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Eberhard Weber: Encore

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: ECM Records
Released: 2015.01.22
Time:
 45:16
Category: Contemporary Jazz
Producer(s): Manfred Eicher
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.ecmrecords.com
Appears with: Jan Garbarek
Purchase date: 2015
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Frankfurt (E.Weber) - 2:47
[2] Konstanz (E.Weber) - 3:16
[3] Cambridge (E.Weber) - 4:16
[4] Rankweil (E.Weber) - 4:14
[5] Langenhagen (E.Weber) - 3:53
[6] Granada (E.Weber) - 2:57
[7] Sevilla (E.Weber) - 4:30
[8] London (E.Weber) - 3:00
[9] Klagenfurt (E.Weber) - 3:41
[10] Bradford (E.Weber) - 3:54
[11] Edinburgh (E.Weber) - 2:05
[12] Hannover (E.Weber) - 3:23
[13] Pamplona (E.Weber) - 3:17

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Eberhard Weber - Electric Double Bass, Keyboards
Ack Van Rooyen - Flugelhorn

Manfred Eicher - Producer
Walter Speckmann - Engineer
Gert Rickmann_Wunderlich - Engineer
Gérard de Haro - Mixing, Editing
Sun Chung - Mixing, Editing, Liner Photos
Nicolas Baillard - Assistant Engineer
Eberhard Ross - Cover Painting
Sascha Kleis - Design
Karl Lippegaus - Liner Notes
J. Bradford Robinson - Liner Notes Translation

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2015 CD ECM ECM-2439 (471 2051)

Live recordings 1990-2007. Mixed and edited at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes les Fontaines.




Zugabe

Der Kontrabass gilt als ein etwas schwerfälliges Instrument, dem man Leichtigkeit und Eleganz erst mühsam abringen muss.

Ja, der Bass schlägt auch mal zurück. Ich habe immer versucht, aus diesem Gerät etwas zu machen. Um möglicherweise dabei vergessen zu lassen, dass es sich um einen Bass handelt. Er erscheint in der Tat als etwas Träges, zumindest ist er das ursprünglich gewesen, wobei die Jazzmusiker ihn eigentlich erst richtig zum Leben erweckt haben. Die Bassisten im Jazz haben aus dem Instrument etwas Unglaubliches herausgeholt, das der klassische Musiker eigentlich nicht macht, aber ich gehöre nicht wirklich zu dieser Phalanx aus Ray Brown, Scott LaFaro, Niels_Henning Ørsted_Pedersen und wie sie alle heißen. Auch die Bassgitarre war nie mein Instrument, und so war es meine Idee, einen Kontrabass elektrisch zu verstärken. Dummerweise verliert dabei der große Resonanzkörper seine Funktion – im Gegenteil, er neigt vor allem auf der Bühne zu Rückkopplungen, wodurch sich der Klang gleichsam „aufschaukelt". Ich stellte mir einen identischen Kontrabass, ohne Resonanzkörper, vor. Zufällig stieß ich in einem Antikshop auf einen Vorläufer dieser Idee und habe dann meinen „Spezialbass" gemeinsam mit einem Geigenbauer entwickelt. Er war zwar sofort spielbar, aber ich wusste anfangs nicht, wie man das Gerät, das weder Kontrabass noch E_Bass war, spielen sollte. Fast ein Jahr der Gewöhnung hat es gebraucht, bis ich mit dem Instrument eins wurde und es wirklich spielen konnte.

 Dieser „Spezialbass" hat unter Ihren Händen quasi ein Eigenleben entwickelt, denn die extrem lange ausschwingenden Töne gab es ja beim Kontrabass nicht?

Ich wollte sogar einen noch viel längeren Ton haben, um ihn künstlich abbrechen zu können. Übrigens halte ich mich nicht für einen großen technischen Könner. Vielleicht habe ich das einfach nur gut kaschieren können. Zwar wollte ich ein Virtuose sein, war vielleicht nicht gut genug! Als man mich einmal fragte, warum ich eine mir angebotene Professur nicht annahm, habe ich geantwortet: „Weil ich nicht Bass spielen kann, aber ich weiß, wie es geht!"

