An atypical producer, world-wide known for his
work, Manfred Eicher has created a new kind of jazz sound, then
allowed the public to discover a series of non-academic contemporary
music. Behind this inimitable ECM sound, theres’s more than an
esthetic choice : what can be called real production ethics. Franck
Ernould & Bruno Heuzé.
ECM : three mythical letters, for Editions of Contemporary Music.
This independant record company, based in Munich and distributed in
France by PolyGram, was founded by Manfred Eicher in 1969. A former
classical and jazz bass player and jazz fan, Eicher invested DM
16.000 to express his musical tastes and desires. An
‘amateur’, according to the real meaning of this word : a
man who loves. Not a naive, an idealist, but a wise producer, a lucid
and realistic record company boss, an often just musical intuition
and a very sharp ear ! "My choices have never been influenced by
the record market evolution. I keep on choosing very intuitively the
artists I want to produce, mainly because their music appeals to me,
touches me, and that I feel it should be in our ECM catalog. If I
have enough money in the bank, I produce the record !"
The first ECM record is a Mal Waldron’s Trio recording, made
in Germany, entitled “Free at last”. A kind of manifest !
Thirty years later (happy birthday !), the ECM catalog contains 700
references, has opened to written music (from Middle Age to
contemporary) via its New Series releases, and Manfred Eicher has
become one of the most respected and most sollicitated record
producers in the world…
Faithful musicians
For his first productions, Manfred Eicher chose American, English
then European artists. He allowed two bass players or a free
guitarist and a cellist improvise on a whole album. He goes where the
musicians are, booking studios in London, New York or Francfort, and
gives their chances to quasi-unknown musicians : Corea or Jarrett
were among the first, but years later in 1976, Eicher produced the
very first record of a very young guitarist he had heard on a former
ECM Gary Burton record. His name was Pat Metheny, then 21 years old.
Birth of a star !
After being signed that way, many artists stay faithful to ECM, even
if Manfred Eicher only signs artists on a per-album basis. For his
seventh production, he goes to Oslo, hometown of a young saxophonist
he met a few years before at a jazz festival in Bologne, Jan
Garbarek. Jan, then a member of George Russell’s band, records
his first LP as leader. His 23rd (double) CD has been released on ECM
a few months ago &endash; in between, hundreds of thousands of copies
sold. It is on this ECM 1007 that the name of Jan Erik Kongshaug
appears for the first time &endash; but not the last ! This Norvegian
sound engineer had an atypical career (see box) before becoming a
sound engineer. He’s a major contributor to what has been called
the “ECM sound”.
"It is a coincidence if Manfred Eicher met me in the Arne
Bendiksen studio. He had come to Oslo to record “Afric
Pepperbird”, the first Garbarek solo album. He had tried to
record the quartet in the Hall of the Art Museum, but it didn't work
very well, because the acoustic was much too live for this kind of
recording. So they called me at Arne's place, asking me if they could
try to redo this recording in regular studio conditions... a
coincidence, I tell you !". Jan Erik is then a beginner, as was
Eicher. They are both former musicians, and the studio’s
Steinway sounds wonderful. Eicher will come back very soon to Oslo,
recording with JEK Paul Bley’s “Open, to love”,
Corea’s “Improvisations”, and a pianist named Keith
Jarrett…
Light
Manfred Eicher asked him for a traditional “trio
recording”, but Jarrett, then a member of Miles Davis’s
band, replied he would prefer a “solo piano” session.
Agreed ! As Miles Davis European Tour goes to Norway, Keith Jarrett
comes to Arne Bendiksen Studio and records, in a few hours, a series
of improvisations on the Steinway. “Facing you”, ECM 1017,
will sell hundreds of thousands of copies, as will “Return to
forever”, the eponymous record from the band including Corea,
Stanley Clarke and Airto Moreira. This means money at the bank for
the young record company…
ECM has become famous in the United States, and many American
musicians want to record for Eicher. Names ? Abercrombie, DeJohnette,
Connors, Burton, Motian, Phillips, and many others… Eicher
welcomes them, but keeps a large part of his catalog to European
musicians, coming from scandinavian countries (Rypdal, Andersen,
Garbarek), from England (John Surman), from Germany (Weber). He also
tries astonishing cocktails (a duet Garbarek/Jarrett, or
Phillips/Surman…) : it definitely works ! He relies on his
instinct, and gives their chance to apparently “crazy”
projects or musicians.
