Eberhard Weber

This three-album retrospective of bassist Eberhard Weber’s group, Colours, recorded between 1975 and 1980, is striking musically, historically, culturally, and creatively. As American and British jazz musicians were employing electric instruments to create edgier, funkier, and more stridently knotty music, many Northern Europeans were exploring an entirely different sonic universe: creating another pathway in jazz. Weber's work would help to define the ECM imprint's sound. Weber founded Colours in 1974 with saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Mariano, keyboardist Rainer Bruninghaus, and drummer Jon Christensen - to be replaced in by John Marshall in 1977. Its 1975 debut, Yellow Fields, put painterly touches into a sonic kaleidescope that explored tonal and harmonic realms with acute compositional and improvisational attention to the space that surrounded jazz…

This three-album retrospective of bassist Eberhard Weber’s group, Colours, recorded between 1975 and 1980, is striking musically, historically, culturally, and creatively. As American and British jazz musicians were employing electric instruments to create edgier, funkier, and more stridently knotty music, many Northern Europeans were exploring an entirely different sonic universe: creating another pathway in jazz. Weber's work would help to define the ECM imprint's sound. Weber founded Colours in 1974 with saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Mariano, keyboardist Rainer Bruninghaus, and drummer Jon Christensen - to be replaced in by John Marshall in 1977. Its 1975 debut, Yellow Fields, put painterly touches into a sonic kaleidescope that explored tonal and harmonic realms with acute compositional and improvisational attention to the space that surrounded jazz…

For his first recording since 1993's Pendulum, bassist Eberhard Weber teams up with Paul McCandless on woodwinds, Rainer Brüninghaus on piano and keyboards, and (emerging from retirement) Michael DiPasqua on drums and percussion. Weber's new compositions involve little improvisation and a steadfast avoidance of typical jazz vocabulary. Evocative and thoroughly composed, these tracks have something of a European classical, chamber jazz feel; McCandless' oboe and English horn emphasize this aspect all the more.

One might easily switch the title of Eberhard Weber’s Chorus with that of Fluid Rustle and none would be the wiser. Where the latter brims with voices and color, this relatively monochromatic effort is more like a shift of clothing in the shadows. Until this point, Weber's ECM projects had been inclined toward epic statements. These ranged from overwhelmingly sun-drenched reveries (The Following Morning) to moonlit fields of introspection (Later That Evening). With the release of Chorus, however, Weber reached a new level of intimacy. Joined only by Jan Garbarek on soprano and tenor saxophones and Ralf Hübner (one of Germany’s most important jazz drummers), Weber pares his sonic brush for a new kind of script…

Once Upon A Time Live in Avignon, recorded at Avignon’s Théâtre des Halles in August 1994, presents Eberhard Weber’s unique approach to the solo recital. The album sees the bassist balancing compositions from his albums Orchestra and Pendulum with a vibrant rendition of “My Favorite Things” and his own “Trio for Bassoon and Bass”, revealing fresh aspects of his distinctive musical diction. Reviewing one of the bassist’s live shows the year this album was recorded, the Financial Times marvelled at Weber’s musicianship, insisting that “it is hard to imagine that anyone else could play what Weber plays“. Condensed into a concise programme, Once Upon A Time Live in Avignon captures the essence of Eberhard Weber’s solo performance.

One might easily switch the title of Eberhard Weber’s Chorus with that of Fluid Rustle and none would be the wiser. Where the latter brims with voices and color, this relatively monochromatic effort is more like a shift of clothing in the shadows. Until this point, Weber's ECM projects had been inclined toward epic statements. These ranged from overwhelmingly sun-drenched reveries (The Following Morning) to moonlit fields of introspection (Later That Evening). With the release of Chorus, however, Weber reached a new level of intimacy. Joined only by Jan Garbarek on soprano and tenor saxophones and Ralf Hübner (one of Germany’s most important jazz drummers), Weber pares his sonic brush for a new kind of script…

Although with Fluid Rustle, Eberhard Weber continued to draw upon the Watership Down references that cast 1977’s Silent Feet into such lovely relief, I hesitate to call it program music. Neither are the titles mere frames; they are also the open windows within those frames. Like the rabbits in Adams’s novel, each instrument in “Quiet Departures” is its own vivid personality in a vast warren of possibilities. Such strong metaphorical ties are there to be unraveled, one fiber at a time, by every strike of Gary Burton’s vibes. The introduction of Norma Winstone (in her first non-Azimuth ECM appearance) and Bonnie Herman represents an exciting tectonic shift in Weber’s geology, urging us through an atmospheric tunnel. At its end: a brightly lit solo from Burton, swaying comfortably in Weber’s hammock.