The great German bassist Eberhard Weber played hundreds of concerts in his time as a member of the Jan Garbarek Group, and each of them included an extended feature for him alone, often effectively a spontaneous composition rather than a 'bass solo' in strict jazz sense. For Résumé Weber has returned to recordings of these 'transitional' solo sequences (they were conceived originally to join two compositional blocks of various keys, colours and tempi as the group's programme progressed) and reworked a few of them into an album with its own sense of flow.
The unique sound of Eberhard's customised electric bass is heard here mostly in the context of his own keyboard settings and treatments, but also augmented by the saxophones and overtone flute of Jan Garbarek (on three tracks) and by the percussion of Michael DiPasqua. Based on live recordings made between 1990 and 2007 at locations from Karlsruhe to Santiago, Amsterdam to Bath, the album was mixed in the South of France by Weber, Manfred Eicher, Michael di Pasqua and Gérard de Haro in 2011.
Writing about this album, Weber says: "My special instrument, a five-string electric double bass, is capable of striking sonic effects, which happily can be further enriched by a "reverb unit" to record my bass live, to reproduce it [for] my own spontaneous playback over which I could play solo improvisations; that was the only way I could successfully sustain long solo recitals. I am not concerned about whether what I originally played is still recognisable - using the delay effect already produced astonishing overlays per se. Now, after completing the individual solo excerpts, not even I can always spontaneously hear what I originally played and what I added later on...
"I had always been trying to depart from the original functions of the bass - at least occasionally - and to strike out on new paths which one could not describe as "conforming to its nature." And I am proud to present sounds whereby virtually no one would think that they came from that deep, low instrument, never mind that they can be played on any instrument: presented without qualm. Workable colouration, inventing fascinating sounds; those were my goals."
Personnel: Eberhard Weber (bass, keyboards), Jan Garbarek (soprano and tenor saxophones, selje flute), Michael Di Pasqua (drums, percussion)