 Während Sie mit Manfred Eicher im Studio La Buissonne an „Résumé" arbeiteten, war es da bereits geplant, ein weiteres Album mit ähnlichem Konzept zu realisieren, das jetzt mit „Encore" vorliegt?

Für „Résumé" hatte ich eine große Anzahl von Stücken vorbereitet und dann quasi per Zufall ein Dutzend davon ausgewählt. Nachdem die Arbeit abgeschlossen war, fiel mir auf, dass noch weitere fünfzehn übrig waren. Erst als die Konzerte für den Januar 2015 im Theaterhaus Stuttgart aus Anlass meines 75. Geburtstags geplant wurden, haben wir mit Manfred gemeinsam überlegt, die „Résumé"_Idee weiterzuführen. Ich kann nun mit Fug und Recht sagen: es handelt sich nicht um eine Resteverwertung, sondern eher um Zufall, dass zwölf Stücke auf das erste Album kamen und die übrigen erstmal nicht vorkamen; um keine Doubletten zu produzieren, wollten wir die Platte auch nicht „Résumé 2", sondern „Encore" nennen.

Von meiner Sicht her waren diese Stücke bereits fertig, nur wurden sie damals nicht fertig gemischt. Im Studio La Buissonne, das zwischen Carpentras und Avignon in der Provence liegt, haben wir damals die gesamten Stücke archiviert. Beim ersten Album waren Jan Garbarek (Saxofon) und Michael DiPasqua (Drums) für einige neue Einspielungen dabei; um uns nicht zu wiederholen, habe ich für „Encore" den holländischen Trompeter Ack van Rooyen eingeladen. Er spielt dabei sein Lieblingsinstrument, das Flügelhorn.

 Ack van Rooyen hatte schon bei Ihrem Debütalbum, „The Colours of Chloë", mitgewirkt, danach zwar nicht mehr bei Studioproduktionen, aber live noch etliche Jahre waren Sie beide im United Jazz and Rock Ensemble aktiv. Dieses Plattendebüt 1974 bedeutete für Sie damals einen großen Durchbruch: für „Chloë" bekamen Sie den Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik und gründeten wenig später Ihre erste eigene Band, „Colours".

Van Rooyen war in der Tat bei meiner ersten und ist bei meiner vielleicht letzten Produktion dabei. Ob nach „Encore" noch etwas von mir kommen wird kann ich wirklich nicht sagen. Ich habe über Jahrzehnte immer viel mit neuen Leuten an wechselnden Konzepten gearbeitet. Jetzt bin ich nicht mehr in der Lage, Bass zu spielen, und kann somit nicht so ohne weiteres eine neue Idee entwickeln. Mit „Résumé" und „Encore" greife ich auf bereits existierende Bassaufnahmen von mir zurück und modifiziere diese mit zusätzlichen Keyboardstimmen und Gastsolisten.

 Man spürt deutlich, dass Sie sehr viel en détail bearbeitet und editiert haben – es ist wie ein „re_composing": aus vielen Teilen haben Sie dieses riesige Material über viele Monate neu zusammengefügt. Was passiert eigentlich im eigenen Inneren, während man sich alleine tagein, tagaus über eine so lange Zeit gleichsam selbst den Spiegel vorhält?

Ich habe mich monatelang da hindurchgequält. Es ist kein Spaß, wenn man sich selber so lange zuhört. Da fällt einem natürlich auf, wo die Wiederholung einsetzt, wenn die Automatismen kommen und so weiter. Man wird sich mehr und mehr über sich selbst klar – auch über Dinge, die man auf der Bühne locker wegschieben kann. Weil das Publikum zum Beispiel positiv reagierte, hat man gedacht, dass man so weiterspielen konnte. Ich höre mir viel Musik an und ich bin sehr selbstkritisch. Ein volles Jahr habe ich gebraucht, um herauszufinden, was ich mit diesem vorliegenden Material machen könnte. Diese Bass_Soli bei der Jan Garbarek Group, die als Überleitung zwischen zwei großen Blöcken im Konzert fungierten, waren meist völlig spontan und etwa acht bis zwölf Minuten lang, je nach Abendform. Und irgendwann kam mir der Gedanke, ich könne doch selbst etwas dazu spielen. Da ich jetzt nicht mehr Bass spiele, ist es nur noch recht mühsam einhändig an Keyboard oder Klavier möglich. So konnte ich sicher sein, dass mir niemand anders in das Solo hineinfunkte. Wir Jazzmusiker haben immer einen gewissen Spielzwang, man fügt gerne Dinge hinzu und hört möglichst niemals auf. Hier konnte ich entscheiden, wann ich einen Klavierpart haben wollte und wo Schluss damit ist, was auf der Bühne – auch aus Höflichkeit gegenüber den anderen – fast nie möglich ist. Aus mir wurde so gleichsam ein „neuer" Komponist, unter der Prämisse, dass ich „alte" Dinge verwende. Es war eine schöne Aufgabe, die mir viel Freude gemacht hat, nachdem ich anfangs große Zweifel daran hatte, wie ich die Sache angehen sollte.

