Fairly or not, Manfred Eicher’s ECM Records has long been saddled with a reputation for producing airy and cavernous Euro-jazz, best exemplified by Keith Jarrett’s mid-70s solo piano excursions and the Scandinavian folk / Gregorian chant mashups of tenor/soprano saxist Jan Garbarek. Certainly one needn’t dig deep into the label’s lesser releases from the 1980s and 1990s to support such a slightly dismissive report. And yet much like Blue Note’s brief championing of Cecil Taylor…
