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I entered college at the tender age of 17 and the very first class I took was a Introduction to Jazz class by Randy Masters (who was, and still, is a master) The first music that he turned me onto beside the nascent Jazz fusion world was the music of ECM records. Label owner and visionary, the German, Manfred Eicher, thought that since the idiom of American Jazz was an improvisatory musical form that was built off of the musical heritage of the African Diaspora....blues, gospel, ragtime, etc. That music 'swung' (meaning that it was, ultimately a triplet 8th note reduction and inherently polyrhythmic i nature, even though it would take several decades for Jazz to get there, fully) and it was based, original ly on the pentatonic and hexatonic blues scale which was NON-diatonic, the music of Europe) Eicher thought, 'since we are Northern Europeans, why don't we build a similar improvisatory music (Inspired completely by American Jazz) but, instead based harmonically off of the European traditions, including European Classical music, the music of Eastern European countries (who had been heavily influenced by the Midd le Eastern classical musics brought by the Ottoman Turks to Europe for 600 years and even the music of the Northern extant indigenous peoples....the Sami and others). Eicher had a strong vision.........so strong that some peopl who recorded for him, eventually quit, but he had a seminal influence on many European artists, Terje Rypdal, Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Webers, Arild Andersen and other as well as some very famous young American artists, Chick Corea, Keith Jarret (who both recorded solo works as well as Corea's first amazing fusion of Brazilian Jazz and Fusion in the first Return to Forever album) This music did NOT swing. It was based almost enitirely on 'straight 8ths and 16th note rhythms and a plethora of odd time signatures. It also had modal elements, World music scalar playing , etc., etc. It had a huge impact on my own life........probably as much as American Jazz did. so here are my favorites. And please, if you love this music, go out and buy it in some form from ECM records. Support what you love, they can use it.