Anlässlich meines 75. Geburtstags hat mich die Landesregierung Baden-Württemberg mit dem erstmals vergebenen „Jazzpreis Baden-Württemberg für das Lebenswerk“ und mit einem unglaublichen Konzert geehrt. Ich konnte nochmals auf der Bühne Platz nehmen und meine Kollegen erleben, wie sie meine Musik auf ihre ganz persönliche Art interpretierten. Die Gedanken und Gefühle, die ich in diesem Moment hatte – neben mir im Scheinwerferlicht mein langjähriger Weggefährte Jan Garbarek, der wie früher zu meinen Bassklängen improvisierte – ich kann sie noch heute nicht in Worte fassen.
Drei junge deutsche Jazzmusiker aus der Region und der erfahrene weitgereiste Michael Gibbs hatten meine Kompositionen für die SWR Big Band ausgewählt. Ich wollte mich überraschen lassen, was sie als inspirierend und verwendungsfähig einstuften. Und dann die Pat-Metheny-Sensation: Ich auf der Leinwand spielend und auf der Bühne zuhörend, zugleich als aktiver Musiker und als Konzert-Besucher, bei seinem höchst aufregendem und ungewöhlichen Opus ‚Hommage‘, eingebunden in die SWR Big Band, dazu mit meinem jungen New Yorker Bass-Kollegen Scott Colley in einem musikalischen Dialog. Die Kollegen live, ich virtuell.
Ich fühle mich allen gleichermaßen verpflichtet, wobei ich unbedingt Manfred Eicher miteinbeziehen will, diese CD ‚Hommage‘ herausgebracht zu haben. Jedenfalls war ich überwältigt und sprachlos – und bin es noch heute.
Diese Konzerte sind nach meiner Überzeugung nicht zu überbieten.
Somit überlege ich ernsthaft: Man muss auch mal Schluss machen können. Mal sehen, ob es mir gelingt… Nochmals mein Dank allen, die dieses Ereignis möglich gemacht haben!
On the occasion of my 75th birthday I was honoured to be presented with the “Jazzpreis Baden-Württemberg für das Lebenswerk”, a lifetime achievement award given for the first time, as well as two astonishing concerts in Stuttgart. And so I came to take my place once again on a stage, witnessing my colleagues’ very personal interpretations of my music. My thoughts and feelings as Jan Garbarek improvised in the spot light to my bass sounds as in former days… I can’t put them in words even today.
Three young local German jazz musicians and the well-travelled arranger and conductor Michael Gibbs selected some of my compositions for the SWR Big Band. I let them surprise me with choices of pieces they considered usable and inspiring. Then there was the Pat Metheny sensation: me, playing on a screen while listening on the stage, at once an active musician and a concertgoer for this highly exciting and unusual ‘Hommage’, my bass lines embodied in the big band orchestration as well as in a constant musical dialogue with my young bass colleague Scott Colley from New York. My colleagues live, myself virtual.
I feel equally indebted to all participants and would also like to thank Manfred Eicher for releasing this ‘Hommage’ on CD. Anyhow, I was and still am overwhelmed and speechless. To my mind, these concerts can hardly be topped.
And so I am seriously thinking: one must also be able to write “The End”. Let’s see if I succeed... Again, my thanks to all of those who made this experience possible!
Eberhard Weber
MUSIC FOR EBERHARD
Eberhard Weber is a very special person for me. I became a huge fan of his music and his playing from the first time I heard it, and the fact that I was able to spend a significant amount of time with him on the bandstand and in the recording studio in the early going of my musical career was something very important for me. We played on two Gary Burton records together (Ring and Passengers) that formed the bookends of my three-year stay in Gary’s band, and Eberhard was gracious to accept my invitation to join me on my second record as a leader, Watercolors.
As much as I admire everything about Eberhard the musician, the time that we were able to spend just hanging out together while touring around the world with Gary was hugely influential on me personally. I was 19 when we first recorded and Eberhard was not only a hero for me but was someone who I could really learn from; I found his innovative approach to the sound and function of his instrument incredibly inspiring.
