What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. XIV)
Posted by: Richard Dane on 31 December 2017
On the eve of a new year, it's time for a new thread.
Last year's thread can be found here:
Now Playing........
Eberhard Webber - Endless Days
Eberhard Weber (bass), Paul McCandless (oboe, English horn, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone), Rainer Brüninghaus (piano, keyboards), and Michael DiPasqua (drums, percussion).
Streaming on NAS......... A long weekend and enjoy the thought of and music of Endless Days. A beautiful album...........
Note from ECM Records: Although a familiar figure on concert stages and recordings with the Jan Garbarek Group, bass innovator Eberhard Weber hasn't released an album under his own name in eight years. 'Endless Days', then, is long-awaited. It's also Weber's first recording as leader of a 'group' in 12 years and will be hailed as a major event by ECM followers, particularly since the line-up, with bass/reeds/keyboards/drums, carries strong echoes of the halcyon days of Weber's 'Colours' band. Seven new compositions by Eberhard, plus a remake of 'The Last Stage of a Long Journey'.
Quatuor Gabriel
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924): Piano Quartet No. 1 in c minor, op. 15
Ernest Chausson: Piano Quartet in A major, op. 30
Florestan posted:Quatuor Gabriel
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924): Piano Quartet No. 1 in c minor, op. 15
Ernest Chausson: Piano Quartet in A major, op. 30
Nice to see someone else posting an MA Recording.
Now Playing.......
Eberhard Weber - Later That Evening
Eberhard Weber (bass), Paul McCandless(oboe, English horn, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone), Bill Frisell (guitar), Lyle Mays (piano), and Michael DiPasqua (drums, percussion).
Streaming on NAS......... Continuing on Eberhard, simply beautiful, infectious music, and cannot stop with just one album!
Review on ECM Reviews website here:
If you’ve ever stared at a body of water and been entranced by the play of reflections on its surface, then your ears will appreciate the sonic equivalent thereof on Eberhard Weber’s Later That Evening. Though one misses on this date the unmistakable sweep of Rainer Brüninghaus’s keys, in his place we get the likeminded sensitivity of Lyle Mays alongside the various reeds of Paul McCandless and interstellar meows of Bill Frisell. Completing this sonic package are Michael DiPasqua on drums and of course Weber himself in a sweep of a different kind on his leading electro-bass. Over the course of four Weber originals, averaging nearly 11 minutes each, this never-repeated ensemble lays down some of his farthest-reaching tracks ever committed to disc.
Mays scrims his shaw within the first minute of “Maurizius,” one of two shorter extensions in the album’s liquid flow. Riding a foamy wave of cymbals and English horn, Frisell’s blurry curls find solace in the darkening sky, which pushes the sun down silently behind the middle horizon all the way to the title track, where Weber’s bass winds into its fleshiest expressions. Yet it is in that middle horizon where this set’s true richness is disclosed. The ghostly voices that open “Death In The Carwash” seem to approximate footsteps, each traced by soprano saxophone. Weber’s gorgeousness stretches this elastic band to a state of near-snap as Frisell and Mays weave their growing kinship into the trampoline from which Mays springs, arms spread. Back on the ground, “Often In The Open” finds piano and drums in a darkly grained dialogue. The drumming picks up quietly, suddenly, stringing soprano by spidery pulls from guitar, leaving us in a circular theme from McCandless, who finishes alone.
One can always expect fluidity from Weber, and the music on Later That Evening is no exception. It cages the air like waterspouts in the distance, kept at bay from their potential destruction through a screen of remembrance.
On a cold dismal day like this, one needs a dose of funky vinyl to warm things up.
Orihinal UK pressing from the mid 90s.
1977 - Double 1991 CD which contains 4 extra tracks - notably Cruisin’ For Burgers and The Torture Never Stops - missing on the original double vinyl.
Haim Ronen posted:
Haim,
You got me thinking here with your recent post. Although, my MA section was never misplaced, I had nearly forgot about these great MA recordings. The Mozart and the Quatuor Gabriel recordings share the same keyboard player, Yoko Kaneko, on a fortepiano on the Mozart and a piano with the chamber music.
Thanks for pointing me to MA recordings many years ago...
Now Playing.........
Eberhard Weber - Yellow Fields
Eberhard Weber (bass), Charlie Mariano (soprano saxophone, Shenai, Nagaswaram), Rainer Bruninghaus (keyboards), and John Christensen (drums).
Streaming on NAS.......... Continuing on with the bonding exercise with Eberhard's music........