 Von Jazzmusikern hört man oft den Satz: „Bei uns passieren die besten Sachen live." Das traf in Ihrem Falle ja nicht immer zu, denn immer haben Sie die Arbeit im Studio anders als die auf der Bühne verstanden: einerseits die minutiöse, oft monatelange Vorbereitung auf ein neues Album, andererseits das spontane Spiel live.

Ja, das Spontane ist natürlich ganz wichtig. Die vielen Soli, die ich aus fast zwanzig Jahren verwenden konnte, waren nur in den seltensten Fällen vorbereitet. Jetzt bin ich mit meiner früheren Spontaneität konfrontiert und sozusagen mein eigener Produzent. Ich erinnere mich gerne daran, wie schön es war, weiter an der Musik arbeiten zu können, weshalb jetzt mit „Encore" diese zweite Folge entstanden ist. Aber ich bestehe nochmal darauf: es ist keine Kopie, sondern etwas ganz Neues mit alten Stücken.

 Ihr Grundgedanke, den „Spezialbass" als Orchester zu verwenden und aus seinen Klängen eine imaginäre Welt zu schaffen, findet sich wieder auf Soloalben wie „Orchestra" (1988), „Pendulum" (1993) und auf „Résumé" (2012) sowie jetzt bei „Encore" – allerdings in vermutlich organischen Entwicklungsstufen. So wurde noch bei „Orchester" auf Überspielungen, sprich Overdubs, Verdopplungen oder Schnitte bewusst verzichtet, die nur im Studio machbar sind. Bei „Pendulum" fiel diese Selbstbeschränkung weg: alle Klänge entstammen dem „Spezialbass", aber ohne Verfremdungen. Der dritte Schritt war das neue Komponieren von live entstandener Musik, das kein Recycling und kein Remix ist.

Stimmt absolut. Ich habe mich durch das Editieren selbst korrigiert, konnte unnötige Wiederholungen wegnehmen und wurde mein eigener Kritiker. Dann konnte als weiterer Schritt eine kompositorische Spontaneität eintreten. Ich komme ja ursprünglich von der Klassik her, mein Vater war Musiklehrer, und wenn man sich Streichquartette oder Sinfonien anhört, geht es nicht mit einer Melodie oder längerer Einleitung los, sondern die Dinge sind von A bis Z durchkomponiert. Als europäischer Musiker habe ich versucht, etwas von diesen Gedanken in die improvisierte Musik einzubringen. Schon „The Colours of Chloë" ist ja ein frühes Beispiel dafür, wie ich Teile, die eigentlich gar nicht zusammengehören, miteinander verbinde. Als ich neulich nach langer Zeit übrigens zum ersten Mal wieder „The Following Morning" (1976) hörte – ich lege generell selten meine eigene Musik auf –, war ich doch angenehm überrascht. So werde ich manchmal selbst daran erinnert, was ich einmal zu machen in der Lage war.

Interview: Karl Lippegaus





Encore

 The double bass is considered a slightly stodgy chap, a plodding, difficult instrument that resists any attempt at lightness and elegance.