He seemed to be the personification of an individual who had a visionary sense of what music could be, totally of his own design. This was manifest in the instruments that he had built to bring that sound into the air, crystallizing a sonic fingerprint that even all these years later remains as uniquely identifiable and fresh as it was on first hearing back then.
I was asked to participate in a special event to be held in January 2015 to honor Eberhard’s incredible life as a musician. My idea was to try to create something special for this very unique musician.
Since Eberhard’s stroke in 2007, he has not been able to play. But I felt that his sonic identity was such a huge component in his work that I wanted to somehow acknowledge it in whatever form I could.
It came to me that it would be interesting to take the idea of sampling one step further; to find video elements of Eberhard improvising and then reorganize, chop, mix and orchestrate elements of those performances to gether into a new composition with a large projection of the Eberhard moments that I chose filling a screen behind us as we performed. It seemed like a new way to compose for me that would almost take the form of visual sampling.
Although this seemed like an Eberhard-worthy idea, technically it was quite difficult to do. As it happened, there were only two really usable performances that included long stretches of Eberhard improvising on screen to be found, one from 1986 in Stuttgart and another brief interlude from a Jan Garbarek concert in 1988 in Leverkusen.
The challenges were many, but first and foremost was the issue how to create from scratch an extended piece that would honor Eberhard and also utilize the skills and talents of the commissioning large ensemble, the excellent SWR Big Band.
Included in my idea was to invite Gary Burton to be a major soloist in the piece. In many ways, Eberhard and I shared the benefits of Gary’s amazingly consistent career-long ability to put together unique combinations of musicians. That, in addition to being one of the greatest musicians of our time.
And I thought having Danny Gottlieb join us would be something special.
Stylistically, he was perfect for what I had in mind and he also played such an important part in that period of time for all of us as a drummer. Scott Colley has been a favorite bassist of mine for years. He is truly one of the most versatile and sensitive players around. And Scott seemed to be exactly the perfect bass foil on acoustic for my imagined virtual Eberhard.
The technical process that I had to develop to get to the final result I was aspiring to was difficult and somewhat arcane; I had to learn a lot of things along the way, not to mention that I think the last time I wrote an arrangement for big band was in my early high school years. And as it happened, because of the touring schedule that was in place for my band in the year leading up to the event, it wound up that I really was only left with a few weeks to write the piece before the rehearsals and performances in Stuttgart while simultaneously developing the audio/visual platform for the piece.
But the inspiration of diving deep into Eberhard’s sonic world again was utterly transforming for me. I was reminded once again throughout this process just how huge Eberhard’s presence in my life has been and how important he has been for me in so many ways.
The ultimate satisfaction for me in all of this was getting to see Eberhard again. As it often happens with musicians, as tight as Eberhard and I had been in those early days, in the thirty-plus years in between we both recalled running into each only once in the interim, intersecting at an airport check-in line in the blur of one of our individual marathon touring periods.
The best part of all of this for me was Eberhard’s approval of the piece.
The main goal for me in all of this was the hope that Eberhard would enjoy the evening of the premiere and that I would be able to represent at least a portion of the genuine love I have for him and his music in a way that was faithful to the standard he established throughout his amazing career.
I am thrilled with the result. The SWR Big Band played the music so beau tifully, conductor Helge Sunde was a joy to work with, and it was fantastic to be able to share the bandstand once again with Gary, Danny and Scott.
I hope everyone will enjoy this music as we all continue to appreciate the contributions of Eberhard Weber to the music world.
Special thanks to Martin Mühleis, Eberhard’s friend and manager whose tireless efforts behind the scenes throughout this period really made all of this happen.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/hommage-to-eberhard-weber-mw0002866654http://www.amazon.com/Hommage-Eberhard-Weber-Pat-Metheny/dp/B012DCFVUG
