| Artist | Keith Jarrett |
| Title | Staircase |
| Label | ECM |
| Year | 1977 |
| Design | Photos: Franco Fontana, Design: B. Wojirsch |
| Music | Solo, improvised piano |
| Notes | Oh those gatefold 1970s sleeves. The ECM designs like this one are so wonderfully simple yet monumental. Another favourite is Jarrett’s quartet three-sider, Eyes of the Heart, with its imagery so resonant that you can almost feel the cool of the shadow and the heat of the sun at the same time. Barbara Wojirsch here is less expressive than elsewhere, but just the placement of the sparse wording and particularly that of the title ‘SAND’ on the back cover hovering above the azure blue sky (well, it is in the original minus the moire of my poor photograph). Can this really be the first actual post dedicated to an ECM design? For shame. Do you have a favourite ECM sleeve? Please let me know, I’d be interested to hear. |
| Also | Barbara Wojirsch, Dieter Rehm, ECM |
| Listen |
Favourite ECM sleeve?
Must be a newer one from the New Series.
Nils Petter Molvaer’s Khmer. Somehow the image of the sculpture, or rather the parts of the sculpture that are missing, really represents the sparseness of the trumpet’s voice on the record.
You’ve already featured an ECM release here, albeit a CD issue:
http://www.hardformat.org/4375/jimmy-giuffre-3-1961/
Beautiful artwork for this Jarrett album. Barre Phillips’ “Mountainscapes” is another ECM favourite of mine. Great sleeve, incredibly haunting music. Well worth checking out.
Hah! You’re right about the Giuffre Mark, thanks for reminding me. That Barre Phillips is lovely isn’t it.
Good to hear from someone who’s a fan of newer ECM sleeves Conrad. I like them a lot too. That sleeve always makes me think of Borges’ short story Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.
I really like the original sleeve of Tomasz Stanko’s Balladyna (and don’t like the new version at all).
Yes Colin, the Stanko sleeve is great, and I totally agree with you about the newer version. Although the fonts used are very ECM, and it sat well with their graphic ideas of the time, the original sleeve just seems to emulate the music better.
Miles Davis used to say that what he looked for in a fellow musician was that the instrument be an extension of their body, and that’s definitely true of Keith Jarrett.
I like the sleeves in the Touchstone series, plus these:
Kenny Wheeler – Gnu High
Keith Jarrett – Arbour Zena
Julian Priester – Love, Love
Jan Garbarek – Dis
Bobo Stenson Trio – Serenity
Jan Garbarek – In Praise of Dreams
as well as many others, slightly more obscure, like:
Shankar – Who’s to Know
Peter Erskine – Time Being
Gavin Bryars – Vita Nova
Stephan Micus – Desert Poems
and others…
In fact there’s a huge number of great ECM sleeves! It’s an amazing label, I keep finding new (to me) artists who are fascinating. My latest discovery is Michael Mantler, before that it was Robyn Williams, Annette Peacock and many more…