Eicher doesn’t go as often as before to USA to record American
musicians : they come to Oslo ! When the recording must take
place in NYC, he hires Tony May, and JEK mixes the tapes.
There’s another recording engineer in Europe who works
extensively (a huendred records in all) for ECM : Martin Wieland, who
succeeded to Kurt Rapp in Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, Germany,
but JEK gets the lion’s share. "I love to record in Olso, mainly
because of the light, and the atmosphere inspired by this light",
Eicher explains. The world-wide success of the “Köln
Concert” by Keith Jarrett (over two million and a half copies
until today !) lets him do what he wants and give his label “the
most beautiful sound after silence” &endash; his main
concern.
Evolution
As we listened back to the first ECM releases, we felt a little
strange. Stereo placement like ping-pong (piano at the right, drums
at the left, bass in the center in Mal Waldron’s Trio),
sometimes aggressive sounds (Dollar Brand), perfectible sound
balances… No surprise : recording and mixing in one or two days
inevitably leads to compromises, even if the music itself is
astonishing. But very soon, Manfred Eicher refines this sound which
will become his trademark : very precisely recorded instruments, a
very homogeneous stereo image, and many levels of depth in the mix,
thanks to electronic reverberation units, setup for long decays (this
was unusual at the time). He already loves to melt unusual timbres :
orchestral strings and electric piano melt with Eberhard Weber’s
bass in “Following Morning” (ECM 1084).
"I think I put in practice what I had learnt during my sessions as
an assistant producer for some chamber music recording sessions. I
listened to a lot of jazz records, mainly Impulse! Or ESP releases ;
I found the music very interesting, but I didn’t like the way it
was produced, mainly because I felt something was lacking, a part of
the message had disappeared. My main concern, when I founded ECM, was
to respect every aspect of the music. That meant be able to hear
every nuance of the instrument, every colour, and respect the
dynamics of sound, as given by the musician. This was quite a
different way of recording jazz, and public was sensible to it".
In many pieces, Eicher asks the musicians to play quietly, and
the tempos are often moderate. And the labels fall : “fjord
music”, “Great Northern Sound” for some critics,
“icy aesthetics”, “cold sound”, “jazz
planant” for others. Manfred Eicher simply doesn’t care,
and follows his own way. He is aware to the tiniest details : weight
of the paper and fidelity of reproduction for the superb pictures
which illustrate his record sleeves (often real art works - cf. the
book “ECM, Sleeves of Desire”). To ensure the best possible
reproduction on the listener’s turntable, he cuts and presses
his records at the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, a famous
classical music label known world-wide for the quality of its discs.
"We searched for high-quality vinyl, we changed the head of the
cutting machine for every new record, we drove as quickly as we could
to the galvanization plant, to obtain a good mould. This was like a
funny ritual… Nowadays, vinyls are still pressed, but quality is
not the word here !".
Sound and technique
The Arne Bendiksen studio closed at the end of 1975. Jan Erik
Kongshaug went to work as a salaree at Talent Studios, in Oslo.
Manfred Eicher follows him, and a beautiful era begins for ECM
Records. ECM 1100 is a 10-LP set, including five recordings of the
Keith Jarrett solo tour in Japan. Following albums build the legend
of ECM : Ralph Towner, Codona, Kenny Wheeler, David Darling, John
Surman in solo, or, more ‘free’, AEOC or Enrico Rava. The
unanimous opinion is then that all these musicians, who all had a
career on their own before appearing on ECM Records, have never
sounded better ! Manfred Eicher seeks for the beauty of the sound,
but is not a technology addict : "We should never forget that
music appeared well before the microphone was invented ! Today,
producing a record means getting the music through a technologic
chain made by the microphone, the wires, the console and the tape
recorder. Nevertheless, I think my role is not only to handle all
those parameters, but begins well before the microphone and the
recording process. That’s why I think the phase of preparation
of a recording, together with the musicians themselves, is so
important : phrasing and timbres, reading the scores (if there are
any), esthetic choices to establish for the music itself, and of
course, the mood in the recording studio, the ambience which mainly
determins what will come through the sessions. For all these reasons,
I consider myself as the first listener of the music, before it is
even recorded. That’s why musicians consider me as a partner,
not as a technician".
