NO INTERVALS, BUT REALLY NICE "INTERLUDES".

The running is taking a pounding from the elements right now. Only a few of us were daft/committed enough last night to turn up for interval training (delete as appropriate).

However, as the grass track at Hallhill look as though it was more suited to the training needs of Matthew Pinsent and Steve Readgrave, normal interval training was shunned and we only went for a short run round the streets. Not exactly interval session effort, but it was nice just to get out for something, given that this was the last club night till after the holidays.

Hope the weather clears a bit for the holidays. While I will reluctantly go out in all weathers – I won’t always enjoy it – but I will do it.

Plans for 2013?? Got an email yesterday informing me that the Self Transcendence 50k is on again in Perth next March.

 

So what of jazz? Well, a nice blend of minimalist jazz and “modern” classical music is perhaps the best way to describe the music of Eberhard Weber.

A stalwart of the ECM stable for many years Weber, sadly, hasn’t recorded anything for a few years now, since a serious stroke left him unable to play.

However, for this interesting album “Resume”, he has contrived something unique (the next of my five). He has taken recordings of his bass “interludes” from various live performances over the last twenty years and “played” with them. These “interludes” are protracted solos that he improvises at live gigs as way of bridging between one piece to another. For the purposes of the CD the interludes have simply been named after the city they were recorded in.

For some of the recordings extra sections have been recorded by Jan Garbarek and added over the original.

Weber is certainly no stranger to this style of “sampling” (for want of a better word). For a long time now he has often utilised an “echo loop” – laying down a short bass “hook”, playing it on a continual loop – adding another small section – and so on and so on. In a way then, this is just a more relaxed “continuation” of what he was trying to achieve on the night.

The great thing about this album is it’s cohesiveness. It really does feel like the product of one live performance rather than the sum of twenty years worth of work.

Stunning.