List your top ten favourite albums produced by Manfred Eicher and released on his ECM label. Your list, however, must only include musicians from the Progarchives' database.

In no particular sequence, here is my list:

Oregon "Crossing"

Return to Forever "Chick Corea: Return to Forever" 

Ralph Towner "Solstice"

Terje Rypdal "Descendre"

John Abercrombie & Ralph Towner "Sargasso Sea"

Jan Garbarek "Paths, Prints"

Miroslav Vitous "First Meeting"

Eberhard Weber "Fluid Rustle"

Codona "Codona 3"

David Torn "Cloud About Mercury"

Isn't that a little too specific? I couldn't name one album produced by Manfred Eicher on the ECM label - never mind ten.  

Terje Rypdal-Terje Rypdal

Eberhard Weber-The Colors Of Chloe

John Abercrombie-Gateway

Terje Rypdal-Works

I'm afraid that is all that qualifies from me

Most of my choices are not likely to be in PA's DB.

Terje Rypdal - Whenever I seem To Be So Far Away  & What Comes After

 

 

Worth a mention (but not that I would one day own them)

 

 

I still have to explore (after that I think, I'll have to give it a rest)

I can do it a bit better:  Garbarek & Khan  -  Ragas and Sagas   (1992)  

Too many great albums to choose a best one, but here are some dandies!

Missing, is one album I have never found, which I believe was an ECM thing, and it was a concert for harmonica which was at least 20 minutes long in the main piece ... and it was absolutely out of this world. It was more classical than jazzy, and it was just way out there on top. To this day I remember hearing bits and pieces of it in my head. I don't think it was Toots since I had heard a lot of his stuff and its very jazzy touches, and many of his pieces were well known. Norton Buffalo was mostly about songs as far as I know.

It might be Villa-Lobos with Jose Staneck but I don't think so. This one is totally far out, though. (Not ECM)

The Toots 100th Anniversary Official is really neat and special though not ECM.

Howard Levy with the Evanston Symphony Orchestra is pure magic! 

BTW, if you have never heard Bill Evans and Toots Album "Affinity" ... 

ECM, however, is by far one of the best and most adventurous of groupings of various artists. It's a bummer that I can not even list many of them ... Vitous being one I have not really listened to properly yet, Burton, Weber, Darling, Oregon ... and many others. David Darling's shows up in a lot of places, including Carlos Nakai, but in the end, Nakai was not half as good without David Darling. The one thing that ECM also accentuates, is how INTERNATIONAL its folks are ... all over the place, and they dictate so many different things, that in the end, I always think that "progressive" has lost its inventiveness, specially when compared to a label like ECM.

I have maybe 20 lps both cd and vinyl...these are my personal favorites....I have not heard many of others to say top ten list.....

Pat Metheny Group(1978)

Pat Metheny -Watercolors

Pat Metheny -As Falls Wichita

Pat Metheny Group- Off Ramp

Terje Rypdal

Weber-colors of Chloe

Weber-Yellow fields

Abercrombie/Towner-Sargasso Sea

Towner-Solstice

RTF Chick Corea

ECM label is awesome....there are hardly any bad records there....Im also a fan of Gary Burton but hes not on PA.

I don't care enough about producers to know if they were produced by Eicher or not, but here's ten ECM-favorites of mine.

Chick Corea - Return to Forever (1972)

Codona - Codona 2 (1981)

Egberto Gismonti - Dança das cabeças (1977)

Rabih Abou-Khalil - Nafas (1988)

2. Tomasz Stanko Quartet - Suspended Night (2004)

3. Chick Corea / Gary Burton - Crystal Silence (1973)

4. Enrico Rava Quartet - The Plot (1977)

5. Jan Garbarek / Bobo Stenson Quartet - Witchi-Tai-To (1974)

6. John Abercrombie - Current Events (1986)

7. Old and New Dreams - Playing (1980)

8. Eberhard Weber - Yellow Fields (1976)

9. Tomasz Stanko Quartet - Soul of Things (2002)

10. Kenny Wheeler - Double Double You (1984) 

1. Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (1981)

2. Eberhard Weber The Following Morning (1976)

4. Terje Rypdal Terje Rypdal (1971)

David Torn - Cloud About Mercury

Steve Tibbetts - YR

The rest of my ECM is firmly in the jazz camp

I've owned this album for decades and had no idea it was an unknowingly recorded rehearsal. Yet it makes sense, as the album has an "unfinished" atmosphere that makes it that much more ethereal. I've always considered Northern Song to be his best album, and I understand that none of his later ECM albums were produced by Manfred Eicher. Thanks for posting this.

