Charlie Haden/Jan Garbarek/Egberto Gismonti – Magico (1980)

This one's not for me. By the end of the album, I was wondering to myself if my personal "ECM season" had passed and I should no longer look for ECM CDs in the used bins. But then I read the reviews that were less than favorable (save for the folks at Stereo Review) and now I'm thinking this one was simply a swing-and-a-miss. After all, nobody can bat 1.000. (Baseball analogies provided in honor of the opening of the 2026 MLB season.)

Reviews/ratings:

• Stereo Review: "ought to send you scrambling for the nearest record shop"
• Musician: "like gazing at a tree, knowing every leaf and branch is there for a reason, yet unable to trace the whole chain of consequence back to the trunk and the roots."
• High Fidelity: "Putting these three world-class jazzmen together was a great idea that somehow never ignited."
• CashBox: "There is nothing obvious about the music"
• DownBeat (★★½): "it is imbued with a studied hush and false intimacy that ultimately cloys and bores."
• The Penguin Guide to Jazz (5th ed., 2000):★★★
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks:

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Egberto Gismonti - Selected Recordings :rarum XI (2004)

ECM :rarum MONTH* (MARCH 2017)

I was completely unfamiliar with this Brazilian multi-instrumentalist/composer before hearing this disc. Certainly more classical than jazz, the official ECM bio states that "...Gismonti has created a body of work that stand at the crossroads of his native Brazil’s folk tradition and the world of classical music, in a way which echoes his predecessor Heitor Villa-Lobos." Sounds right to me. Each track is an adventure in its own right so the album isn't a cohesive unit, but the disc has deserved more spins than I've given it over the past two years.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: 9 tracks, 75 minutes.

	Title	Album	Year
1	Ensaio de Escola de Samba (Dança Dos Escravos)	Infância	1990
2	Kalimba	Sol Do Meio Dia	1978
3	Cavaquinho	Sanfona	1981	✔
4	Bianca	Duas Vozes	1984
5	Dança No. 1	Infância	1990
6	10 Anos	Sanfona	1981	✔
7	Lundu	Dança Dos Escravos	1989	✔
8	Frevo	Meeting Point	1997
9	Selva Amazônica - Pau Rolou	Solo	1979

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

---

*Back in June 2015, this beautiful thing showed up at my doorstep:

It's a 12 CD box set (2008) of compilation discs from ECM's :rarum series, a birthday gift from a good friend. In this series, the artists were given the freedom to pick their personal favorite recordings from any ECM release they've made as a leader or sideman. In other words, the label got outta the way and good for them. I'll be making my way through the set this month.

ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music), originally a German label, was founded in 1969. "Rarum" comes from the Latin root "rarus" meaning "rare" (perhaps foreshadowing that these CDs wouldn't be in print for very long).