He sometimes strikes back! But I’ve always tried to make something of this contraption, perhaps to make people forget it’s a bass. It really does seem a bit sluggish – or at least it did so originally. It was jazz musicians who truly brought it to life. Jazz bass players coaxed something incredible out of it, something classical musicians can’t do. But I don’t really belong in the pantheon with Ray Brown, Scott LaFaro, Niels_Henning Ørsted Pedersen and all the rest. The bass guitar was never my instrument, either. So I lit on the idea of electronically amplifying a double bass. But when you do that, the big sound box becomes an absurdity. On the contrary, it tends to generate feedback, especially live on stage, and the sound starts to ‘spiral’. What I had in mind was identical to a double bass, but without a sound box. By chance I stumbled on a forerunner of this idea in an antique shop. Then I developed my ‘Special Bass’ with a violin maker. It was immediately playable, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. It wasn’t a double bass, but it wasn’t an electric bass either. It took me almost a year of to get used to it, to become one with the instrument and really make music with it.

 When you play your ‘Special Bass’ it almost takes on a life of its own. The extremely long decay doesn’t really exist on a double bass, does it?

At first I wanted the decay to be even longer and to be able to cut it short artificially. By the way, I don’t consider myself a great master of technique. Maybe I’ve just been good at hiding my faults! True, I wanted to be a virtuoso, perhaps I just wasn’t good enough. When someone asked me why I turned down a professorship when it was offered to me, I replied: ‘Because I can’t play the bass, though I know how it’s done!’

 When you worked with Manfred Eicher on ‘Résumé’ in La Buissonne Studios, was there already a plan to make another album with a similar concept, namely, your new release, ‘Encore’?

I’d prepared a lot of pieces for ‘Résumé’ and then chose a dozen of them almost randomly. Once I’d finished work on it, it struck me that another fifteen were left over. It wasn’t until the concerts in January 2015, for my 75th birthday celebrations in Stuttgart Theatre, that Manfred and I pondered the thought of continuing the ‘Résumé’ idea. I can well and truly state that ‘Encore’ is not made up of warmed_over leftovers. It’s almost accidental that the first album had twelve pieces and the others were momentarily left out. And to avoid duplication we decided to call the album ‘Encore’ rather than ‘Résumé 2’. To my mind the pieces were already finished; we just didn’t mix them at the time. Back then we stored all the pieces in La Buissonne Studios, located in Provence between Carpentras and Avignon. On the first album we had Jan Garbarek (saxophone) and Michael DiPasqua (drums) on board for a few new recordings. To avoid repetition I invited the Dutch trumpeter Ack van Rooyen for ‘Encore’. Here he plays his favourite instrument, the flugelhorn.

 Ack van Rooyen had already worked on your début album, ‘The Colours of Chloë’. After that he didn’t appear on studio recordings, but for a few years you both played live in the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble. This début recording was a big breakthrough for you back in 1974: you won the German Record Critics Prize for ‘Chloë’, and a couple of years later you founded your own first group, ‘Colours’.

It’s true, van Rooyen played on my début recording, and now he’s on what might be my last. I can’t really say whether I’ll turn out anything after ‘Encore’. Over the decades I’ve always worked with new people on changing concepts. Now I’m not able to play bass anymore and can’t develop new ideas as easily. With ‘Résumé’ and ‘Encore’ I’m returning to my old bass recordings and modifying them with additional keyboard parts and guest soloists.

 We clearly sense that you’ve arranged and edited them in great detail. The music is almost ‘re_composed’: you’ve taken many parts from this mass of material and reassembled them over many months. What actually goes on in your mind when you look at yourself in a mirror, so to speak, day in, day out, for such a long period of time?

I slogged my way through it for months on end. It’s no fun listening to yourself for so long. You can’t help but notice when you begin to repeat yourself or go onto automatic pilot. You gradually get a clearer picture of yourself, and of things that can easily be glossed over on stage. Just because the audience response is positive, you assume you can go on playing the same way. I listen to a lot of music, and I listen very precisely; I’m very self_critical. It took me a year to find out what I could do with this material. Those bass solos with the Jan Garbarek Group functioned as transitions between two large blocks of sound in the concert. Usually they were completely spontaneous, roughly eight to twelve minutes long. And at some point I lit on the idea of adding something to them myself. Since I no longer play bass, I have to plough my way with one hand on the keyboard or piano. But that way I could be sure that no one else was messing with my solo. We jazz musicians always have a compulsion to play. They like to add things and never stop if they can get away with it. Here I could decide where I wanted a piano part and when to stop – something that’s almost never possible on stage, even out of courtesy to the others. In this way I became what you might call a composer of ‘New Music’, with the proviso that I make use of ‘old’ things. It was a nice task and it gave me lots of pleasure, though at first I had grave doubts about how to approach it.

