AOTW - July 24 2005

[Guest akanalog]

for my first AOW i picked my first ECM album. i don't know what made me purchase this one at the cambridge tower records. perhaps the attractive cover painting by Maja Weber. either way, i have found this album mysterious and beautiful from the time i purchased it. i think a main attraction is rainer bruninghaus' piano and keyboard style. it seems like it was made for the ECM recording style. it is spare and melodic and he lays down a number of interesting keyboard patterns over which the cellos and bass play weber's themes. also the album starts out with dense but not uninviting layers of orchestral strings, but then the second track opens into the spare beautiful style i idealize with ECM. the third track tries to get a bit funky in an ECM-ish way. not that it doesn't suceed, but this is some light jazz fusion jamming, not deep or dancefloor material. i like it though. weber's bass is deep and peter giger, also a part of one of my favorite krautrock groups (dzyan) lays down a vigorous (for ECM) beat. obviously the final track, a nearly twenty minute performance, is probably considered the highlight of the album. here you can really see what i like about bruninghaus, as his hypnotic keyboards (which become multitracked) combine very well with weber's bassline. and every now and then the track opens up and gisela schaubele's wordless vocals come in, which i too enjoy greatly and give respite from the relentless keyboard and bass patterns. to me, this is the kind of album to put on in a dark room and just listen to the buiding layers.

i would just like to say that sometimes i don't even consider weber a real bassist as he plays that annoying flimsy sounding electric standup thing (see gary burton's "passengers" when there are two bassists and weber's role is high-pitched annoying bass tones), but on this album he is deep and rich and propulsive. and his compositions are beautiful. and special word for rainer bruninghaus, too long stuck with jan garbarek, but a spacious and beautiful player in his own right. i wish he had done more in the 70s. it is stange to think that just a few years before when he was a krautrock player, he was playing straight ahead and heavy organ and he evolved into this light touch impressionist.

Track Listings

1. More Coulors

2. The Colours Of Chloe

3. An Evening With Vincent Van Ritz

4. No Motion Picture

Eberhard Weber (vocals, ocarina, cello, bass)

Gisela Schauble (vocals)

Ack Van Rooyen (flugelhorn)

Rainer Bruninghaus (piano, synthesizer)

Peter Giger (drums, percussion)

Ralf Hubner (drums-only track 2)

Cellos of the Sudfunk Orchestra, Stuttgart

Recorded at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, Germany in December 1973. (ECM)

Edited July 25, 2005 by akanalog

[Guest akanalog]

also let me add, at the end of "no motion picture" when there is the too brief breakdown which sounds more reminiscent of dzyan with the steel drum-esque sound and the electric piano on top-awesome.

[Swinger]

Thank you for suggesting this one. It's a LOVELY album. I listened to this album twice before purchasing my own copy.

Very relaxing music.I can play it almost every day.

[Guest akanalog]

well i feel a bit dumb because we just had an ECM-er, but what the heck...

this and the bley could not be more different.

i can't believe i didn't think of that.

but hey-i'm a spontaneous guy.

[7/4]

i would just like to say that sometimes i don't even consider weber a real bassist as he plays that annoying flimsy sounding electric standup thing (see gary burton's "passengers" when there are two bassists and weber's role is high-pitched annoying bass tones), but on this album he is deep and rich and propulsive.  and his compositions are beautiful. 

Them's fighin' words. EW is a great bass player.

[fent99]

Lovely album and definitely very different to the Bley I chose last week. I've seen this described as a a jazzy Tubular Bells somewhere (maybe the Penguin book) I love this though I'm less sure that its jazz. No doubting the credentials and some of the playing but as an album it starts from jazz and goes somewhere else. Hard to argue with the tones of those cellos (and maybe like some other jazz with strings its maybe them that take the music to more of a mood music thing).

No problem with this as great music though and its something I return to again and again...

[Guy Berger]

Lovely album and definitely very different to the Bley I chose last week. I've seen this described as a a jazzy Tubular Bells

Tubular Bells sucks! Hopefully this album is better...

Guy

[Guest akanalog]

guy, i think you will like this album. in the past our tastes have sort of comingled.

if you have really never heard this one-give it a shot.

in response to-is it jazz? well manfred eicher thought it was OK.

and in response to my feelings on weber's bass playing-he is great but not always what i am looking for in a bassist.

his solo album "pendulum" is probably about the only solo bass album i can tolerate and i think it is actually pretty good!

