What is the best ECM piano album of all time?

The piano is jazz's most versatile instrument, and ECM Records has documented some of its greatest solo and small-group performances. Which ECM piano album is the most essential?

The Köln Concert

Keith Jarrett's 1975 solo improvisation is the best-selling solo piano album in history — 66 minutes of spontaneous genius, spanning lyricism, gospel, and Romantic classical emotion.

1/12

Facing You

Keith Jarrett's 1971 ECM debut as a solo pianist established the intimate, conversational style that would define his career — spontaneous compositions of delicate structural beauty.

2/12

Piano Improvisations Vol. 1

Chick Corea's 1971 ECM solo piano recording captures him at his most exploratory and searching — freely improvised music of extraordinary harmonic intelligence.

3/12

Open, to Love

Paul Bley's 1972 ECM solo piano album is a hushed, introspective masterpiece — lyrical free improvisation of great emotional depth and ECM's most compelling solo piano recording outside Jarrett.

4/12

The Melody at Night, with You

Keith Jarrett's 1999 ECM album is an intimate collection of standards played with simple, unadorned beauty — recorded during his recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome.

5/12

Bremen/Lausanne

Keith Jarrett's 1973 double live ECM recording captures two European solo concerts of sprawling, rhapsodic beauty that preceded the famous Köln recording.

6/12

The Vienna Concert

Keith Jarrett's 1992 ECM solo concert is among his finest recorded performances — deeply lyrical, structurally ambitious, and featuring some of his most beautiful melodic invention.

7/12

Trance

Steve Kuhn's 1974 ECM quartet album features his crystalline, impressionistic piano style in a format that bridges post-bop and the ECM aesthetic with quiet authority.

8/12

The Ground

Tord Gustavsen Trio's 2004 ECM debut is a hushed, meditative gem — the Norwegian pianist's intimate touch and spacious trio sound made it one of the label's best-selling modern records.

9/12

Amaryllis

Marilyn Crispell's 2001 ECM solo piano album is a quietly intense free improvisation recording — lyrical and searching, from one of the instrument's finest contemporary voices.

10/12

Standards Vol. 1

The Keith Jarrett Trio's 1983 ECM debut introduced their definitive trio sound — reverent yet adventurous treatment of jazz standards with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette.

11/12

Accelerando

Vijay Iyer Trio's 2012 ECM debut is a kinetic, polyrhythmic statement — dense, intellectually rigorous piano jazz that brought a fresh compositional voice to the ECM aesthetic.

12/12