 Jazz musicians often say, ‘The best things we do happen live’. That was not always true in your case, for you always viewed your studio work differently from your stage performances: the one called for fastidious month_long preparation for a new album, the other was live and spontaneous.

Granted, spontaneity is very important. I could make use of many solos from almost two decades of work, but they were rarely if ever prepared. Now I have to face my earlier spontaneity as my own producer, so to speak. I like to remember how nice it was to return to work on this music; that’s the reason behind this second instalment, ‘Encore’. But I have to say once again that it’s not a copy: it’s something completely new made from old pieces.

 Your basic idea of using the ‘Special Bass’ as an orchestra and creating an imaginary world from its sounds recurs on your solo albums such as ‘Orchestra’ (1988), ‘Pendulum’ (1993) and ‘Résumé’ (2012), and now again on ‘Encore’, though presumably at different stages of organic evolution. For example, you explicitly avoided overdubs, duplications and splices on ‘Orchestra’ – things possible only in the studio. These self_imposed restraints disappeared on ‘Pendulum’: all the sounds come from the ‘Special Bass’, but without distortion. The third stage was to compose new things from your earlier live performances without recycling or remixing.

Absolutely. I corrected myself by editing. I could remove extraneous repetitions; I became my own critic. Then, at the next stage, I could compose spontaneously. After all, my roots are in classical music; my father was a music teacher, and when you listen to string quartets or symphonies it’s not enough to begin with a melody or an extended introduction: they’re through_composed from A to Z. Being a European musician, I tried to insert something from these ideas into improvised music. ‘The Colours of Chloë’ already exemplifies the way I connect parts that actually don’t belong together at all. By the way, I recently listened to ‘The Following Morning’ (1976) for the first time in a long while (in general I rarely play my own recordings), and I was pleasantly surprised. So sometimes I myself am reminded of things I once was able to do.

Interview: Karl Lippegaus / Translation: J. Bradford Robinson




Encore is a companion volume to Résumé, the widely-praised solo album issued in 2011. Eberhard Weber returns once more to the many live recordings of his tenure with the Jan Garbarek Group, isolating his bass solos and reworking them into new pieces with the addition of his own keyboard parts. “I became what you might call a composer of New Music,” says Weber, “with the proviso that I make use of old things. ”This season’s special guest is veteran Dutch flugelhorn player Ack van Rooyen. Van Rooyen, who played on Weber’s ECM leader date, The Colours of Chloë more than 40 years ago now adds his own subtle colours to Weber’s contemporary sound-montages. The bass solos were recorded between 1990 and 2007, in thirteen European cities, from Edinburgh to Seville, and the music was mixed and edited at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in November 2014.

“Encore” follows up the musical directions Eberhard Weber explored on his critically-acclaimed “Resumé” album of 2012. The source material here is comprised of more of the unique electric bass solos Weber played in performances with the Jan Garbarek Group between 1990 and 2007. Track titles derive from tour itineraries of the period. Here are pieces recorded in Frankfurt, Cambridge, Rankweil, Bradford, London, Klagenfurt, Granada, Edinburgh, Konstanz, Seville, Hannover, Langenhagen and Pamplona – none of them sounding as they did on the night. Now the solos are meticulously edited, rearranged and modified with additional keyboard parts played by Weber. In November 2014 he put the finishing touches to the material at Studios La Buissonne in southern France, joined by an old friend, veteran Dutch trumpeter and flugelhorn player Ack van Rooyen (who appeared on Weber’s “The Colours of Chloë”, forty-two years ago):  “Van Rooyen played on my debut, and now he’s on what may be my last album. I can’t really say whether I’ll turn out anything after ‘Encore’.”

