Your favorite obscure ECM album

For obscure my vote goes to "Jimmy Giuffre 3, 1961". This was pressed in Germany in 1992 (ECM 1438).

I love "Oregon" (ECM 1258), which is a USA pressing, released in 1983.

Most of all, I am a huge fan of Steve Tibbetts work, and love "YR", (ECM 1355), which has already mentioned here.

I've corresponded with Steve Tibbetts on several occasion in order to track down all of his releases. He often replies with postcards, illustrated with dinosaurs which I thought was pretty amusing.

I have all of his ECM releases and would like to share a little known fact. His work "YR" as released 1980 PolyGram / ECM is a second generation version.

The original was on Frammis Enterprises Records, produced in Minneapolis, MN. This original has a note of thanks to Ralph Karsten of Atmasphere for his help. Ralph lives there and produces Atmasphere from his shop in Minnesota.

If you can find the original, Identified by Steve's own illustration of a Sphinx with horse body standing near a strange outer space looking mass of organic material. This is known by collectors as the "Night Sky" cover.

Artists and instruments not included in the ECM negotiations, are deleted. The ECM remix is different in both musical content and quality. (I should have stated, the original is LP only, never released on CD).

Thanks for a great topic!

ECM is a great label! Some favorites:
Jimmy Giuffre "1961"
Marilyn Crispell "Nothing Ever Was Anyway" and "Amaryliss"
Paul Bley/Evan Parker/Barre Philips "Time Will Tell"
Joe Maneri "3 men walking", "Tale of Roinlief"

I have 6 of Benthar's discs, so I must qualify as an ECM fan. Aside from those already mentioned, I'd recommend:
* Anything with pianist John Taylor, including these under Peter Erskine's name: As It Is, You Never Know, and Time Being
* Kenny Wheeler's The Widow in the Window (also with John Taylor)
* Marc Johnson's Bass Desires (with Scofield and Frisell)
* Just about anything by Ralph Towner
* The one that started it all, ECM-1001 (vinyl #), Mal Waldron Trio's Free at Last.
It's a great label. I must have l50 of them. Cheers, Dave

I'm not familar with ECM stuff (I think it's mostly Jazz,no?)-could some of the posters perhaps put some more description on the music reccommended.
I tend to remember the covers are always good...............

TIA

Ben, I was hoping someone else would respond to your question as I am uncertain how to best describe the ECM sound.

Forced to choose one description, I would say abstract Jazz. This sort of fits all, but does little to describe the difference between Steve Tibbitts and Ralph Towner.

Overall a less commercial assortment of releases for wider ranging music lovers. They are characterized by good quality recordings, beautiful album covers and a low profile marketing effort.

Other companies who's end results are similar in quality but different in art is Concord Records, A&M Horizon and Contemporary.

To help you understand, link below:

http://www.ecmrecords.com/