"As soon as the music hits the microphone, then my role is to get the
sound the best I can, as natural and direct as the musicians offer it
to us. The job of the producer is, very simply, to receive in the
best conditions what he is given, and to give it back with the most
transparency possible".
The ECM sound
Very early, in 1981, Manfred Eicher publishes the first digitally
recorded ECM - soon followed by many others, proudly announcing
“Digital Recording” on the front sleeve. Asked why he
adopted this new technology so soon, Eicher answers : "Right,
Cellorganics was recorded digitally, but as we have no analog
comparison, it would be unwise to make a mystery out of this". If
you listen carefully, on a very good stereo, to the digitally
recorded ECM from the 1200’s series, some cymbals seem a little
more acid, some instruments become a bit harsh, and the long
reverberations sometimes lose the “analog” feeling. By the
way, “El Corazon” (ECM 1230) - a duet with Ed Blackwell on
drums and Don Cherry on trumpet - is one of the most beautifully (and
digitally !) recorded ECM’s of all times - thanks to Martin
Wieland. But that’s technology : it evolves rapidly, and the
transparency of the “Rainbow-era” recordings is now
obvious.
As Manfred Eicher points out, the notion of “ECM sound” can
be deceptive : all ECM records don’t have the same sound
! "Recorded sound is the result of a very personal way of hearing
music. The realization of a score or the documentation of a
spontaneous jazz improvisation requires an act of precise reflection
from a sound engineer and a producer. The role of a producer, the way
I see it, could be compared with the collaboration of a director in a
movie and his director of photography. However, this only can be a
vague comparison. For instance, Jean-Luc Godard will always be JLG,
whoever his director of photography is. Bergman worked with many
different directors of photography, but we always speak about a film
by Ingmar Bergman. And this is true for Truffaut, Rivette, to name
just a few. If you compare different recordings on ECM by the Art
Ensemble of Chicago, Jan Garbarek or Don Cherry, you might hear
different sounds depending on the given musical concept. Similarly,
if you listen to recordings on the New Series, from Arvo Pärt to
Johannes Brahms, you may find different engineers in the recording
block and hopefully a different sound, according to the musical
score. But you may also recognize a sound direction and concept which
originate from the players and the producers".
[To appreciate this comparison, let us recall that Manfred Eicher
directed himself a movie, Holozän, and that he has very
close relationship with French director Jean-Luc Godard, from whom he
published recently on ECM New Series the soundtrack of his 1990 movie
“Nouvelle Vague” (without picture), and, very soon, the
soundtrack of his “Histoire(s) du Cinéma” (a 5-CD
set !). He also released on ECM many records of Eleni Karaindrou,
Theo Angelopoulos’ favourite composer]
The ECM sound (foll.)
When you ask Jan Erik Kongshaug what the ECM sound secret is, he
answers "It’s a whole… At the beginning, it’s
Manfred and I who choose this or this type of sound, we try some
reverbs : as we know perfectly each other, we know how to get this
particular sound ! But we couldn't do anything without the musicians
themselves, who listen to Manfred's indications (or mine), and their
contribution to the ECM sound is not to be neglected !"
[The fact that Eicher and Kongshaug are both former
musicians must certainly help them to communicate with the artists
they record in the studio]
So can the ECM sound be recreated everywhere in the world ? "Of
course, the studio where we record is important too, the acoustic
side is not to be neglected... But the most important thing is the
musicians, how they play, how they work together with the producer.
