A jazz saxophonist, with what? A vocal group specialising in early music? Surely that was an elaborate joke. No, not if you were Manfred Eicher – and that, at a stroke, explains why Eicher’s ECM Records has been the world’s ultimate art-music label for over 50 years. To call Eicher a producer is like calling […]

Don Was has spent a lifetime in music. Was’s production and bass-playing can be heard on recordings from artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Ziggy Marley, The Rolling Stones, and his own band Was (Not Was). In his current role as the the President of Blue Note Records, Was is charged with developing current roster of […]

“The most beautiful sound next to silence”, was ECM Records’ slogan in the 1970s – one ringing even truer now, when we’re blasted not just by the jangle of disposable music, but the shriek of mobile phones. The LP covers backed up the motto with misty landscapes and abstract paintings, and then, when you gently […]