[clifford_thornton]

I don't have much to contribute, as the only Weber I have is on a Wolfgang Dauner record ("Fur", Calig 1969) on which he plays both acoustic upright and cello. It's a nutty record for sure.

OK, continue.

[mikeweil]

A nutty record for sure - I had a lot of laughs about Für (meaning "For" - followed by a very very long list of names, a parody of the usual statements of gratefulness on albums). I remember Dauner stating he would have liked to start the LP side on one groove, but with variable endings, or that the record would self-destruct after playback, or elicit various odors during playback .... I saw that trio live opening for Herbie Mann back in 1970 - their performances were just as nutty.

Weber has come a long way since then. Back then, a recording making such elaborate use of overdubs was the exception, and all the more in jazz circles - jazz was supposed to be spontaneous, and considering the free form leaning of the Dauner trio which had helped Weber to make a name on the German scene, it made quite a bit of noise that he released an album which was pre-conceived and arranged/composed to such a degree. But any album on ECM had the advantage of anticipated greatness back then ... I think it sounds a little aged now - to these ears, Weber's later overdub opus Pendulum seems a lot "rounder" in comparison - less constructed.

Edited July 31, 2005 by mikeweil

[mikeweil]

Can't help but post the big pic for convenience:

... and that's how he looked like at the time (back cover photo):

[fent99]

Lovely album and definitely very different to the Bley I chose last week. I've seen this described as a a jazzy Tubular Bells

Tubular Bells sucks! Hopefully this album is better...

Guy

←

Definitely better! I think its clear in a short sequence in the album what's being referred to.

Although some of my comments might seem like criticism, I've listened to this a lot. Its one of those albums rooted in its time but since the music is good, its stood up well.

[clifford_thornton]

I remember Dauner stating he would have liked to start the LP side on one groove, but with variable endings, or that the record would self-destruct after playback, or elicit various odors during playback .... I saw that trio live opening for Herbie Mann back in 1970 - their performances were just as nutty.

←

I always wondered if Dauner had some peripheral involvement with German Fluxus during that period - seems likely considering the concepts enumerated on the LP jacket. An unclothed Weber playing cello wouldn't work out as well in any other context, after all.

[mikeweil]

I always wondered if Dauner had some peripheral involvement with German Fluxus during that period - seems likely considering the concepts enumerated on the LP jacket. An unclothed Weber playing cello wouldn't work out as well in any other context, after all.

←

IIRC, he had!

[clifford_thornton]

Good to know. I'm aware that Brotzmann was in that mix early on as well, though not sure about other German jazzmen. I find it very interesting how improvised music was integrated into the new art/neo-dada climates in Europe, which is something that never really seemed to happen to that extent in the States...

[mikeweil]

The European scene, and the German in particular, never had those dance music roots (R&B) the US scene had. They didn't want to be connected with the mass hysteria of beat nor with the local dance music scene - even the radio orchestras studded with US emigrees had a hard time with the young audience. But any crazy experimental scene was welcome - especially those once persecuted by the nazis.

You can see similar trends in German postwar painting - an attempt to pickup prewar developments.

(edited for typo)

Edited August 4, 2005 by mikeweil

[clifford_thornton]

Very true - people like Georg Baselitz literally turned those traditions on their heads!

[rostasi]

I was in Kürten, Germany when this thread was active and

I'm sorry that I missed it -

didn't seem to generate a whole lot of response -

but I love(d) this album. I went thru many copies.

Yes, No Motion Picture was definitely the standout track.

The quick repeating bassline with that water-like sound of drops -

absolutely mesmerizing piece of composition.

two cents worth...

[Guest akanalog]

thanks for the reply, rostasi.

i was surprised how few people up on here seem to have heard this album or cared to comment.

i am glad you also enjoy it.

when i heard it during college, this album certainly opened new avenues of exploration for me, a young man only versed in blue note hard bop, miles davis and coltrane.

[Guy Berger]

I've been spending a fair amount of time listening to this over the past few weeks and am not crazy about it, TBH.  When I was younger and really into prog rock I probably would have appreciated it more.  BTW, I love Weber's two subsequent albums (Yellow Fields and Silent Feet).