My review of Eberhard Weber's Encore, today at All About Jazz.

In a time when too many things that seem unfair create victims rather than heroes, theworld needs more people like Eberhard Weber. Struck down with a major stroke in 2007, the renowned German bassist found himself without the strength required in his left hand to be able to play the custom-built, electric five-string double bass that, in various incarnations, has defined a sound as instantly recognizable as any bassist on the planet.

That would have been enough to stop anyone in their tracks, and turn them into a victim. Instead--as he recounts in a 2013 All About Jazz interview, the pragmatic Weber walked away from the instrument with few, if any, regrets. "I'm very, very often asked by people: do I suffer because I can't play anymore," Weber recounted in that interview. "And I have to say, 'No, I don't suffer at all.' I'm not depressed. And I don't need it. My bass is still set up in my studio, and I can touch it, but I haven't touched it, certainly not in the last three years. I don't even look at it. I don't need it. It's the past for me."

Weber's outlook has facilitated a different approach to music-making first heard on Résumé, released the same year on the label where the bassist has parked his wagon for four decades: Munich's ECM Records. The music of Résumé--where Weber built compositions around bass solos culled from recordings made across a quarter century of live performances with label mate Jan Garbarek's group, using keyboards and the judicious use of guests--was light years away from the more group-oriented material of early albums like his 1974 ECM leader debut The Colours of Chloë or the three albums made with his subsequent Colours group and collected recently as one of the label's Old & New Masters Edition box sets, Colours (2010).

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