From ECM Reviews webpage here:
With “Touch” we are immediately privy to a groove-oriented game between piano and bass. The lush, open sound is heightened by the presence of synth strings, prefiguring Weber’s later orchestral collaborations. Charlie Mariano’s soprano floats with positive energy and unbounded enthusiasm as the strings morph into trembling sirens. Jon Christensen adds backbone to otherwise invertebrate music. Weber is subdued in this first track, leaving Mariano to take the lead with a soulful stride toward a quick fadeout, leaving us wanting more of what could have been.
“Sand-Glass” begins with water droplets and the occasional artfully placed rim shot. High notes on bass provide a constellatory framework. Within these borders, seemingly drawn but only imagined, Mariano solos like a comet, his sentiment flaring against a limpid night. Mariano flaps his wings around the fuselage of Weber’s bass line before being rocked to sleep in an electric piano cradle. Inspirations grow more pronounced as Mariano picks up the shenai, a quadruple-reed North Indian oboe that tunnels into the brain like a shawm. We ride this wave until the drums pick us up and drop us back into a shattered world of aftershocks and quieting energy.
The title track is an auditory hermit. With the theme quickly dispensed with, improvisation turns joyful fancy into gorgeous abandon. All the while, discipline reigns as abstractions build into a more melodic whole in which the sound and the message are one and the same. Weber takes a more supportive tack, allowing Brüninghaus a cosmic solo on electric piano. Statements conveyed and time regained, the band wraps up with a fleeting thematic revival amid an interlacing of rhythms and supportive flourishes.
Lastly, we merge onto the “Left Lane,” which opens with a pensive bass, soon joined by electric piano. Christensen defibrillates, turning this slow drive into a cruise. The piano sings in its higher regions before trickling down like rain on a window. Weber returns to spark a new groove, moving from elegiac to jazzy in a flash. A seemingly tame sax solo quickly turns dramatic, opening our hearts to a visceral farewell.
Eoink posted:
1st pressing vinyl (bought in the last couple of years from the great bloke Sid at Hebden Bridge’s Muse Music). LIfe-affirming music from a band at their peak.
After 1 track it’s taken me back to the mid-80s, a long haired early twenty-something, I was standing at a roundabout in Cambridge on the Monday morning after the folk festival, rucksack and tent on my back hitching back to London. A cop car pulled up beside me and I started shrugging the rucksack off for a drugs search. Instead a cheery Geordie cop leant over from the driver’s seat to ask me whether Lindisfarne had been good the night before. Being assured they’d played up a storm, he drove off beaming.
Saw them on a tour years ago and Peter Gabriel and Genisis were the support act.
CD - EMI Music UK 2008 version : )
Europe Endless - The Hall Of Mirrors - Showroom Dummies - Trans Europe Express - Metal On Metal - Franz Schubert - Endless Endless
2000 - CD (rip)...
A night on the hill?
S
I
The Cranberries, everyone else is doing it, so why can’t we. According to a sticker on the front, this is Audiophile Limited Edition Vinyl, I think it just means that the release was CD, and they pressed very few records, the album has a CD booklet inside.
Fantastic album, student rock of the highest order. Lovely songs, well arranged and played, and Dolores O’Riordan had a lovely voice. I didn’t like any of their later albums enough to buy them, on the basis of this re-listen I may have a look.
RIP Dolores.
Original vinyl. Next to the Cranberries on the shelf, I couldn’t resist giving this a spin. Mary’s debut album about 30; years ago, bluesy jazzy vocals, an excellent band, I remember the sax playing from several boisterous gigs in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it sounds equally good on vinyl. One of Ireland’s finest, this is one of her best recordings. It finishes with as sexy a version of Seduced as has ever hit vinyl.
A 1964 studio recording including Hank Mobley on tenor sax, Herbie Hancock on piano and kenny Burrell on guitar.
Original vinyl. Staying with the Irish theme, although moving from Irish female vocal to male Plastic Paddy vocal (the phrase my Irish-born friends were wont to use for London/England-born 1st generation like myself).Probably the Pogues best album, some amazing lyrics, covering various elements of the Irish diaspora, but never sententious. excellent rambunctious playing. At his best McGowan was one of the finest Irish poets of the 20th Century (not a Yeats or a Heaney I hasten to add), describing the dark side of the London Irish experience in bleak terms, while the music drove you to dance.
Good thing it’s a school night, Mary Coughlan followed by the Pogues has me thinking about drinking.
