ECM introduced, established, supported, and broke an astonishing array
of unique instrumentalists over the years,not to mention photographers
like Franco Fontana by way of their cover art and design layout.
However, they were not without detractors or controversy. Manfred
Eicher, who founded ECM records and thoroughly applied his personal
vision to the whole style and sound of the label, did so to such a
degree that you really had to be either sympathetic to his aesthetic,
or you had to take that as part and parcel of that ECM sound while
listening past that on to whatever ECM recordings of theirs you were
interested in hearing solely for the musicians it featured.
Interestingly, Eicher was a huge Bergman fan, and there is a bit of an
apt comparison there..... at least in as much as that both Eicher and
Bergman had a singular vision colored by an strong aesthetic and
always did things their way despite having an astonishing strong host
of willing artists with which to work with. Okay, enough contemplating
the aesthetics of ECM and its impact as an artistic entity--how about
just trying to list the amazing guitarists that made their rep, or at
least part of it, on ECM recordings?
Rypdal---->to my mind he's perhaps the quintessential ECM guitarist.
Terje was kind of northern Europe's jazz/fusion Siamese step-cousin to
non-jazz guitarists like Jeff Beck, Dick Dale, or even pink floyd's
david gilmore---maybe it's the strat, or the abandon and perceived
slop that results in that.... or perhaps the overall emotive impact?
Anyway, he had a gazillion goosepimply moments on ECM, and i have a
couple dozen personal desert island favorites. Okay, to start with,
every last bit of After the Rain, all the solos on Water Stories
(maybe his best stint as a guest soloist ever), the early, intensely
Eurocentric take on Miles' Bitches Brew on the self-titled 1971
recording, Terje Rypdal--especially the opening and last tracks, "Keep
it like That Tight" and "Tough Enough" ,a few of the strings and tight
fusion arrangements on If mountain Could sing, the power trio and even
(gasp) Van Halenisims on the first Chaser's CD, a few of the lovely,
lushly orchestral bits on Lux Aeterna, especially the title cut of the
final movement, lux Aeterna, and, well, on and on it would go if it
weren't for the fact that i have probably forgotten a few and a bunch
of others have great, stunning cuts here and there, like the title cut
on Skywards for example. But i also intentionally didn't include a few
of the other often-mentioned recordings like the vitous /DeJohnette
recording "To be continued" or the other Bjornstad’ non-Water stories
recordings, and the David Darling duets. Great, great players on there
one-and-all of course, and Rypdal is always at the very least worthy
of a listen as a guitarist, but none of these are near the level of
the recordings i singled out,IMpO. Btw, i had the opportunity to study
with/play for David Darling when i a teenager, and he was a great
enthusiastic guy who gave me a lot of positive encouragement and
advice. But i'll never forget one day when he took me aside and told
me that he thought Terje Rypdal was the best guitarist in the world,
"better than Van Halen" i think he said, and that he was unknown only
because he was a European and not an American .This was probably 81 or
82 after EVH had pretty thoroughly broke on the scene and was already
considered to be a serious bad-ass rock guitar guy....and while i
surely had a more pronounced liking for Rypdal myself, i honestly
think David didn't realize that EVH had probably already at that point
influenced Rydal himself to a certain degree here and
there..........an amazing thing really for an already established,
world-class artist late in their professional career. Like Miles, who
clearly understood the implications and potential resources of Jimi
Hendrix, this, as much as anything else, underscores the non-orthodox,
unselfishly creative mindset of someone like a Terje rypdal----and
hats off to that, no?
