My 2 cents...Check out Ralph Towner & Jan Garbarek on ECM - reasonably accessible. Playing off CTo007's suggestion, look at the other musicians they recorded with (e.g., Eberhard Weber) and try their stuff too. Usually, with ECM you get interesting, often beautiful and sometimes challenging music, not to mention great sonics. Would all labels were like ECM.
The best of the ECM label
There is so much really good and well recorded music on the ECM label, but a lot is downright strange. Many of the artists are not well known and the music, new compositions, both the jazz and new label ECM, or classical. It is very hard to gauge what is worth a purchase, because of this.
I do find it interesting, that you can listen to the classical and more avant garde classical material and not find it easy to distinguish the two. Any choice is going to be highly personal, but some suggestions would be helpful.
To start, my personal favourite is
Khmer by Nils Petter Molvaer
I do find it interesting, that you can listen to the classical and more avant garde classical material and not find it easy to distinguish the two. Any choice is going to be highly personal, but some suggestions would be helpful.
To start, my personal favourite is
Khmer by Nils Petter Molvaer