I know. I actually owned the original on vinyl long before ECM picked it up and re-released it (which is why I chose not to include it in my top 10 but, rather, as an honorable mention). (I feel like I was playing it in the early 1980s about the time I discovered Remain in Light [c. 1983].)  Just wanted to give it some love.

I don't know how many times Manfred /ECM picked up previously recorded material to publish it on their label (without re-recording it), so Yr must have sounded special to them.

Hi,

The guitar solo period of his is amazing and incredible. "Solo", "Sol do Meio Dia" and "Dancas das Cabecas" are absolutely amazing and beautiful ... for me, it made Keith Jarrett sound mechanical, compared to Egberto Gismonti. Right after came "No Caipira" which is a sort of classical/bossanovaandeverything else mixed together in a classical way, which is phenomenal. It has moods and touches that are, I suppose, very much like the sounds that one might hear in the middle of the jungle ... sounds that you can not recognize and explain, but its classical pieces, are one of the best things I have ever heard. Right after this he did his Academia de Dancas album "Sanfona" ... which is a fusion treat, if I do not misinterpret the term, though it is done with a acoustic guitar and then piano.

Hi,

I remember reading somewhere that one of Manfred's favorite things was to just plunk the players in a white room, and leave them alone. It might sound rather simplistic but, whatever was done worked. That someone would be "surprised" that Manfred liked to grab ... (let's say) ... the first takes, is something that most musicians tend to frown on, because they always think they can do better, and almost always it is from a technical standpoint, not quite a feeling standpoint ... and I do not find many of these earlier things as missing the "feeling", so hearing Steve Tibbetts not happy about this, would be kinda strange, since he would know that Manfred Eicher was fond of the one and done thing. 

His whole label, for the most part ... is all one and done, since I sincerely doubt that you can ask a Keith Jarrett or many others to duplicate what they just did ... I suppose that Gismonti did a bit, but not really as much as you hear in his earlier albums.

BTW ... strange that MAGICO is not mentioned ... with Jan Garbarek, Charlie Haden and Egberto Gismonti, the whole thing was so insanely good that they had to travel and do shows with it. That whole album is a treat and then some, and you know that many parts in it were "white room" and a first take, at least by hearing Jan Garbarek. 

I have a few Zentner albums but just wanted to mention he guests on the latest Manna/Mirage album Autobiographie from this year 2023, good to see he's still playing the electric violin. Guy Segers from Univers Zero adds bass to a couple of tracks as well. 

Intruder wrote: Loads of great LPs listed above but shocked to not see the grand master of composition mentioned, our recently departed sister Carla Bley (yeah, yeah, the Watt label wasn't technically ECM but their product was distributed by ECM)

I didn't consider any JAPO, CAMRO or WATT-releases for my list (also I just found out Carla was in the Progarchives database)

Chick Corea (1972) Return to Forever

Ralph Towner (1975) Solstice 

Terje Rypdal (1978) Waves

Bill Connors (1977) Of Mist and Melting 

Jan Garbarek (1979) Photo with Blue Sky, White Cloud, Wires, Windows and a Red Roof 

David Torn (1987) Cloud About Mercury

Eberhard Weber (1974) The Colours of Chloë 

David Torn "Cloud About Mercury"

Ralph Towner "Solstice"

Eberhard Weber "Later That Evening"

John Abercrombie "Characters"

John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner "Five Years Later" 

Oregon "Oregon"

Bill Connors "Theme to the Gaurdian"

Pat Metheny "Watercolors"

Chick Corea "Return to Forever"

Chick Corea "Children's Songs"