Commissioned by the Molde International Jazz Festival and recorded live at the Norwegian festival in 2010, “La notte” is a salute to Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, whom Ketil Bjørnstad counts amongst his formative influences. “At the same time that I discovered what jazz could be, after listening to Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way, I also saw the films by Godard, Bresson and Antonioni. Perhaps it was the slow, rhythmic authority in the films by Michelangelo Antonioni that made me think of music… As long as visual art creates music in our minds, and music creates pictures and visual expressions with the same intensity, the two are deeply and profoundly interdependent”. This album, then, can be considered “the soundtrack to an inner film”, in which Antonioni’s images and atmospheres are translated and transformed through personal moods and memories.

Ketil Bjørnstad's passion for the English metaphysical poet John Donne (1572-1631) is a lifelong affair. The Norwegian pianist-composer's settings of Donne's verse have led to recordings including The Shadow, Grace, the ECM album The Light, and now this important disc. "After working with the texts of John Donne for more than twenty years, I still find new approaches to understanding what he wrote and I find music throughout. It is in the language, in the rhythm, in the silence between the sentences - a passionate quest for meaning and reconciliation. Donne's dramatic life is reflected in the texts and everywhere in them you will find the passion, melodies and sounds".

Tuki is the song of one given to many. As the ECM leader debut of master drummer Momodou “Miki” N’Doye, it houses multiple fates under one roof and collates them into discernible rhythms and voices. N’Doye hails from Gambia, where in the mid-70s he met Norwegian musician Helge Linaae. This encounter brought him to Oslo, where, after coming into contact with such influential movers as Jon Balke, his future as shaker in the far north was secured.

There’s something about the title of “Pure Mode,” prologue to Mat Maneri’s first solo album, Trinity, that describes his abilities just right. Like the nine improvisations that follow, it jumps off of a prewritten motive (in this case, by Matthew Shipp) and offers us a four-stringed experience like no other. Maneri goes unplugged this time, feeling out the forest of richness already ingrained into the wood and gut at his bow. He stews in every design for what it’s worth and walks along a slippery melodic slope as if it were dry and even ground.

Small Places is double bassist/composer Michael Formanek’s follow-up to “The Rub and Spare Change”, his widely lauded ECM debut as a leader. If anything, Small Places is a step beyond this quartet’s first release, with the compositions and improvisation blending so seamlessly that a listener is scarcely able to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. Earthy yet atmospheric, this is very 21st-century American jazz, the music brimming with piquant riffs and muscular ostinatos, rich in melodic possibility and the sound of surprise.

First ECM recording of a quartet formed in 2003. Originally billed as the Ethan Iverson-Mark Turner Quartet, it soon became the Billy Hart Quartet, and under this name has played shows to packed houses each year in New York City. The group’s first album for hard-bop label High Note in 2005 figured on many critics’ best-of-the year list. Since then, the ensemble’s music has gotten more free and spacious, a sensibility that aligns perfectly with ECM. While drummer Hart’s swinging beat and delicate cymbal tracery have previously been heard on the label behind Charles Lloyd and Bennie Maupin, and tenorist Mark Turner has appeared on acclaimed recording with the Fly Trio and Enrico Rava, “All Our Reasons” is a label debut for Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Ben Street.

John Surman's thoughtful solos (which take their time and make a liberal use of space) have long made him the perfect ECM artist. On his quartet set with pianist John Taylor, bassist Chris Laurence and drummer John Marshall, Surman mostly sticks to soprano although there are some short spots for his baritone and bass clarinet. Surman always sounds relaxed, even on the more heated originals. It's an interesting set of generally introverted music.

A saxophone workout from '85 by outstanding British player John Surman. While solo sax can be extremely tiring, Surman mixes enough elements of rock, free, blues, and hard bop to keep the songs varied. His aggressive style, especially on baritone, keeps the energy level high.