Towner--->okay, well if it Rypdal isn't the guy, then Ralph Towner
definitely is! I was fortunate enough to attend a master class with
Towner and Abercrombie when they were touring their great Saragossa
Sea recording, and Towner shared a lot of beautiful information
complete with playing examples----like when you set a thing properly
in motion, it's still there in the listener's mind even if you drop it
entirely and move on to another different, though related idea.The
trick is to truly set it into motion, a thing that might require less
repetition than you'd think, too. Ok,True story: i bought my first
Oregon record ,Distant Hills, with money from my paper route on summer
day by riding my 10speed to the neighboring town of Westboro,
Massachusettts and picking it out of the record bin at the now defunct
Caldor's department store. On the way home i pulled off into a
sizzling, stereophonic bug humming field and stared at the back of the
album cover for a long time wondering what the hell a classical
guitar, oboe, upright bass, and sitar /tabla could possibly sound like
together......man, was i on my way or what? Towner's an amazing guy on
the nylon string....a kind of like Bill Evans meets leo Brower,but for
me it was always his 12-string that stood WAY out in contrast to what
others were doing in that context . Not a lot of guys made this
instrument theirs....i saw Coryell two or three times dueting with
polish violinist Michael Urbaniak, and in this setting he almost
exclusively played the 12-string.However ,he was more of less playing
what he always played acoustically, only faster than you'd expect
circular picking on a 12-string. Other players, especially Robbie
Basho who comes right to mind, and Leo Kottke added some other, non-
sixstring personality and dimension to it. But man, Towner really took
it out there into Towner-land........and hey, if if you don't believe
me, just look no further than Ralph Towner with Glen Moore Trios/Solos
record.Anyone familiar with this recording?it's no doubt a kind of an
ECM throwaway in the great pantheon of accepted classics, but
interestingly enough I think Towner has some of his best solo 12-
string playing (and i've heard a pile too) on this record....so, if
you can, check out the cuts 1 X 12 and 3 X 12---amazing stuff.
Frisell------>okay, well if the quintessential ECM guitarist isn't
Rypdal or Towner, then it's certainly frisell. I mean what can you say
at this point......he's recorded with everybody and everybody else’s
uncle... he always sounds great despite having been on ten trillion
recordings in a zillion diametrically opposed settings, and next to
Metheny he's definitely the most universally influential ECM
guitarist. I was lucky enough to open for him and Tim Berne at the
WCUW JazzFest in the Worcester, Massachusetts Science Center's
Planetarium while they were supporting their record Theoretically .And
man was it great to sit a few inches from the bespectacled Frisell and
his SG as he bent the neck and challenged the truss rod to deny him
his microtonal, lonely whistle sonorities.
Metheny--------->okay, well if the quintessential ECM guitarist isn't
Rypdal or towner or Frisell, then there might be space for an argument
that it's Metheny. Probably not, but without a doubt he's their most
influential recording artist. Listening back, it's amazing,
considering his pre- Bright Sized Life output that BSL just screamed,
quintessential genius in his debut recording......and it's still my
favorite Pat Metheny record by far, even after all these years. Just
an aside in all this, as I really don't have a vested opinion not
being devoted big fan or a devoted not-fan. I rather tend to see
Metheny in the context of the great ECM guitar pantheon, and perhaps
even more so, the great jazz guitar pantheon, both of which I see him
in as an honorary member in that given milieu doing his thing. Oddly
enough, Metheny wasn't always a well-respected jazz guitarist, as i'm
old enough to remember that Metheny was, at least initially, heavily
slagged by many of his jazz contemporaries as a kind of bubblegum jazz
musician---more of less ala Kenny G today....funny how times have and
have not changed, no? BTW, i saw Miles Davis With Mike Stern on guitar
OPEN for Pat metheny in a free concert on the Boston commons,and i
shudder to think of what Miles had to say during negations for that
tour! Anyway, Stern was great that night, but Metheny really upped the
anti as i saw it back then, and he and his band turned in a remarkable
performance that really stood above.
Gismonti----->A real marvel, and perhaps the most underrated/
underappreciated member of the great ECM guitar pantheon.
