ECM releases need liner notes

[mjzee]

I think many ECM releases should come with liner notes, as a way to give listeners a way into the music. I know liner note writers are often maligned, but a good essay can give guidance to what the music is about. For example, John Abercrombie's "Cat 'N' Mouse" album. I was listening to the track "Third Stream Samba," and wondered, what exactly am I listening to? It's not a samba, I wouldn't necessarily associate it with third stream, it sounds like your basic amorphic ECM track (where you know that there's a composition there, but where exactly is it?). If the album had liner notes, with maybe a conversation with Abercrombie, he could discuss his concept about the track, where the title came from, what he thinks of the playing on the track, etc. And other questions, such as how the players got together, what's the meaning of the album title, is the cover a generic blurry ECM photo or does it have a relation to the date, etc. It would really help me, and might also help distinguish one ECM title from another.

[7/4]

Probably a good idea.

I think it would be cool if albums came with a chart for each tune too.

[king ubu]

Swallow's albums do... cool idea. But ECM is only the distribution (and production?) partner of Watt/XtraWatt, I think.

The liners of some of those Carla Bley albums, documenting the band's way through ole yurp are hilarious, methinks!

[A Lark Ascending]

Some ECMs have liner notes - Steve Lake has done quite a few.

I can live without liner notes - they can be useful for context but too often tend to be puff pieces trying to boost the performer or album; or just excuses for the writer to manufacture a grand theory out of the ether. I never found the Blue Note ones much help.

Liners work better for me when they are retrospective on reissues or compilations.

[save0904]

Some ECMs have liner notes - Steve Lake has done quite a few.

I can live without liner notes - they can be useful for context but too often tend to be puff pieces trying to boost the performer or album; or just excuses for the writer to manufacture a grand theory out of the ether. I never found the Blue Note ones much help.

Liners work better for me when they are retrospective on reissues or compilations.

Regarding the Blue Note liner notes, I'm with you if we talk about the original liner notes, but I really like the "A new look at .." ones (mostly by Bob Blumenthal), they're almost all informative and reflective about music and about the time the music was originally recorded.

Edited July 23, 2009 by save

[Dan Gould]

Way back when, Blue Note liner notes were very helpful in pointing me in the direction of countless other dates that I wanted to find, whether mentioned in the essay or pictured on the back.

[GregK]

Liner notes are always a good thing. Why just ECM though? I'd appreciate them with all jazz releases.

[mjzee]

Liner notes are always a good thing. Why just ECM though? I'd appreciate them with all jazz releases.

I guess I singled out ECM because I don't think I need much explanation about, say, a hard bop date: I understand the tune structure, what the players are trying to accomplish, and I have a pretty good idea about the individual sound and approach of the players. But I can listen to an ECM track and say, what is really going on here? What are they trying to accomplish? Is the point of the tune the pulse, the mood, the textures, the interplay of the players, the composition, was there really a composition? Since I assume there was an intention there, it would be nice to have some entree into the thinking, since I think it would increase my enjoyment of the music.

[Guest Bill Barton]

I'd tend to agree, but my bet is that Eicher would never go for the idea.

[Joe G]

Probably a good idea.

I think it would be cool if albums came with a chart for each tune too.

I was thinking about Swallow's album "Real Book" just today. Good album and a wonderful concept!

[7/4]

Of course, the original "illegal" Real Book had a bunch of ECM tunes like Metheny, Swallow & Jarrett, but I want more!

There's a great idea for a legit book - the ECM Real Book.

[seeline]

I think it might be hard to find people who both know a lot about many of the different kinds of music released by ECM and who are also capable of writing about it in a readable, intelligent way.

I sure would *not* want to tackle any of Savina Yannatou's releases, because her "book" is huge (pieces from the entire Mediterranean basin + the Balkans and Turkey) and there are many other artists whose albums are equally difficult to pin down. (And which would require encyclopedic knowledge to write about.)

There would also be a need for translations of liners into multiple languages, which is quite costly. That can be a nightmare to do, especially when dealing with music terminology. I once helped edit some material on Brazilian music that was translated from Brazilian Portuguese to English, and finding equivalent words/terms/expressions was very difficult. (Not in all cases, but in many.)

