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View Full Version : ECM: In search of free jazz and free expression



Neil McCauley
02-02-2016, 12:15
From the archives: n 9 July Manfred Eicher will be 70. He does not look his age, more like an amiable ascetic with a tidy moustache, medium-length grey hair, dressed in a shirt and jeans. Not a man of many words, his eyes casting slightly anxious glances here and there, but he is very attentive to others. In 1969 he founded Edition of Contemporary Music, aka ECM, in Munich. Okwui Enwezor, the head of Munich's Haus der Kunst, recently curated ECM – A Cultural Archaeology, assisted by historian Markus Müller. The exhibition has been a huge success, but what is there to show about a record label? Does ECM represent a work, an action, perhaps even an exception? "No," Eicher replies gently, "it's my life. What matters to me is the sense of being alive every day." So what was it all about? A retrospective, an installation, a display of record sleeves, photographs? "I'm not sure Munich remembers us," Eicher adds. He often says "us".

Much to my surprise the exhibition manages to conjure up much of ECM's magic. It centres on a room decorated with red neon lights, where a Jean-Luc Godard film loops endlessly. "To begin with I was puzzled by the idea of an exhibition," Eicher says. "I just let them get on with it. It's very moving."

From Tokyo to Vancouver, ECM is known for its top-notch artists, arty typeface, old-style photos, in short its style. Being an ECM artist allows self-expression in a community no-one would disown. Eicher must read a lot because in an attempt to explain the sort of independent label he wanted to set up, he describes it as .....

Please continue @ http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/mar/26/manfred-eicher-ecm-jazz-review