The ECM All-Stars (Jack DeJohnette -Top left – Collin Walcott (Top right) – Dave Holland (Right center) – John Abercrombie (Center center) – Steve Kuhn (Center – right) – Ralph Towner (Bottom Right) – Summit meeting at The Village Gate.

Diving into some celebration this weekend – the ECM All-Stars gathering at The Village Gate, recorded January 19, 1976 – broadcast (possibly) by WBCN-FM.

Although this broadcast has been making the rounds over the years in an unofficial capacity, this is still a special concert celebrating a label whose eclectic roster has made it one of the more adventuresome endeavors in the area of Jazz and all its offshoots.

ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM’s artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres. ECM’s motto is “the most beautiful sound next to silence”, taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases in Coda, a Canadian jazz magazine.

The first ECM release produced by Manfred Scheffner was pianist Mal Waldron‘s 1969 recording Free at Last. The label went on to release recordings by many prominent jazz musicians, including Paul Bley, Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Charlie Haden, John Abercrombie, Dave Liebman, Eberhard Weber, Egberto Gismonti, Dave Holland, Terje Rypdal, Stefano Bollani and Ralph Towner. The label has also released recordings in the world music genre by artists including Steve Tibbetts, Stephan Micus, Codona, Anouar Brahem, L. Shankar, Jon Hassell, and Naná Vasconcelos.

Manfred Eicher continues to take an active interest in the music released by ECM, acting as producer of the vast majority of its recordings, although Steve Lake, Thomas Stoewsand, Robert Hurwitz, Lee Townsend, Hans Wendl and Sun Chung have also produced discs for the label. The typical ECM session is just three days: two days to record, one day to mix. Many of the albums have been recorded with Jan Erik Kongshaug (of Talent Studios and later Rainbow Studios) in Oslo, Norway, as sound engineer; other engineers have included Martin Wieland (who recorded Jarrett’s “The Köln Concert”), James Farber, Stefano Amerio and, on classical recordings, Peter Laenger.

ECM recordings are often described as having a transparent sound that is rich in overtones. But there is no one-size-fits-all ‘ECM sound’. Each recording is attuned to the sound of the players and singers, not vice versa. ‘Of course we take every possible care with the technology’, as Manfred Eicher has said, ‘But the deciding factor is always the music and the aesthetic ideas that go with it. That is what gives the sound its characteristics. The vessel is always shaped to fit its contents.’

That’s a little background on ECM as the iconic label – but to give you some idea of what a gathering of those artists in a live context is all about, dive into this one. Hopefully, it will stimulate exploring.

‘Cause exploring is what it’s all about.

Enjoy.