Edited July 24, 2009 by seeline

[king ubu]

ooooh, Yannatou! beautiful stuff, got to play these again soon!

this reminds me, I ought to finally get a Yasmin Levy disc...

now back on topic... well, sort of: the real book also contained virtually all of the great Atlantic album Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett - just as a reminder to Mr. 7/4 - some more goodies there!

I think the concept with ECM and liner notes is sort of... Eicher allows a selected few writers to do some for a selected few artists or something like that... Peter Rüedi (one of my guides into jazz, he had a great, great weekly record review, both new and old, I also learned about Mosaic from him) for instance wrote a liner in one of the first post-comeback Keith Jarrett discs, one of the last ones I bought).

And there's still some press coverage for ECM releases, for instance, recently there was an article by a journalist who visited the recoding sessions of Jon Balke's latest project at the radio studio in Lugano (Switzerland). But then I assume you don't get that outside of the German language areas, or much less than we do.

[seeline]

There's definitely press coverage - and detailed press releases - in the US and other English-speaking countries. Those press releases are (more or less) the kinds of things that mjzee is talking about per wishing there were liners.

[king ubu]

That's not what we get here, happily... but the cultural sections of the daily papers are getting smaller and smaller as we speak. Film coverage is about to disappear, and jazz, well... it was never covered thoroughly, but it seems ECM records will be about the last thing they'll stop to write about...

[A Lark Ascending]

Liner notes are always a good thing. Why just ECM though? I'd appreciate them with all jazz releases.

I guess I singled out ECM because I don't think I need much explanation about, say, a hard bop date: I understand the tune structure, what the players are trying to accomplish, and I have a pretty good idea about the individual sound and approach of the players. But I can listen to an ECM track and say, what is really going on here? What are they trying to accomplish? Is the point of the tune the pulse, the mood, the textures, the interplay of the players, the composition, was there really a composition? Since I assume there was an intention there, it would be nice to have some entree into the thinking, since I think it would increase my enjoyment of the music.

I recall making a similar suggestion about free jazz a few years back. Most ECMs (obvious exceptions like the Roscoe Mitchell and Evan Parker discs) work to relatively conventional harmonic structures - the listener can easily get a grip on what is happening from moment to moment even if they don't like or are bored by the results.

Free jazz tends to be a bit like Britain in 1940 - all the signposts are taken down. Yet the response I got when suggesting that performers explain what they are doing was along the lines of 'don't be silly, if you can't hear it then no writing about it will help.' Queue the 'talking about music/dancing about architecture' quote (normally attributed to several different people).

I'd imagine the general lack of liners on ECM is part of the general concept of raising an air of mystery about the records.

Practically, the days of liners look numbered as digital distribution takes over. I suspect a lot of this will go into electronically distributed publicity, blogs etc. Both Miroslav Vitous and John Surman have done interviews in Jazzwise surrounding their latest discs which provide the sort of context I think mjzee is looking for. Would be good to have things like this on the website.

Some of the strangest ECM liners come on Italian releases - initially written in high art/intellectual European linguistics, then translated. Quite bewildering. I believe I've got one by Umberto Eco - think it's a Trovesi disc.

Edited July 24, 2009 by Bev Stapleton

[mjzee]

I recall making a similar suggestion about free jazz a few years back.

One of the things I had in mind when I originally posted was the Cecil Taylor release "3 Phasis" on New World Records. It was a gatefold cover, with extensive liner notes by someone who attended the recording session. He detailed the session as it transpired, discussed the composition's different sections (which gave me a clue that it was rehearsed and wasn't just chaos), described the interactions among the players, and even quoted Cecil during the playback as saying, "Well, we knew it was good too." While Cecil's not a favorite of mine, it did help give me a better appreciation of the music.

[king ubu]

[...]

Some of the strangest ECM liners come on Italian releases - initially written in high art/intellectual European linguistics, then translated. Quite bewildering. I believe I've got one by Umberto Eco - think it's a Trovesi disc.

yup - "Cerca di cibo" by the folksy duo of Gianluigi Trovesi/Gianni Coscia has Eco liner notes... ECM has also released some films by Michel Godard (as well as the soundtrack to his slightly earlier film "Nouvelle Vague"). All that might be shrugged off by many as artsy fartsy, but I guess it's part of the image ECM tries to construct.