Another important point for this kind of music is the piano : there
are very often problems to get a piano sound right, not so many
studios own a very good piano. I am lucky enough to have one, here in
Rainbow !".
Technically speaking, Jan Erik Kongshaug uses close miking :
"According to the instrument, the microphone is placed at around
10 to 50 cm away (10 for a bass, 50 for a saxophone or a trumpet for
example). I like Neumann mikes (U87 or the new M149), and Schoeps are
very good too. I don't play much with ambience mikes : I have so many
room simulators, reverbs and everything in my racks that I prefer
creating the room sound afterwards".
New Series
When CD was commercially launched, presented as a sonic
revolution, Manfred Eicher seems to hesitate a little, then, from
1984, he goes in this direction, reissuing a large part of the
catalogue in parallel with the new issues. He abandons the LP format
around 1990 : "Publishing a digital recording on vinyl is a non-sense
&endash; it’s technically incoherent".
1984 is the year of ECM’s 15th birthday. Manfred Eicher, for the
occasion, decides to add a new division in his record company, called
New Series, for written music, from Middle-age to contemporary music
&endash; some older records will be reissued under that label, the
Steve Reich records for example. Until then, most of the records he
had published found their source in jazz : improvised music played by
jazz musicians (even if, for instance, some Oregon pieces can be
considered as chamber music…). An anecdote told by a former ECM
collaborator : in 1978, Manfred Eicher listens to the tapes of
“Music for 18 Musicians”, originally produced by the
Deutsche Grammophon. Nobody there is willing to publish this hour of
orchestral repetitive music anymore… Eicher publishes it, and
sells around 100000 copies of the record, which will help to
establish Reich’s fame in Europe.
With the New Series, ECM’s palette of musical styles becomes
even wider. Eicher begins to get away from jazz, a style he considers
as less creative than it was in the 60’s. But the
“Standards” collection, by Jarrett/Peacock/DeJohnette, sell
very well, and have certainly helped to produce many
‘difficult’ recordings &endash; let’s quote
Skardanelli Zyklus form Heinz Holliger, or Heinz Reber’s
‘Ma’.
The art of melting
ECM New Series reveals in Europe completely unknown composers,
like Arvo Pärt (Manfred Eicher firts heard Pärt’s
music while he was driving accross Germany, and fell in love with it
&endash; it was very hard to get back to the composer himself !),
John Adams, Kurtag, Meredith Monk, Kancheli… Some critics say
it’s retrograde, new age, tonal, ‘nordic’,
‘musique planante’ (heard that before…). Eicher
couldn’t care less, and he publishes splendid recordings of more
or less forgotten Middle-Age composers (Pérotin, Frye, Tallis,
Gesualdo…), sounding astonishingly modern in their writing.
Among the first ECM New Series issues are five CDs recorded live at
Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus Festival. For the occasion, Manfred
Eicher invites Peter Laenger and Stephan Schellmann, who have just
left recording school in Detmold, to record the performances. "Our
first encounter, recording chamber music under live conditions, was a
very positive experience, and so we continue". Their names regularly
appear on ECM New Series productions. This catalogue is rich of more
than 100 references, from solo instrument to orchestral, including,
as has been said, chamber music. Many of these records call for a
reverberant acoustics (including the Chartres cathedral !) &endash;
this seems to be a constant factor in ECM productions.
In parallel, Eicher publishes more “electronic-oriented”
records : we can hear Simmons drums on ‘Lask 2’, rhythm
machines on Shankar/Garbarek’s ‘Who’s to know’,
electronically treated instruments on ‘Piano/Harfe’, and
synthesizers on Ralph Towner’s, Rainer Brüninghaus or John
Surman’s solo records. The multitrack-oriented Steve Tibbetts
records at home. Even more, Keith Jarrett uses a 4-track Portastudio
to record at home, during a depressive phase, the splendid
‘Spirits’, one of his most touching records. Eicher
publishes radio tapes from Heiner Goebbels’ adaptations of
Heiner Müller’s dramas, or electroacoustic works from
Karlheinz Stockhausen. He then asks Keith Jarrett to ‘go
classics’ and record the well-tempered clavier, the Goldberg
variations, the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, and, more recently,
the Mozart Piano concertos. He has the brilliant idea to leave Jan
Garbarek improvise live on medieval polyphonies : the
‘Officium’ record is a winner ! (follow-up soon).
