Stages of a Long Journey

This finely recorded live album draws from two concerts that took place in Stuttgart, Germany in 2005. The shows celebrated bassist and composer Eberhard Weber’s 65th birthday and the release serves as an excellent retrospective of the Stuttgart native’s lengthy career. Weber is joined by vibraphonist Gary Burton, saxophonist Jan Garbarek, keyboardist Rainer Bruninghaus, percussionist Marilyn Mazur, and other guests, and the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by Roland Kluttig, appears on several cuts. Stages of a Long Journey’s centerpiece is “Birthday Suite,” a five-track stretch which opens with the gorgeous orchestral jazz of “The Colours of Chloe.” After some solo piano from Bruninghaus, the small group and orchestra play “Maurizius,” a cinematic gem from 1982’s Later That Evening. Then Mazur plays a percussion solo that segues into “Yellow Fields,” the title cut from a 1976 release by Weber that is nicely expanded upon here. Pianist Wolfgang Dauner and Weber (on acoustic bass) interpret Jerome Kern’s “Yesterdays,” and on “Seven Movements,” the bassist teams up with Garbarek on soprano sax.