ECM

the art of ECM record covers (part two)

The independent record label ECM – Edition of Contemporary Music – was founded by producer Manfred Eicher in 1969, and to date has issued more than 1700 albums spanning many idioms.

ECM’s distinctive cover art is a collaborative effort, but prominent artists include Barbara Wojirsch and her late husband Burkhart Wojirsch, who handled much of the early design, and Dieter Rehm, who contributed significant photography and design work from 1978 onward. Other photographers like Lajos Keresztes and Max Franosch have also contributed. 

The wonderful thing about ECM Jazz is they record their music in high quality, just like classical music is recorded. So you get brilliant jazz music at a high quality. Gavin.

the art of ECM record covers

Here are just a small collection of ECM covers. It’s not just the photos but the photos with the graphics to create the art.

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ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM’s artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres. ECM’s motto is “the most beautiful sound next to silence”, taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases in Coda, a Canadian jazz magazine.[1]

ECM has been distributed in the U.S. by Warner Bros. Records, PolyGram Records, BMG, and, since 1999, Universal Music, the successor of PolyGram, worldwide. Its album covers were profiled in two books: Sleeves of Desire and Windfall Light, both published by Lars Müller.