Touchstones 2019

Issued by the Italian magazine Musica Jazz, this sampler was released in 2019 to commemorate ECM’s 50th anniversary. Its source was the label’s “Touchstones” campaign, a group of fifty albums returned to circulation in two waves of twenty-five, first in January and again in June. Luca Conti and Sandro Cerini selected and sequenced the tracks with care, producing more than a commemorative digest. Earlier archival efforts, including the “Re:Solutions” series begun in 2014, had stalled after a handful of releases. “50 for the 50th,” by contrast, fulfilled its duties with a flourish. No obvious principle governs the 50 albums. “Reissue” is too blunt a word, since some titles never disappeared from the catalogue. Recovery from oblivion also fails, because several remained obtainable and had never become collectors’ relics. The project is better received as a testimony in continuity with the eight volumes of Selected Signs curated by Manfred Eicher between 1997 and 2014. The Musica Jazz…