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Eberhard Weber: Fluid Rustle

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: ECM Records
Released: 1979
Time:
 38:52
Category: 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] Quiet Departures (E.Weber) - 17:29
[2] Fluid Rustle (E.Weber) - 7:28
[3] A Pale Smile (E.Weber) - 9:13
[4] Visible Thoughts (E.Weber) - 4:59

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Eberhard Weber - Bass, Tarang
Bill Frisell - Guitar, Balalaika
Gary Burton - Vibraharp, Marimba
Bonnie Herman - Vocals
Norma Winstone - Vocals

Manfred Eicher - Producer
Martin Wieland - Engineer
Maja Weber - Cover Design
Signe Mahler - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1979 CD ECM Records - ECM 1137
1979 MC ECM Records - ECM M5E 1137
1979 LP ECM Records - ECM 1-1137

Recorded at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, West Germany in January 1979.


As the wind freshened from the south, the red and yellow beech leaves rasped together with a brittle sound, harsher than the fluid rustle of earlier days. It was a time of quiet departures, of the sifting away of all that was not staunch against winter.
–Richard Adams, Watership Down

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. This piece beguiles like déjà vu over a buoyant electric guitar (courtesy of Bill Frisell), voices returning on the syllable “Na” for a Tehillim-like consistency. Further textural detail is provided by the twang of the tarang, an Indian banjo played by Weber himself. As Burton switches to marimba, we find ourselves between two electric guitars, throwing sonic confetti from either side, before Weber plunges us into the depths of the title track and its ecstatic dreaming. “A Pale Smile” is a hallucinatory wash of guitars and vibes that works its magic with a Laurie Anderson feel. Weber also has a quiet, heartfelt solo here. “Visible Thoughts” carries us out on a bowed bass laced with percussive breathing and whispers. Painting syncopations with a broader brush, the group fades in an ever-tightening braid of wordless breathing until we are left dry.

The album’s title would seem to characterize the sound and effect of Eberhard Weber’s music in one fell swoop. His presence is felt here more melodically than instrumentally, as he chooses just the right moments to foreground his unfettered sound. And while the absence of keyboardist Rainer Brüninghaus marks a noticeable change in density, it also allows voices that have always been there to emerge from the woodwork and shine.

ECM Records



Today's Rediscovery, after a bit of a hiatus, looks at an album by Eberhard Weber that is of particularly significance in the German bassist's discography. Fluid Rustle, released by ECM Records in 1979, was, in fact, one of many anomalies in Weber's discography for its unusual instrumentation (electric guitar/balalaika, vibraphone/marimba, bass/tarang, voices); but beyond that, it stands out as the album that introduced guitarist Bill Frisell to the world.

As Frisell explains in a 2001 interview that was ultimately published at All About Jazz in 2011, Bill Frisell: The ECM Years:

"Soon after I got to Belgium, in 1978," said Frisell, "I get a call from Mike Gibbs, who had a tour of England with his own big band, and his regular guitarist, Philip Catherine, wasn't able to do the tour. I had played in Mike's band at school, so I knew the music, so he called me and asked me if I could do his tour. There were a lot of British musicians in the band, like [drummer] John Marshall and [trumpeter] Kenny Wheeler and [saxophonist] Charlie Mariano. Eberhard Weber was playing bass, so I was kind of thrown in with a lot of the guys I had been listening to already.

"It was just an incredible opportunity for me to be able to play with all these guys," Frisell concluded. "So, during that tour, there was a little area every night where Mike Gibbs let Eberhard and me play some free improv, and it really felt great; it felt like we were connecting—there'd be moments where it lifted off, with just two of us playing. This was in October or something, of 1978, and Eberhard had this recording coming up with Gary Burton that was going to be Fluid Rustle. Man, I couldn't believe it; I had done a couple little recordings in Belgium, but nothing that was a big recording. That was how I met [ECM label head/producer] Manfred Eicher the first time, and I think I was so terrified of the whole thing, I didn't know what I was doing. Even traveling and staying in the hotel, I didn't know what to do; I didn't even know how you checked into a hotel or anything. And I wasn't able to get much going; I was pretty inhibited during that recording."

And while it is, indeed, true that Frisell's playing is somewhat tentative on an album of largely introspective chamber jazz that also features singers Norma Winstone and Bonnie Herman, vibraphonist/marimbaist Gary Burton and, of course, Weber, using his custom-built five-string electric double bass. Still, hearing the album when it was first released, I couldn't help but feel that this guitarist, whose name was new to me, was someone well worth watching.

How right I was. That feeling was quickly justified over the course of the next few years as Frisell—playing again with Weber on his equally impressive Later That Evening (ECM, 1984), recording and touring with ECM label mate/Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek (1983's Paths, Prints and 1984's Wayfarer, the subject of another Rediscovery column), and appearing on a blistering live set with yet another ECM artist, Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen (1982's Molde Concert—grew in leaps and bounds, even releasing his own solo debut for the label in 1983, In Line, and quickly becoming the idiosyncratic, instantly recognizable guitarist who has, in the ensuing years, become one of the most influential of his generation.

But at the time of Fluid Rustle, Frisell had yet to gain the confidence he needed to truly stand out. Still, his solo in the buoyant middle section of the title track was more than enough to suggest a new guitar hero in the making. With a dark, brooding introduction,"Fluid Rustle" also features a characteristically perfect solo from Burton, whose playing throughout the album is a revelation. Outside of his duo with pianist Chick Corea—whose ECM recordings are documented on the label's 2009 Old & New Masters Edition box set, Crystal Silence: The ECM Years 1972- 1979—Burton was, at the time, rarely heard outside of contexts with a conventional bass/drums rhythm section, making Fluid Rustle an anomaly in the vibraphonist's discography as well.

Weber had, by this time, already experimented with contexts beyond the norm—though it would be misleading to suggest any of his recordings, including his own Old & New Masters Edition box, Colours (2010), which collected the bassist's three recordings featuring his popular Colours quartet—were anything resembling conventional. Still, Weber's The Following Morning (ECM, 1976), which featured the bassist alongside Colours keyboardist Rainer Bruninghaus on a series of original compositions written for bass, piano, cello, French horn and oboe (the latter three instruments performed by members of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra), was a clear indicator of the bassist's desire to work in a variety of contexts.

John Kelman - June 4, 2015
© 2015 All About Jazz
 

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