The ECM catalog offers an overwhelming selection of masterful albums from a broad spectrum of musical approaches. I was honored that ECM approached me to make a playlist from such an inspirational and essential collection. My initial playlist, which I thought was only scratching the surface, was nearing 5 hours long. At last, I decided instead to make a playlist that reflected how I might listen today to the collection of ECM recordings I owned when I was a young and aspiring musician in Minneapolis in the mid-1980s. This playlist is not intended as a “best of” or a list of personal favorites. It is simply my selection of some of the great music on ECM that I listened to and presented in an order that I found appealing. All the albums represented by these tracks are worth the listening time, as are the hundreds of other albums on ECM. Dig deep and lean in when listening, and I suggest that you turn up the volume a little past what you think is comfortable; there are rich details in these recordings that can be lost if the volume is too low. Enjoy.