Everyone is amazed when Nils Petter Molvaer publishes his electronic,
loop, drum&bass oriented ‘Khmer’ : never heard that in
ECM before ! This album is excellent, will be air-played on radio
stations for whom ECM is unknown, and will even be remixed by famous
DJ’s. In the most recent issues, Eicher gives occasions to
Michael Cain (heard in Jack DeJohnette’s Oneness), Christian
Wallumrod to be heard under their own name : but he still records
John Surman’s orchestral and choral ‘Proverbs and
Songs’ (but curiously, not under the ECM New Series label), Dave
Holland, Stephen Micus or Charles Lloyd. He likes to find
‘weird’ combinations of artists who record for him since
years : Anouar Brahem with John Surman and Dave Holland, for
instance, or Dino Saluzzi with a classical quartet. And all those
records are absolutely brilliant, thanks to his musical
intuition.
To be honest, let us say that Manfred Eicher has not produced
every ECM record : since 1975, he sometimes lets some other
producers at the controls, but it’s rare. For around 10 years,
he regularly lets Steve Lake produce some more ‘free
music’-oriented projects, like Evan Parker or Joe
Maneri…
Rainbow Studios
Since 1984, the words ‘Talent Studio’ has been
replaced, on the record sleeves, by ‘Rainbow Studios’. The
sound engineer is still Jan Erik Kongshaug ! "I went free-lance in
1979, still working a lot at Talent Studios, but I began to move to
New York for ECM (for Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett…). Then Talent
Studio closed at the end of 1983. I had to choose : going, as a
free-lancer, here and there, which meant everywhere in Europe or in
the USA, or create my own recording studio. That’s what I did !
Rainbow Studios opened in March 1984".
So Jan Erik Kongshaug is a studio owner since 15 years ! He is
the main engineer too, helped by a couple of free-lancers. The big
studio (around 150 m2), made of wood, is day-lighted (as we saw,
Manfred Eicher loves that !), and the control room is pretty big
(around 50 m2). Kongshaug went digital as soon as 1986 (Mitsubishi
32-track, replaced by a Sony 48-track in 1991). He also owns a Pro
Tools 24 bits 24 tracks system, 3 Apogee AD-8000 converters, his
console is a Harrison Series Twelve, and he has racks fulled of
outboard gear, like Lexicon 480L, PCM80 and 90, Klark Teknik t.c.
electronics M3000 and M5000 digital reverbs, many Yamaha SPX90 and
990, many delays, an EMT 240 plate reverb… "I recently went into
the valve microphone thing &endash; I bought a Sony C800G, and I find
it wonderful. It’s been a year since I began recording in 24 bit
format on the Sony (thanks to the AD-8000’s bit-splitting
feature), and I love more and more to record directly on the Pro
Tools, in 24 bits too. Even if backup is always kind of a problem, I
think that in a few months, I won’t use the 3348 anymore !".
Five-day recordings
On every ECM record sleeve, location, month and year of recording
appear. Does that mean that musicians have 30 days of sessions
available ? "Not quite… I would say one to three days for the
recording, depending mostly on the number of overdubs to make, and
two to three days for the mix", says Kongshaug. "So we can’t
afford to lose time during the balance before recording. And we don't
! Once the musicians are ready to play (they take usually one hour or
so to install themselves), my balance is already on the console ! In
the studio, I have built myself monitoring systems for the
headphones. Every musician has his own little mixer, he makes his own
balance - one fader for our mix in the control room, one fader for
drums, one fader for the bass, one for the piano, and so on. Every
musician can decide himself what instrument he wants to hear less or
more, and doesn't have to ask for it : he just has to play with his
faders ! So, he feels immediately comfortable with what he hears in
his headphones, and I think his playing can only be better".
