Eberhard Weber

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i am having an Eberhard Weber day .... just letting iTunes play all the albums ...[not anything like a complete selection but i will add the cds later] ...

this piece tells of his recovery from stroke and how he has managed to create 'Resume' & 'Encore' by using old stage recordings, old friends and his computer ....

i know many find his work to be the wrong sort of ECM album but i find it warm and engaging and i adore his virtuosity and sound on the bass ...

[MrGongGong]

Genius IMV

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yeh Pendulum is a bit of a masterpiece eh ....

[eighthobstruction]

....fantastic airy and full of space....real collaborations....worthy of a calum da day....add to that the ecm engineering kiss kiss....did he ever play with Kenny Wheeler?

[MrGongGong]

Is this "serious" music?

[eighthobstruction]

....or (the) is it really jazz [?] argument....

....it's a Euro thang....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Is this "serious" music?

are you serious?

[eighthobstruction]

are you serious?

....Honoured Guest might like to inform us...

[MrGongGong]

are you serious?

As your life!

[charles t]

Calum: Was lucky to hear Eberhard's group - Colours - with Charlie Mariano live in Los Angeles.

Doubly lucky, when, back in the early e-bay days and 'Bootlegs' were flourishing - found the bootleg of same.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Calum: Was lucky to hear Eberhard's group - Colours - with Charlie Mariano live in Los Angeles.

Doubly lucky, when, back in the early e-bay days and 'Bootlegs' were flourishing - found the bootleg of same.

i first came across Mariano on Mingus's Black Saint & The SInner Lady, big fan ever since ....

just been listening to the 1955 album ... he could give Art Pepper a run for his money!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

in SF not LA but was this the band/gig Chas?

[charles t]

gadzooks, Calum!

Same tour...incredible.

[Ian Thumwood]

I first heard Weber with Jan Garbarek in a concert in Edinburgh around 1987 and this introduced me to the "ECM sound." It was something totally original and opened a new world of possibilities to my ears after which I snapped up loads of different records on the label. Garbarek became a hero for me but the veneer of a lot of these records quickly peeled off. I can remember Stuart Nicholson slaughtering the label in his book about "The new resurgence" and I was aghast at the time.

Eberhard Weber's own records always remained a mystery to me. There used to be an independent record store in St. Marys, Southampton called Henry's which had a massive collection of ECM albums and I would often pop in there on the break-time from my studies at college. The album covers looked magical and the promise of something mystical within the LP sleeves but I was never quite enticed by the bassist's records as they seemed to be from the 1970's and my one 1970's acquisition on the label had been under-whelming. I much preferred the later (mid 80's) records and therefore missed the Weber records. Within a matter of months my enthusiasm had rubbed off on an older friend of mine and my Dad's and he became an unstinting ECM fan. It was borrowing his own acquisitions that revealed Weber to me and the album I liked most was "Orchestra" - now hard to find. I also quite liked "Fluid rustle."

I had "Soltice" on in my car a few weeks back and although this is Towner's record, EW features heavily on it. What struck me was just how dated this record now sounds. In fact, the whole Weber / Garbarek oeuvre no longer seems startling and the appearance of the odd American like Jack DeJohnette on the records now seems incongruous . At the time I loved the fact that Jack De J would double up the time behind a languid and beautifully slow moving theme that had an dream-like quality about it. I wouldn't say I dislike the music yet nothing on ECM seems to have dated as much as Weber's records. They are nice to listen to and Christensen is always a joy to hear behind the kit. Whereas this sounded like the future of jazz at the time and was part of my rapid discovery of the music in my teenage years, it now seems nostalgic . I don't think age has been kind to these records.

[Serial_Apologist]

....fantastic airy and full of space....real collaborations....worthy of a calum da day....add to that the ecm engineering kiss kiss....did he ever play with Kenny Wheeler?

No but our very own John Marshall played with Colours, supplanting Jon Christiansen.