Weber discusses the album’s genesis in a liner note interview with Karl Lippegaus: “I listen to a lot of music and I listen very precisely. It took me a year to find out what I could do with this material. Those bass solos with the Garbarek Group functioned as transitions between two large blocks of sound in the concerts. Usually they were completely spontaneous, roughly six to ten minutes long. I lit on the idea of adding something to them myself. Since I’m no longer able to play bass, I have to plough my way with one hand on keyboard or piano. Here I could decide where I wanted a piano part and when to stop, something that’s almost never possible on stage, even out of courtesy to the others... Spontaneity is very important. I could make use of solos from almost two decades of work.”

Now, Weber says, he must address his earlier spontaneity from another perspective, becoming his own producer and critic. The process of remoulding solos from the past to make music in the present is an unconventional one but its potential was evident already on “Résumé”. In Jazz Journal Michael Tucker described that disc as “music of dark and deep yet also rhythmically engaging, at times even playful substance. Featuring judicious use of digital delay and loops, and with diversely unfolding and layered pizzicato and arco motifs offering what registers throughout as mythopoetically-charged melody, the meta-music that is ‘Résumé’ is perhaps the most thoroughly arresting of all the albums Weber has made.” “Encore” carries its momentum forward.

ECM Records



In a time when too many things that seem unfair create victims rather than heroes, the world needs more people like Eberhard Weber. Struck down with a major stroke in 2007, the renowned German bassist found himself without the strength required in his left hand to be able to play the custom-built, electric five-string double bass that, in various incarnations, has defined a sound as instantly recognizable as any bassist on the planet.

That would have been enough to stop anyone in their tracks, and turn them into a victim. Instead—as he recounts in a 2013 All About Jazz interview, the pragmatic Weber walked away from the instrument with few, if any, regrets. "I'm very, very often asked by people: do I suffer because I can't play anymore," Weber recounted in that interview. "And I have to say, 'No, I don't suffer at all.' I'm not depressed. And I don't need it. My bass is still set up in my studio, and I can touch it, but I haven't touched it, certainly not in the last three years. I don't even look at it. I don't need it. It's the past for me."

Weber's outlook has facilitated a different approach to music-making first heard on Résumé, released the same year on the label where the bassist has parked his wagon for four decades: Munich's ECM Records. The music of Résumé—where Weber built compositions around bass solos culled from recordings made across a quarter century of live performances with label mate Jan Garbarek's group, using keyboards and the judicious use of guests—was light years away from the more group-oriented material of early albums like his 1974 ECM leader debut The Colours of Chloë or the three albums made with his subsequent Colours group and collected recently as one of the label's Old & New Masters Edition box sets, Colours (2010).

Still, Weber's voice remained unmistakable on Résumé—and not just because his inimitable bass playing was largely front and center. There's something indefinable but instantly recognizable about how Weber conceptualizes shape, his ability to find form and the way he conceives both harmony and melody. All of these elements coincide to make him such a significant contributor to the last four decades of contemporary music that a recent two-night celebration of the bassist's work not only featured past collaborators including Garbarek, Gary Burton and Paul McCandless performing Weber's music, but also a new piece— written, Résumé-like, around film clips of Weber performing live, but with a much broader palette of live musicians—by guitarist Pat Metheny, who played with Weber during the guitarist's early days in Burton's group and his own Watercolors (ECM, 1977)...and who continues to cite the bassist as a seminal influence to this day.

The aptly titled Encore could certainly be seen as Résumé, Part II in Weber's use of the same modus operandi: culling another 13 solos from the hundreds of hours recorded by Garbarek's live front of house engineer over the past 25 years, expanded into broader compositional form with the addition of his own keyboard orchestrations. Weber's bass solos were always more than just opportunities to demonstrate his instrumental acumen; instead, they acted as connective threads between songs in Garbarek's sets and thus, with clearly defined beginnings and endings, were inherently compositionally focused, even as they were spontaneously created in the moment.

But the connection to Résumé goes even further. Once again named simply after the cities in which the foundational soli were first recorded but not revealing the "when"—simply crediting "Live Recordings 1990-2007" in the CD booklet— that these thirteen compositions were, in fact, already completed and brought to the Résumé sessions doesn't mean that their not being used should suggest that they are in any way inferior remains.