Quiver finds trumpeter Ralph Alessi and his quartet in a lyrical, reflective mood. Alessi describes the atmosphere in the recording studio as "pensive," a quality that imbues this music. The group includes most of the players from Alessi's acclaimed ECM leader debut Baida (2013). Drew Gress (double-bass) and Nasheet Waits (drums) return, with Gary Versace taking the piano chair in place of Jason Moran.

After an already healthy representation of the compositional prowess of Heinz Holliger, ECM decided to put out this disc pairing some of his earliest work from the sixties with that of decades later, thereby providing an engaging survey of a musical mind that turns like a kaleidoscope: holding tight to symmetries so that it might fragment their interiors in ever-novel, I would say linguistic, combinations. For indeed, language is what Holliger is all about. From the poetry that inspired him as a youth to the poetry that he creates as an adult, the Swiss composer revels in every portion of his mental reserve to fish out some of the most heartfelt music of the twentieth century.

A reduction in personnel rarely results in a broader musical expanse, but that's just what happened to Food, since trumpeter Arve Henriksen and bassist Mats Eilertsen departed in 2004. Molecular Gastronomy (Rune Grammofon, 2008)—Food's first duo recording, though the use of guests fleshed the group out to a trio—was Food's most accessible album to date, without sacrificing any of its inherent risk and sound of surprise. Quiet Inlet—Food's first for ECM, and featuring Austrian guitarist Christian Fennesz on three tracks and Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer on four—follows Molecular Gastronomy's path, but remains equally traceable to earlier albums, including Food's quartet swan song, The Last Supper (Rune Grammofon, 2005). Even as a duo, Food generates a lot of sound. Strønen, in particular, combines bastardized drum kit, hand percussion and technology into a distinctive soundscaping approach, from pulse-driven to textural; spatially ethereal to jagged and dense. Ballamy's more economical playing is equally key in establishing a group sound, and based on its performance at Punkt 2006, Food could easily have continued on as a duo, but increases the unpredictability quotient by introducing a third player to the set.

In a blindfold test it would be easy to identify pianist Steve Kuhn's CD as a stereotypical ECM recording. With its emphasis on space, rather slow development and occasional repetition, the performances of Kuhn, bassist David Finck and drummer Joey Baron (all but one of the 11 pieces are Kuhn originals) only occasionally rise above the level of background music. There are some heated moments on the sixth song ("All the Rest Is the Same") and the tenth ("Bittersweet Passages") but most of this set is rather sleepy and melancholy, not living up to the potential of these talented musicians.

It's a seductive, sometimes shocking and viscerally exciting musical experience; the premier recording of an unconventional opera that made a major impact at its premiere in Geneva in 2002. Landschaft mit entfernten Verwandten translates as 'Landscape with distant relatives', and trying to describe it is a bit of a nightmare…not least because Goebbels himself doesn't exactly revel in unpicking his music in front of critics and audiences. "What drives the attention of an audience is the unforeseeable, and the secrets and mystery of a performance".

It was only after Michael Jackson’s death that Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava gradually became aware that he had for many years been ignoring, in his words, “one of the great protagonists of 20th century music and dance. A total artist. A perfectionist. A genius. I felt the need to delve more deeply into Michael’s world. There was only one way to do that: play his songs.” Thus this live album, recorded at the Rome Auditorium with the Parco della Musica Jazz Lab. Enrico’s trumpet is at its most extroverted here, vaulting above the spirited arrangements by Mauro Ottolini. Michael Jackson’s protean pop songs have never been heard quite like this. Rava is currently playing European festivals with this programme.

Khmer is surely the most unusual album ever released by ECM — unusual because the label, which is best known for elevated chamber jazz, presents the solo debut of trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer as a production that plays with modern electronica methods while not eschewing the well-known ECM aesthetic. Molvaer's music is somewhere between scary and majestic, and changes between ominous ambient sounds and hard breakbeats, along which atonal screeching guitars combined with melancholic melodies, create a fascinating melange.