ECM

ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. ECM is best known for jazz music, but has released a wide variety of recordings, the artists associated with it often refusing to acknowledge boundaries between genres. ECM's motto is the Most Beautiful Sound Next to Silence, a phrase taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases in CODA, a Canadian jazz magazine. The label was distributed in t... more

ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. ECM is best known for jazz music, but has released a wide variety of recordings, the artists associated with it often refusing to acknowledge boundaries between genres. ECM's motto is the Most Beautiful Sound Next to Silence, a phrase taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases in CODA, a Canadian jazz magazine. The label was distributed in the USA by Warner Bros. Records, PolyGram Records, and BMG—and since 1999 by Universal Music, the successor of PolyGram. The first ECM release was Free at Last in 1969 by American pianist Mal Waldron. For some years the label specialised in jazz, releasing recordings by pianists Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Paul Bley, and Art Lande; saxophonist Jan Garbarek, vibraphonist Gary Burton; drummers Jon Christensen and Paul Motian; guitarists Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie, Ralph Towner, Bill Connors and Terje Rypdal; bassists Eberhard Weber, Charlie... less