
Gary Burton Quartet with Eberhard Weber - Passengers
Label: ECM | Jazz | mp3 320 kbps | Release 1976 | 92,2 MB
Personnel:
Gary Burton Quartet: Gary Burton (vibraphone); Pat Metheny (electric guitar); Steve Swallow (electric bass); Dan Gottlieb (drums). Additional personnel: Eberhard Weber (acoustic bass).
This is the only album that features two bassists playing simultaneously on each track in a small ensemble setting - Steve Swallow on electric bass and the incomparable Eberhardt Weber on his bizarre…well, let's just call it an acoustic bass and leave it at that. The unique and wonderful sound of Weber's instrument has him mostly playing the role of soloist throughout - uncommon for a bassist - while Swallow handles the traditional bass duties of bottom end and rhythm. But even in this short set Swallow is still given ample time to break loose with several solos of his own (Sea Journey, B&G, etc). If you've never heard Weber's bass sound it is quite a treat and this album is a great place to start.
This album marks the last collaboration of Metheny with GB as a band member before the union of Pat with Lyle Mays to form the Pat Metheny Group and the production of Watercolors at the same Oslo, Norway studio a few months later in the spring of 1977. It is very evident from this recording that Pat is ready, both as a composer and an instrumentalist, to front his own band and that first manifestation of PMG imported Weber and drummer Dan Gottlieb from this project.