Vinyl Reviews

Review: ECM's Luminessence Series - Zakir Hussain | Garbarek/Brahem/Hussain | Tord Gustavsen Trio

Robert Ham

10 Dec 2025 — 7 min read

Greetings, fellow vinyl fiends. As with our previous posts this week, we’re taking today to get caught up with some reissues that were temporarily pushed to the side in the past few weeks. This time around, we’re looking into the three most recent releases from ECM’s fancier-schmancier reissue series, Luminessence.

But before we hand you over to the review, we must remind you that we are closing in on our first monthly giveaway. One lucky paid subscriber is about to win a sealed copy of Neil Young’s Original Release Series #6 box set. If you’d like to know more about this giveaway and—if you haven’t done so already—upgrade to the paid tier, click below:

With that out of the way, let’s drop the needle on some high-end vinyl from Manfred Eicher’s legendary label.

When it comes to the nitty-gritty details of Luminessence, ECM’s high-end vinyl reissue series—such as who handled the mastering and who was responsible for cutting the lacquers—here’s what we know: not a lot.

The powers that be at the German imprint have been cagier than usual when it comes to sharing the kind of information we try to include in every review at The Vinyl Cut. My research has only been able to turn up the promotional copy on the ECM site that assures buyers that “[m]any of the re-issues are cut from the original analog master tapes,” and the numbers in the deadwax that reveal that the vinyl was pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands. When I asked the PR rep for ECM if there was anything they could divulge, they demurred: “It’s more about listening to the music and its quality.”

For most any other label, that kind of furtiveness would be cause for some serious grumbling or at least the raising of a suspicious eyebrow. But if you’ve ever owned an ECM release on vinyl, you’re well aware that the label does not cut corners when it comes to mastering and pressing quality. Every new and used copy of an ECM LP that I’ve picked up has, without fail, been quiet, flat, and exceptional. My experiences listening to Keith Jarrett’s legendary 1975 live performance at the Opera House in Köln, Germany, or the Hilliard Ensemble’s 1990 recording of Arvo Pärt’s Miserere have been revelatory, with the tiniest details of each session captured with startling clarity. With that kind of track record, my expectations for this audiophile-minded series were, as you might imagine, fairly high.

I’m happy to report that ECM exceeded my already lofty hopes with their three most recent Luminessence releases. While I’ve read some gripes about the series in Discogs reviews and on the Steve Hoffman forums about noisy LPs and the titles the label has chosen to include thus far, I have zero complaints.

To be fair to the naysayers, the Luminessence series has cut a strange path through the ECM catalog, with stops at some of the label’s best-known releases (Pat Metheny’s 1975 debut Bright Size Life, Jarrett’s stunning Solo Concerts: Bremen-Lausanne release from 1973) and deeper cuts (Amaryllis, the 2001 recording of a jazz trio led by pianist Marilyn Crispell; 1981’s Friegeweht from keyboardist Rainer Brüninghaus).

The three Luminessence LPs that close out 2025 land in the latter category. The oldest, 1987’s Making Music, might be the most widely known outside of the community of jazz heads as it comes from the prolific Zakir Hussain. For this session, recorded in Oslo, the virtuosic Indian percussionist is joined by some longtime collaborators, including guitarist John McLaughlin (the two men started the fusion group Shakti together in the early ’70s), flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia, and saxophonist Jan Garbarek, with whom Hussain previously worked on L. Shankar’s 1984 album Song for Everyone. The album is a fascinating mix of Western and Eastern modalities. On a track like “Anisa,” the musicians remain in their own camps, with Garbarek and McLaughlin duetting for a few minutes before the percussionist takes over with a dizzying tabla solo. The best material, though, finds the four masters joining forces, like the glorious “Sunjog” that beautifully pairs up Garbarek’s pealing soprano sax with Chaurasia’s flute, or the thrilling “Water Girl,” during which each player bounces and weaves like a bird in flight.

Garbarek is also a major part of an album that made its vinyl bow via the Luminessence series this year: 1994’s Madar. On that LP, the Norwegian saxophonist shares top billing with an equally great pair of musicians: the Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem and Pakistani tabla player Ustad Shaukat Hussain. It’s another scintillating session, particularly on “Sull Lull” and “Joron,” two tracks arranged by Garbarek that find the trio bending traditional Norwegian melodies to their will. On both, the energy is intoxicating, as Garbarek and Brahem urge each other to scale greater and greater improvisational heights while Hussain rumbles steadily in the background. I wouldn’t ignore the solo spotlights that Hussain and Brahem are given on this album, though. My favorite of the pair is “Jaw,” an eight-minute head-spinning tabla exploration turned psychedelic by the overtones of the percussion instrument humming colorfully in the background and Hussain’s vocal trills.

Great as those other two albums are, the best of this bunch is Changing Places, the 2003 album by the Tord Gustavsen Trio. Their cool, low-key brand of jazz benefits enormously from a quality vinyl treatment, so it was smart for ECM to wait until they could issue it via Luminessence. There is so much empty space and open air between the musicians—Gustavsen on piano, Harald Johnsen on bass, and Jarle Vespestad on drums—that any amount of noise, nonfill, or other anomaly in the pressing process would have been hugely disruptive to the contemplative mood of these recordings. As with the other two releases, I found no flaws in this double-LP set. There’s a depth of field captured here that allows each instrument to come into clear focus, whether they are taking an extended solo or nestling into the slow, swaying groove of each song. You don’t miss anything.

I suppose the only reason I have to gripe about the lack of information regarding the vinyl mastering and pressing is that I want to be able to praise the engineers to high heaven. The consistency across all three of these LPs is commendable and worthy of the laurels they are hopefully receiving behind the scenes. I could also knock some points off the scoresheet for the lack of liner notes, something that they have included in previous Luminessence releases, but keeping the data to the bare minimum befits the apparent intent of this series. With nothing else to distract you, all you have left to pay attention to is the music.

Making Music: ECM 1-LP 33 RPM black vinyl
• New vinyl edition of the 1987 album

Madar: ECM 2-LP 33 RPM black vinyl
• First vinyl pressing of the 1994 album

Changing Places: ECM 2-LP 33 RPM black vinyl
• First vinyl pressing of the 2003 album

All titles:
• Jacket: Tip-on gatefold
• Inner sleeve: White poly-lined
• Liner notes, insert, or booklet: None, but pictures of the musicians are inside gatefold
• Source: Digital
• Mastering credit: Unknown
• Lacquer cut by: Unknown
• Pressed at: Record Industry, Netherlands
• Vinyl quality (visual): A
• Vinyl quality (audio): A
• Additional notes: These LPs are part of ECM’s Luminessence series.