Talk:ECM Records

ECM artists
I've deleted the references to Bill Frisell, Anthony Braxton and Charles Lloyd as "early" ECM artists. Braxton was never an ECM artist per se, and, to my knowledge, only appears on two ECM recordings, "Circle" with Corea and "Conference of the Birds" with Holland. Lloyd and Frisell both joined the label after its first, and most influential decade of work. I've substituted Ralph Towner in place of the Frisell reference as he was/is both affiliated with the label earlier, and frankly much more representative of the "early ECM sound" Silverlake Bodhisattva 21:40, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * One other Braxton appearance on ECM: Marion Brown's "Afternoon of a Georgia Faun". 207.200.116.71 22:08, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Label name
I've heard that the title ECM is simply Manfred Eichner's initials backwards. I've never herad editions of contemporary music.

Classical record label
I categorized ECM as a Classical record label. I think winning the Gramophon awards with Schumann string quartets is enough to win the right for any record label to be in the Classical music record label category. --Satúrnus 11:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This is absolutely incorrect! ECM was never a classical recording label. As a matter of fact, ECM means "Edition of Contemporary Music" and the bulk of its publishing was comprised of contemporary instrumental music. 99.21.67.69 (talk) 05:11, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the category is applicable; see "ECM New Series". From ECM's website : "ECM has issued over a thousand albums spanning many idioms. After establishing an early reputation with standard-setting jazz recordings ... ECM began to include contemporary composition in its programme in the late 1970s." Unless and until there is a "Category:Contemporary composition record labels" then I think "Classical" is applicable. Furthermore a record label can fall under more than one category, compare Atlantic Records which is in both "Jazz record labels" and "Rock record labels." -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:19, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

From Design section
 Translation, please. Rothorpe (talk) 16:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:ECM artists
I had recently added Anthony Braxton to the category, someone removed that, mistakenly claiming Braxton only appeared on one ECM record, with the information of him appearing on 3 ECM records, they agreed he might probably be an ECM artist. There are artists who appeared (even regulary) as "sidemen" on ECM records with hardly any or no records there under their own name, e.g. Jon Christensen, who appears on 31 ECM records (apart from Jon Christensen: Selected Recordings in ECM's :rarum compilation series). I definitely consider him a prominent ECM artist. Nevertheless I wonder if anyone who ever appeared on an ECM record qualifies for the category, any opinions on that?

Maybe an explaining text on the page Category:ECM artists itself could make things more clear. Cheers, BNutzer (talk) 11:25, 24 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The category is for artists that released albums as a leader or under a contract. I am sure Jon Christensen worked under a contract.   Anthony Braton probably did not, only as a sideman.  Circle is an ECM artist, he is not. Cosprings (talk) 18:08, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The criterion as a leader or under a contract is not written down anywhere (except in your above statement), though. And I find it difficult to find out who works under which contract (or not). BNutzer (talk) 18:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Jon Christensen
While the man is arguably the definitive "ECM drummer", listing him in the history section the way he is now is slightly problematic in that everybody else in that list had recordings released under their own names - but he did not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.147.155.248 (talk) 01:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Page name
Any reason this article can't / shouldn't be named "ECM Records"? That's the name of the company (ECM Records GmbH, to be exact) and "(record label)" seems like unnecessary disambiguation. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 04:38, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that makes perfect sense, and it is so simple, too. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive' 05:00, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Y Done. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 03:20, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Since this name change, there are several hundred articles which link to "ECM (record label)" rather than "ECM Records" (see here) - is there a way of changing all these links quickly? Doing so would avoid the redirect, but maybe its unnecessary? --Amkilpatrick (talk) 10:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's necessary unless there are double-redirects (i.e. a redirect to a redirect). But someone correct me if I'm wrong. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Parent company
ECM is independent record company without any parent company, certainly not "Universal Music Group" stated in summary box, top right of the article.

The Wikipedia article on Universal also incorrectly lists ECM as being part of Universal Classics. From Universal's own web site you can see that while they do own Decca and Deutsche Grammophon they do not mention ECM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.174.117.145 (talk) 12:17, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * You are correct, UMG is not the parent company. They distribute ECM in the USA, but they don't own the label. -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 17:27, 1 May 2015 (UTC)