Even at the time of his 2013 All About Jazz interview, Weber indicated that a follow-up to Résumé was more or less complete. In Encore's liner note interview with Karl Lippegaus, Weber is crystal clear: "I'd prepared a lot of pieces for Résumé and then chose a dozen of them almost randomly. Once I'd finished work on it, it struck me that another fifteen were left over. It wasn't until the concerts in January 2015, for my 75th birthday celebrations in Stuttgart Theatre, that [ECM label head] Manfred Eicher and I pondered the thought of continuing the Résumé idea. I can well and truly state that Encore is not made up of warmed-over leftovers. It's almost accidental that the first album had twelve pieces and the others were momentarily left out. To my mind the pieces were already finished; we just didn't mix them at the time. To avoid repetition, I invited the Dutch trumpeter Ack Van Rooyen for Encore. Here he plays his favourite instrument, the flugelhorn."

Indeed, inviting van Rooyen for Encore, rather then Résumé's Jan Garbarek and Michael DiPasqua—the drummer brought back by Weber, after years of inactivity, for the bassist's Endless Days (2001)—in some ways, also brings Weber's recording career full circle. The trumpeter also appeared (again solely on flugelhorn) on The Colour of Chloë, making such a strong impression—in particular on "An Evening with Vincent van Ritz," where, bolstered by a firmly swinging Weber and drummer Peter Giger, he delivered a truly career-defining solo—that his never garnering further international acclaim remains an unanswered question to this day. Suffice to say, his contributions to a handful of tracks across Encore's 45-minute program makes clear that he's lost none of his warm, inviting tone or compelling lyricism in the 41 years that have passed since he last recorded with the bassist.

That Weber has, once again, taken solo bass features—and, with the addition of keyboard orchestrations and, in some cases, looping to allow van Rooyen sufficient solo space—as the foundation for a suite of compelling compositions is a remarkable feat in and of itself: a kind of reverse-engineered approach to composition. A concluding space-filled fragment is made all the more definitive with the addition of synthesized marimba on "Klagenfurt" (which also features a brief, burnished solo from van Rooyen), leading into the initially metronomic "Bradford," where a similar texture this time provides both the pulse and melodic foil for Weber's ever-distinctive bass work.

These are but two examples of how Weber, with a very special set of ears, is able to hear the compositional potential in his archival live solos—the way a good photographer, with a unique eye, can see the artistic possibilities in what might seem to be a clearly defined scene, making them crystal clear to those for whom such things remain elusive. With all but two of the tracks prepared for the Résumé sessions now completed and released, Encore may well be Weber's swan song as a recording artist. But, as he said in the 2013 AAJ interview: "I'm vain enough to say that when I'm forced to do something, I'm sure that I will find something. I've no idea what that something I will find will be. I still believe in myself. As long as I can still think and talk, there will be something to come at some point."

A true hero, if Weber can remain so positive after all he's been through, then surely we can—and should—too.

John Kelman - March 16, 2015
© 2015 All About Jazz



The aesthetic sensibility that has become identified as the sound of ECM is—in large part—a manifestation of German bassist and composer Eberhard Weber's own vision. Spacious, obscured harmonies, fluid melodies and tastefully imbedded electronics, often within a minimalist framework have been consistent components of much of the music in the label's catalog. Weber's inventive approach to his instrument—especially his creation of the electrobass—led him away from the familiar parameters of walking bass lines into more uncharted territory of the bass as a soloist's instrument.

Weber has brought unique meaning to revisionist history with the repurposing of his past solos, first on Résumé (ECM, 2012) and now on Encore. Sidelined from performing by a stroke in 2007, the extent of his medical condition remained unconfirmed for several years even with the ECM release of Stages of a Long Journey that same year. Though that Baden-Württemberg concert took place in 2005, it remains ominous that the album title is modified from Weber's included composition "The Last Stage of a Long Journey"

Encore, like its predecessor, is rooted in the bassist's solo performances while touring with the Jan Garbarek Group from 1990 into 2007. The thirteen tracks take their names from the European cities where each performance occurred. The approach on Encore is more pristine than with Résumé where keyboards, drums and Garbarek's sax seemed the appropriate point solutions to individual pieces. Here, we have Dutch flugelhorn player Ack Van Rooyen, who played on Weber's first ECM leader outing, The Colours of Chloë (1973) and was an original member of the now defunct United Jazz + Rock Ensemble, of which Weber was a later addition.

