ECM - The label of the personal

[Seán]

This article was published in today's Irish Times:

WHEN PRODUCER Manfred Eicher established the German independent music label, ECM – the letters stand for Edition of Contemporary Music – in 1969, there was, he says, “no plan, nothing”. He simply wrote to the musicians he had met on the road and asked whether they would be interested in recording for the new label, writes RAY COMISKEY

Forty years on, ECM’s huge catalogue is extraordinarily diverse. Contemporary classical and improvised music, Gregorian chant, music inspired by Greek tragedy, settings of the writings of Sufi and Christian mystics, folk music from all over Europe, north Africa, the Middle East, genre-bending, cross-cultural music – all are part of ECM’s list. A movie buff, Eicher has also released albums inspired by the films of directors such as Pasolini, Tarkovsky, Angelopolous and Godard. He produces every album himself.

Talking about it, he is animated and passionate. There is a sense that, intellectually and emotionally, this cultural diversity sustains him while giving focus to his work and his life. “I don’t know how people see it from the outside, but I do what I feel is courageous and personal music for recording,” he says. “I need music that speaks to me personally and where I feel that the people behind it, whether it’s a composer, or a group of people singing, or musicians per se, have something to offer that is personal .”

He stresses that last word, and it’s this approach which, for the all its genre diversity and multiculturalism, gives ECM’s catalogue its serendipitous coherence while leaving its capacity for surprise undiminished.

“We can do both things on a high level,” Eicher adds, “the improvised music and the written music. So we have Arvo Pärt, György Kurtág, Beethoven, Mozart. We can do it painstakingly with the best musicians in this field, and we can switch to the other territory and do it with improvised and jazz music as well, with the best musicians. And I need this kind of contrast that makes me alert to differences.”

A classically trained musician, whose childhood in Lindau, southern Germany, was steeped in the violin and the Schubert and Beethoven quartets, Eicher took up the double bass at 14 when he got interested in jazz and improvised music. For a time he played double bass in a Berlin orchestra, but left to look for something else to do with his musical life. He went to Munich and eventually started ECM in 1969.

One of the first musicians he wrote to was Keith Jarrett, sending him a test pressing of the Jan Garbarek record, Afric Pepperbird (1970). They met in Munich when Jarrett was there with Miles Davis and decided to record together. The result, after discussions, became Jarrett’s solo album, the influential Facing You , made in Oslo in 1971.

“That’s a very strong, actually first, impulsive recording,” says Eicher. “From there on we could go further, because we had a very great affinity in the studio and working situation.”

THE AFFINITY BETWEEN the intense, volatile pianist and the utterly engaged producer has continued in the four decades since then, making Jarrett, along with Norwegian saxophonist Garbarek, a key figure in ECM’s jazz catalogue. Eicher has a formidable reputation as a hands-on producer, and musicians who record for him know that, like it or not, this will be an intensely two-way process.

“The way I see it, producing records for me,” he says, “is based on something like inhalation/exhalation. I’m a passionate musician and I have a lot of empathy for people. That means if I share an affinity with a musical idea and with a person, I would like to pull out as much as possible.

“And I would like to guide people also by helping them not only during the making of the music in the studio, but also already in a kind of researching of ideas, and of different kinds of musical landscape to formulate and bring it together. So we discuss this and go into the studio and start the next process.”

After that, he says, there are decisions about how to present the music, the kind of cover and text needed. “All these kind of things are extremely important – as in Goethe’s relationship with Eckermann, there was always a kind of discourse,” he says.

Johann Peter Eckermann, the German poet, author and editor, was a close friend and confidant of Goethe, and made important contributions to the understanding of the seminal German playwright, poet and philosopher.

“Goethe needed an Eckermann,” Eicher adds, “to provoke thoughts and ideas, and people need an Eckermann to go on with more provocation of thoughts and ideas. And that’s how I feel with congenial musicians like Keith Jarrett. They can play, whatever they play is a kind of musical event, but it’s not necessarily the shape of things that we all feel needs to go out. So in this case every musician, I think, needs a corrective listener.”

One striking aspect of Eicher’s work is his affinity with Scandinavian musicians, especially those from Norway, whose work has a kind of purity of spirit, a sense that everything is transient, nothing is permanent, but you endure despite that. Is that how he sees it?

“When I was 20 I travelled for the first time to the north, to Tromsø, and since then I was kind of fascinated by the light,” he says. “So, from the beginning, that kind of landscape meant a lot. Later on I travelled to Sweden, and so the way you describe the cultural impact from these countries, in the music, the literature, Strindberg, Ibsen, or movies like Ingmar Bergman, that speaks what you say.

“But still there is no Scandinavian music per se,” he adds, “because there is also wonderful music from Poland. You can think about the Slavic element, the Baltic scene, Hungarian music, Kurtág, Bartók, others. So what became Scandinavian in terms of the music landscape, let’s say, in the last 40 years, since we worked on it, has also to do with our impact and my personal affinity for this music. Because I met with Jan Garbarek in Bologna and decided we do recordings together. We became friends. And we have changed something together in Norway’s music landscape. And with the following group that developed out of this first idea, we have done something with Swedish musicians like Bobo Stenson, Bernt Rosengren and all those kinds of things. But my guidance was more to Norway.”

With Garbarek’s help, this guidance has fostered several generations of Norwegian musicians with an increasing awareness of the country’s rich folk-music heritage, personified by the outstanding Hardanger fiddle player, Nils Økland. This influence is another example of the impact Eicher has had on European music.

IF CHANGE AND development has marked his artistic work, technology is also changing the way music is delivered to people. What implications does it have for ECM?

“It has none,” Eicher answers firmly. “Of course, the distribution of music is different now. It’s becoming more delicate with downloads. But I like to think about the architecture of every record. The sequence means a lot to me. So all the sequences that you hear on records, 99 per cent, are done by myself at the final stage. We talk with the musicians about the order, of course, but the architecture of a record needs to be shaped.

“You can only do this with a finished sound-carrier. That means one record in the shape of the things you like to present. With the new technology you can push a button and make your own order. That’s fine. But first I like to present a record like a writer presents his book.”

Finally, just as some of the most eloquent music speaks of transience, what happens to ECM when its moving spirit – himself – is no longer there? “Then,” he says, “if technology and other things don’t change even that kind of particular archive that we have, we have a wonderful archive of music, music that guided many people to long careers in their lives. That’s what counts. And whether I’m there or not, the music will be there. So then I can only say that as long as I can listen to music and travel and produce what I want to produce, I will do so.”

[cybot]

Thanks for that Séan :-)

[Seán]

Thanks for that Séan :-)

My pleasure, it's good to get feedback, thank you.

[cybot]

Thanks for that Séan :-)

My pleasure, it's good to get feedback, thank you.

Do you know who I am? Ah you'll find out eventually :-))

[Seán]

Thanks for that Séan :-)

My pleasure, it's good to get feedback, thank you.

Do you know who I am? Ah you'll find out eventually :-))

My long lost little furry friend of the genus rattus rattus perhaps?

[cybot]

My long lost little furry friend of the genus rattus rattus perhaps?[/quote]

I knew you'd smell a rat! Anyway it's great to be back among friends....

[Seán]

I knew you'd smell a rat! Anyway it's great to be back among friends....

Welcome back my friend, and now how do we find mcq?

[dchriz01]

Thank you for posting that Séan. This article really got my attention. Keep it up. :)