Eberhard Weber Colours - Little Movements (1980)

Second album by Eberhard Weber's Colours collective - third if you count Yellow Fields, as a reissue box set did - and fast becoming my favourite Weber album, possibly overtaking even the more gentle, hushed Fluid Rustle.  After four minutes of atmospheric ambience, the opening Last Stage Of A Long Journey develops into a gorgeous, sedate feature for Rainer Brüninghaus' piano and Charlie Mariano's flute (then Garbarek-like sax).  The twelve-minute Bali also starts with a gentle, wispy drone, before bursting into life with Brüninghaus' repetitive piano figures, and developing in multiple sections.  You can tell it's a Brüninghaus composition; he's well on the way to his own masterpiece Freigeweht with material like this. 

Some more cyclical piano arpeggios introduce A Dark Spell, which develops into a great feature for Mariano to soar freely, especially in the uptempo end section.  The title track starts with an odd clash of sounds in the accordion-like synth and clatter of percussion, held together by Brüninghaus' piano as John Marshall continues to roll around the kit before it all settles into another gorgeous track.  Then 'No Trees?' He Said is a joyous, upbeat closer.  This whole album is a pure delight from start to finish.

link

pw: sgtg

Eberhard Weber at SGTG:

Yellow Fields (link also includes Jan Garbarek's Paths, Prints feat. Weber) 

Silent Feet

Fluid Rustle

Ralph Towner's Solstice: Sound & Shadows

Pat Metheny's Watercolors

Eberhard Weber Colours - Silent Feet (1978)

Eberhard Weber's Yellow Fields band (minus Jon Christensen, who presumably had a hundred other ECM sessions to attend) coalesced into Colours in the late 70s.  They produced two albums under this moniker, of which Silent Feet was the first (the other's coming up next week).  John Marshall was now on the drum stool, laying down a neat mid-tempo shuffle for Weber, Charlie Mariano and Rainer Brüninghaus to move around in on the great 18-minute opener, Seriously Deep.  Mariano's solos are a particular standout on this memorable epic of jazz-prog.

The two remaining tracks are 12 minutes apiece, with the title track starting out as a meditative feature for Weber and Brüninghaus, before Marshall kicks it into gear for the album's most joyously upbeat stretch.  Eyes That Can See In The Dark then establishes a suitably nocturnal atmosphere, with subtle percussion and Mariano's wood flute.  After a few minutes of this static ambience, Marshall and Brüninghaus take it into the home stretch, including a gorgeous piano spotlight for the latter and more of Mariano stretching out.  The legendary bassist-composer of course provides the supple joints for the whole body of Colours to move as one.

"...and to the cat he has given silent feet and eyes that can see in the dark"

- Richard Adams, Watership Down, Chapter 6: The Story of the Blessing of El-ahrairah

link

pw: sgtg

 

Eberhard Weber at SGTG:

Yellow Fields (link also includes Jan Garbarek's Paths, Prints feat. Weber)

Fluid Rustle

Ralph Towner's Solstice: Sound & Shadows

Pat Metheny's Watercolors

Vassilis Tsabropoulos with Arild Andersen and John Marshall - Achirana (2000)

Greek pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos made his ECM debut with this October 1999 session, and he's since become an ever more exquisite composer and player.  He's first heard in this most modern-ECM of formats, the piano trio, subtly and with gentle understatement as the title track gets underway.  It's the first of two group improvisations, with the second, Diamond Cut Diamond, being much more alive and propulsive and proving this is a well-chosen trio that gelled really well in the studio.

From there, it becomes increasingly clear that the real group leader is probably Arild Andersen, as soon as he wraps a characteristically solid-oak-carved bassline around his composition Valley.  A further Andersen-penned track is She's Gone, based on a Norwegian folk song.  Throughout the rest of the material written by Tsabropoulous, Andersen plays some of his most sublime bass work, whilst the pianist carries on in gorgeously understated mode.  John Marshall proves to be a great sympathetic drummer throughout, making this one of the very best ECM piano trio albums.

link
pw: sgtg