Eberhard Weber - Yellow Fields (1976)

R.I.P. Jon Christensen, 20 March 1943 - 18 Feb 2020

Another sad farewell to an ECM jazz legend - Jon Christensen has died at the age of 76, after playing on hundreds of sessions for artists including Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber, Ralph Towner, Terje Rypdal... the list goes on and on.  Here's a couple of albums in tribute, and a list of previous posts that featured Jon.

Christensen's tight, steady drumming was an important feature of Eberhard Weber's second album as band leader.  The September 1975 session that produced Yellow Fields also featured Rainer Bruninghaus on keyboards and Charlie Mariano on reeds, and saw Weber's music simplify a little from the almost progressive rock-like structures of his debut album.  What emerged was a smooth but propulsive jazz fusion with great expressive leads from Mariano, some timelessly cool grooves on the keys from Bruninghaus, and rock solid backing from Weber and Christensen.

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Jan Garbarek - Paths, Prints (1982)

Jon Christensen had played with Jan Garbarek since the late 60s, and would continue working with him through the 90s.  He provided the perfect base for this keyboardless December 1981 date, again pairing up with Weber's instantly recognisable bass tone as Garbarek and Bill Frisell dripped across the sonic picture like rain on glass.  I tend to tread carefully into 80s Garbarek and beyond, but this album has aged well and is very much a piece with the classic ECM aesthetic.  Kite Dance and the closer Still are particularly lovely.

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Previously posted at SGTG featuring Jon Christensen:
Afric Pepperbird (Garbarek/Rypdal/Andersen/Christensen)
Popofoni (Garbarek/Rypdal/Stenson/Andersen/Christensen etc)
Waves (Rypdal/Mikkelborg/Hovensjø/Christensen)
Solstice: Sound And Shadows (Towner/Garbarek/Weber/Christensen)
Bluish (Stańko/Andersen/Christensen)
The Sea (Bjørnstad/Rypdal/Darling/Christensen)

Marc Johnson - Sound Of Summer Running (1998)

Although this album was only the second released by Omaha-born jazz bassist Marc Johnson under his own name, he was well established by the 90s.  His sideman appearances went back to Bill Evans' last days, and subsequently saw several ECM appearances, particularly with John Abercrombie.  He'd also fronted the Bass Desires group on ECM, a quartet with Bill Frisell and John Scofield as duelling guitarists.

For this 1997 recording, Johnson went back to the dual guitar-bass-drums configuration of Bass Desires, this time pairing Frisell with none other than Pat Metheny.  This lineup was bound to produce something special, and it most certainly did.  Perhaps some expected fireworks - the AMG writeup registers disappointment on that score - but what emerged instead was a beautifully mellow, mostly mid-tempo album of quietly assured brilliance.

Frisell and Metheny blend perfectfully on every track here, yet still make their individual influences heard.  The album variously touches on country & western (Ghost Train, Porch Swing) and blues (Union Pacific), as well as Metheny's great Midwestern folk influences.  Dingy Dong Day even takes in surf and rockabilly, with nifty key changes, and then the partly acoustic stretch to the end of the album brought to mind my favourite ECM guitar trio album Travel Guide.  Essential summer enjoyment from start to finish.

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Arild Andersen - Molde Concert (expanded edition 2000, orig 1982)

ECM magnificence from the Molde Jazz Festival in August 1981, partly released as a single LP in 1982, then restored to almost (one track from the LP had to be dropped to squeeze in under 80 mins) full glory on CD in 2000.  The great Norwegian bassist was joined for this fine selection of his tunes (plus the Miles Davis/Tony Williams-penned encore) by Bill Frisell on guitar, John Taylor on piano, and sometime Weather Reporter Alphonse Mouzon on drums.

We've mostly heard Taylor and Frisell in mellow modes on this blog up til now (check the label tags for previous posts), and there is a good showing of downtempo loveliness in the Molde setlist - Targeta, Lifelines and Koral for sure - but for the most part, this album absolutely rocks.  Finding the confidence that he recalled wasn't quite there yet on Fluid Rustle, Bill Frisell hits cooking temperature right from the set opener and just gets increasingly jaw dropping from there.

It might just be the fact that he's a jazz guitarist with a full on rock snarl here, but Frisell made me think of Steve Howe at least once - check Cameron near the end, where Andersen also gets a great solo spot.  The 13 minutes of The Sword Beneath His Wings are also a highlight for Frisell and for everyone - Andersen might be the bandleader, but this is very much a firing-on-all-cylinders group effort.  Even the drum solos are awesome, as on Six For Alphonse.  Highly recommended.

original LP cover

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Eberhard Weber - Fluid Rustle (1979)

Haven't posted an Eberhard Weber solo album yet, so it's long overdue to rectify.  This is my absolute favourite, in which the instantly recognisable upright-electric bassist pared back his unique music to just bass, vibes/marimba (Gary Burton), guitar/balalaika (Bill Frisell), and two vocalists (Norma Winstone and Bonnie Herman) adding wordless magic.

Making his ECM debut after being discovered by Weber on tour, Frisell is tentative and understated here - to a fault, in his own retrospective analysis, but his minimalist volume swells and gentle arpeggios are perfectly placed on this winter's morning walk of an album.  The side-long Quiet Departures starts off with Frisell in this zone, accompanied by Burton, before the bass and voices enter.  By the halfway mark, this pre-dawn chill has started to see some sunlight, as Frisell strums an open chord on the balalaika (with a more energetic lead guitar overdubbed), and the voices set off on a gorgeous melodic progression.

The sunlight continues to burst through on the title track, with Winstone and Herman in full voice as Burton and Weber sparkle all around them, before another subtle, fluid solo from Frisell.  The rest of the album turns colder and more desolate, with a plaintive Burton solo providing the centrepiece of A Pale Smile, and the closing Visible Thoughts ending the day back in the wintry dark as the voices turn into eerie whispers.  A highly, highly recommended standout album in Weber's peerless catalogue.

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Bill Frisell - In Line (1982)

There's a lot of Frisell out there to listen to from the last 33+ years of his solo career as a master jazz axeman - most of which is still on my to-do list, having so far only approached his catalogue in my capacity as an ECM nut.  After loving his work as a sideman to Eberhard Weber and Jan Garbarek in the late 70s/early 80s, I grabbed his three ECM solo albums, of which this one remains my favourite.

There's no Weber here, but another ECM bass regular, Arild Andersen, provides a subtle underpinning to about half the album.  Frisell is mostly muted and understated too on his first time out as leader, nimbly picking out a bunch of gorgeous melodies.  On 'The Beach', he expands his palate with layers of delayed guitar sound to create a stunning soundscape that marks the album's high point for me.

As with a handful of other ECM albums, the CD reissue replaced the original artwork with something much more nondescript and mid-80s, so I've plumped for the original LP cover for this post of In Line.  So I actually stand corrected in saying there's no Weber here - as with about a dozen other ECM releases, the original cover was by Maja Weber, late wife of the great bassman.

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