherry - Dona Nostra cd

An incredible swan song by legendary trumpeter Don Cherry, who died a few years after releasing this album. Top-notch nightly jazz with touches of world music, played by a superb sextet featuring Bobo Stenson on the piano and Anders Jormin on bass. 1994 cd on ECM.

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Lena Willemark & Ale Möller ‎– Agram

I'm not too much a fan of nordic jazz or nordic folk, but this is truly an exceptional release by vocalist/fiddler Lena Willemark and multi-instrumentalist Ale Möller, both hailing from Sweden. This is an exceptionally creative mix of folk music from the North with northern jazz (for those who think this will be tedious Garbarek rehashing, give it a chance), along with eastern influences arising from the extensive use of hammered dulcimer and harp and some of the melodies that are based on Eastern rather than Scandi-folk scales. There's also a sense of drone and pagan ritual music fused with improvised jazz on the awesome Bjornen. Cool stuff. 1996 cd on ECM.

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Michael Mantler - Cerco Un Paese Innocente

Amalgam of contemporary European jazz and classical on this musical interpretation of poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti (a very well-known Italian poet that was however affiliated with the fascist regime of Mussolini). 1995 cd on ECM.

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Arvo Pärt ‎– The Symphonies (Tõnu Kaljuste, NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra) (ECM)

End-of-summer laziness and boredom and the exhaustion of a very difficult winter are too overwhelming for me to write anything of substance and to scan/upload covers, etc. so there you go. A new recording of all 4 Arvo Pärt symphonies conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste and performed by the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, this is the first studio recording of the fourth "Los Angeles" symphony of 2010. People who have mostly come to Pärt through his beautiful choral work or his masterful solo pieces "Fur Alina," "Spiegel Im Spiegel" or Tabula Rasa might surprised by the sometimes aggression and darkness hovering over these symphonies, especially the first two, which have that ominous Shostakovich/"Soviet" style, while Symphony 4 is perhaps closer to the majestic choral work, and Symphony 3 has a more majestic and cinematic feel to it, more particularly in the third movement. 2018 cd on ECM.

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Joe Maneri & Mat Maneri - Blessed

I find this to be one of the most inventive albums in free/improvisational jazz. Rather than a full-scale attack of horns, drums, etc., this is a rather pensive, meticulous form of improvisation based on droning microtonal dialogues between tenor sax dad Joe and violin son Mat Maneri. The level of attentiveness and cooperation is just amazing. Highly recommended. 1998 cd on ECM.

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RIP Tomasz Stańko

It was only yesterday that I saw that Tomasz Stańko passed away of lung cancer. He was one of the most important contemporary jazz musicians and trumpeters, with an amazing sound whose romanticism and tenderness was up there with the giant Chet Baker and his compositions had this amazing nightly feeling that is hard to rival.

As the tiniest tribute I share the commemorative video ECM prepared which includes some of his most touching moments.

plus his amazing version of Krysztof Komeda's "Litania" (aka Rosemary's Baby)

Stephan Micus - Desert Poems

I think this is one of the most overlooked Micus albums. It doesn't have the epic quality of say Ocean or the experimental edge of The Music of Stones, neither the devotional loneliness of Athos, but still it's a noteworthy album. For one, it contains one of the most beautiful short tracks he's ever written, "Adela," another track with mourning violins that's great, "Shen Khar Venakhi," a great love song with an a-cappella delivery, "Contessa Entelina," and a lonely shakuhachi hymn, "For Yukand generally it's a diverse album with both classical music elements and a lot of African percussion moments that are cool and relaxing. 2001 cd on ECM.


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Stephan Micus - Till The End Of Time

OMG look at how young and virile Stephan Micus looks here bro! Even his voice is less raspy and softer. This is the last album outside of ECM and it's a short but gorgeous album, dominated by table harps and zithers that provide that trademark sacred quality of his music. What is surprising is the extensive use of classical guitar, which is very rarely heard in his music, perhaps only as its Spanish variations. Thereby this album has a more traditionally folk and "European" than the majority of his oeuvre. First released in 1978 on Japo Records, this is the 2001 ECM cd reissue.

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Shinya Fukumori Trio ‎– For 2 Akis cd

The ECM debut for Japanese drummer Shinya Fukumori and his trio, consisting of pianist Walter Lang and tenor saxophonist Matthieu Bordenave, is a truly lyrical piece of jazz, without any fanfares, just beautiful quiet nightly music. Definitely an early top for 2018 ECM releases.

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