"Advantage for us in the control room : we don't spend much time for
getting the phones balance right. As I told you, usually one hour
after the musicians have arrived, we can begin to record".
If he’s not ill or otherwise disables, Manfred Eicher is
always present at the sessions, and takes a very active part
in every recording &endash; whether in a two- or three-day recording
or a one-night stand at the Grossmünster in Zurich. I like to
get options, input or ideas from the musicians or from the sound
engineer, I respect and welcome them, but I take the final decision.
So far, I am very helpless if it comes to finding the appropriate
plus for the socket". Confirms Jan Erik Kongshaug : "I don't think
Manfred's technically into the console thing. But he knows exactly
what he wants to hear, and asks me to make it work ! During the
mixing process, he's actually working with the faders. Manfred is
involved in every aspect of the records he produces : from the choice
of the musicians themselves, with unusual combinations (remember
Codona or Magico !), to the mikes we will use, the balance in the
mix... the whole process ! So he's mostly responsible for the final
sound".
As we could expect, ECM Records is Rainbow’s main client
! "ECM sessions keep me busy 40 to 50% of the time", Kongshaug
confirms. "But we record all kinds of music here : folk music,
classical music, pop singers... Jazz music is around 60% : we have
customers coming from all over the world, Germany, England, Brazil.
Not only record labels, but self-produced musicians or groups too.
They finance their sessions, then they go to record companies to
distribute their records. You know, the market is very small for this
style of music : there are a lot of good jazz bands here in Norway,
but very few can make a living from their musical activities...".
Kongshaug’s name appeared on many records, including the Ornette
Coleman/Metheny’s ‘Song X’, on Geffen Records, or
Yellowjackets, ‘Green House’ (JEK went to L.A. for this
one) and ‘The Spin’, made at Rainbow in 1989. "I recorded
some acts for Blue Note, some others for a Brasilian company, which
keeps coming regularly to Rainbow".
Final word
The final word in this article is for Manfred Eicher : "I
believe the producer’s role is to capture the music he likes, to
present it to those who don’t know it yet. It’s a very
important a difficult task, which must be dealt with reponsability
and integrity. If you work in that direction, caring for the sound,
getting some precise information or inspired sleeve notes in a
booklet, working on the pictures for the record cover, then a kind of
symbiotic unity is at work, and people feel you have been producing
the record for good reasons. So you can touch them, beyond cultural
borders, they understand and appreciate what you have to offer them.
It’s all about taking risks, but still being generous and
rigourous. I sincerely belive these are the reasons why ECM kept
running for 30 years now".
"For us, the decision on which score is to be realized or which
musician or group of musicians is to be recorded will be the
‘given’ for the direction of the sound. And this varies,
greatly. In the past, we have recorded in many different locations,
from monasteries to modern studios and with various engineers, using
diverse technology &endash; analog, digital, two-track,
multitrack… Over the last six or seven years, Steve Lake has
also joined the journey as a producer. A lot of factors influence
each recording. All that can really be said about “ECM
sound” at this point is that the sound that you hear is the
sound that we like. What is too often forgotten by occasional
critics, none of whom has been at our sessions, is that the musicians
are our partners all the way through the mixing or editing process as
well. Recording is also teamwork".
BOX ‘Jan Erik Kongshaug’.
Jan Erik Kongshaug has been a musician since he was a teenager, and
even before that : his father was a professional jazz guitar player.
So JEK started playing accordion when he was seven, then learnt how
to play guitar when he was thirteen. When he was in high school, he
used to play every weekend, in a dance band, to make some money.
After high school, he worked one year on a cruise ship, travelling
around the world, as a guitar player. All this before being
interested in engineering !
After this, he went back to school for two years, to get an
electronics education. In parallel, from dance, he turned into jazz.
In 1966 and 1967, he even played at the Molde International Jazz
Festival. Then in 1967, he got a job in a recording studio in Oslo,
named Arne Bendiksen Studio (the name of the owner, a former pop
singer). That's where, three years later, in September 1970, he met
Manfred Eicher... The rest belongs to record history.
*