Torn----->man-o-man-ohhhhh-man. check the first everyman band
record.check it, check it,check it, just check it....... because it's
the portrait of a classic in repose. In much the same way that Coryell
and McLaughlin had brought the dynamic of Hendrix and '60s psychedelia
to jazz guitar before him, it's my contention that David Torn brought
a Phillip K. Dick-like futuristic dynamic to jazz where EddieVan Halen
is re-envisioned as Ornette Coleman and heavy metal adds something
beyond the electro magnetic fence to what's already there as jazz
guitar....well Torn did just that with his playing on the first
Everyman Band record. But unlike Coryell and McLaughlin's pioneering
work, which had many guitarist following in their footsteps, I can't
think of hardly anyone who really followed up Torn's example--not even
Torn himself! (Actually, Torn's playing on Jan Garbarek's It's OK To
Listen To The Gray Voice is a nice bit of middle ground between the
more oblique, exotic loop-based mature sound that he's best known for
today and this singular sort of early heavy metal-jazz/rock-fusion
sound.) Many players might mention Holdsworth as the first example of
this sort, as he influenced Van Halen and clearly Torn as well on the
first Everyman Band recording, and all that is true enough and
Holdsworth stands way apart from most players with the degree to which
he has assimilated a Coltrane-like dedication and compass to
improvisation. But there's a stylistic aggressiveness and attitude on
the firs, self-titled Everyman Band recording that really separates
Torn's playing from anything else at the time and most things that
came after as far as fusion guitar goes. Just remember you heard it
here first.....this record is a future fusion guitar benchmark that
jut has to await it's time.
Tibbetts----------------->the Minnesota native was already a well-
respected underground legend for his independently released solo
recordings before he signed on to ECM. And hey, anybody remotely jazz-
related who says something to the effect of "who would you rather
listen too ,Motorhead or Earl Klugh?” is pretty cool in my book---
especially if they make a music like Tibbetts did. Anyway, i saw
tibbets live at the WAG a few times, and man was he great. For a duo
they had an absolutely HUGE and BEAUTIFUL sound with percussionist
Marc Anderson alternating between a plethora of hand percussion, steel
drums, and a modified trap kit really being every bit as amazing as
Tibbetts. Also, Tibbetts occasionally got a massively garish,
distorted tone by using an obscure effect called a compander--->I.e.
an expander/ compressor which enables the signal to open up into a
huge and aggressive attack arcs depending upon the pick attack. FWiW,
one of my personal big time hero/ motivators was another Minnesota guy
Sigurd Olson. I know he was a controversial figure locally as he was
hung in effigy outside the courthouse by a group of local good ole
boys over the boundary waters canoe area wilderness act. Well good for
him, and god (or whatever) bless him and his snowshoes and canoes--and
for what it's worth, it was his early, quasi-spiritual /religious
experiences out-of-doors as described by David backe in his Wilderness
Theology that drew me to him as an oddly simpatico personage.
Abercrombie-------------------> kind of the great utility guy, or
seventh player award guy of the classic ECM guitar stable. Abercrombie
always took an equal-opportunity approach to either the world fusion
of a Nana Vasconcelo or Conlon Walcott, or the meanish John McLaughlin-
esqe fusion of a Timeless or the first Gateway recording or the
classic jazz-rock of Liberman's great 1973 ECM recording, Lookout
Farm .Never had a singular, defining style per se, but almost always
sounded good and special, and was also much more of an orthodox jazz
guitarist than any other big-time ECM guitarists aside from Methany
and Frisell.
Bill Connors----------> another ECM chameleon type guy who stood
somewhat outside of the excepted pantheon of individualistic, stylized
ECM guitarists--so much so that I guess he needs a first name! Anyway,
I always liked his early RTF McLaughlin-esque guitar, and especially
his later vibes, flute/sax and acoustic guitar trio recordings with
Tom Van Der Geld a lot despite the fact that there really wasn't any
comparatively obvious originality in his approach given the overall
context of most of the other players mentioned here.
Am I forgetting anybody? Well, of course I am, as there were a ton of
other relevant guitarists who recorded under the ECM banner,
especially later. But as a label with a guitar-roster ranging from
Steve Vai to to Derek Bailey and well beyond, it's hard not to leave
somebody deserving a mention out, such as some of the more obscure
figures like Eliovson, Hajo Webern,Ulich Ingenbold , and Om's Christy
Doran, et al.
http://www.myspace.com/danstearns