The contribution from van Rooyen is understated as the focus is on Weber as soloist, but, especially with repeated listening, it's clear that the flugelhorn's idyllic beauty is an essential additive in bringing Weber's solos to this new life. Weber occasionally adds his own keyboard playing to these pieces which were mixed in 2014. If the music on Encore needed description (and it really doesn't), it may be that if Pendulum (ECM, 1993) could be described as something like enhanced minimalism, then Encore a close relation; accessible and engaging, it doesn't demand close attention but greatly rewards it. Weber has stated that this may be his last album but with the upcoming release of his autobiography, his inventiveness goes on.

Karl Ackermann - March 12, 2015
© 2015 All About Jazz



Like its 2012 predecessor, Resume, this is a collection of new pieces  from old ones by the German composer and former bassist Eberhard Weber - reworkings of his unique improvisations with Jan Garbarek’s band between 1990 and 2007, before a stroke ended his bass-playing career. Michael DiPasqua played drums and Garbarek himself added flute and sax parts to Resume, which gave that album a controlled urgency less evident in the lustrously-textured Encore. Flugelhornist Ack van Rooyen (Weber’s only partner here) is a tellingly ghostly presence, however - and a very significant one, having played on Weber’s groundbreaking The Colours of Chloe 42 years ago, and reappearing on what the composer feels may be his last album. Weber’s inimitable electric-bass sound, at times resembling a sitar, at times an amplified cello or a tuba, establishes a flamenco-like feel over the groove of Cambridge, a slow Caribbean lilt on Rankweil or Hannover (all twelve short pieces are named after locations the solos were played at), a spacey and cinematic mood on Sevilla, a rhythmic throb over an accordion-like dance on Pamplona. Encore is often as wistfully reflective as might be expected from the circumstances of its creation, but a thoughtful composer’s sensibility directed Weber’s work as both an improviser and a leader from the beginning - in these imaginative reconstructions, it still does.

John Fordham - 5 March 2015
© 2015 Guardian News and Media



When a stroke in 2007 robbed bassist Eberhard Weber of the ability to play his bass, it looked like one of the most influential careers in European jazz was at an end.

But rather than curse the silence, Weber took live recordings of his solos from the preceding two decades and began re-working them, accompanying his younger self, one-handed, at the keyboards, orchestrating, rearranging and in many respects recomposing his own original improvisations.

Encore is the second album to result from this process, and Weber admits it may well be his last. Ethereal, otherworldly but always compelling, it is a creative act of musical time travel and an elegy to a career that for many defined the much-vaunted ECM sound, heard here in all its pristine glory.

Cormac Larkin - Mar 22, 2015
© 2015 The Irish Times



Bassist Eberhard Weber has recorded for ECM throughout his working life: the first release under his own name was The Colours of Chloë on the label. A companion piece to his 2012 release Résumé, Weber has indicated that Encore might be his last record, representing a creative life contributing and collaborating with one of the great, if idiosyncratic, labels.

Unable to play bass following a stroke in 2007, both Encore and Résumé are created from Weber's live work on tour with Jan Garbarek. He has taken recordings of his bass solos with Garbarek's ensembles and reworked them in the studio, adding keyboards and, on some tracks, flugelhorn from Ack van Rooyen, who also appeared on Weber's first record 42 years ago.

Taken out of context of their original recording, each of the short tracks is simply named after the city in which it was recorded - I think I might have been at Edinburgh. The solos on which the album is based were recorded between 1990 and 2007, but they have a consistent, timeless quality. In his solo work, Weber would use a variety of technologies to loop and multi-track his bass, building up music with just one instrument. Here he is adding to that with other instruments, but the intrinsic simplicity remains. Van Rooyen's contribution to some tracks is important, bringing a further dimension to the music. The result is virtuosic but relaxed, and sometimes almost ambient.

Bass solos have a reputation for driving some gig goers to drink. Eberhard Weber's skill and creativity in making a whole album from solo outtakes is considerable, and may change many minds. There is some sadness that Weber thinks this might be his last work, but there is a wealth of music in his large back-catalogue.

Patrick Hadfield - March 06, 2015
LondonJazzNews.com
 

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