THE COLOURS OF CHLOË

THE COLOURS OF CHLOE is, without any doubt, Eberhard Weber's most visionary album. Strange to think this was Weber's first album for the ECM label, and he never again came up with anything so idiosyncratic.

Just look at the unconventional line-up. Weber himself plays a leading role on custom-built double bass (now sounding vaguely eastern, now powerfully rhythmical, now singing out freely), cello and ocarina. (The mournful sound of the latter plays an important role in the album's tour-de-force, the nineteen-and-a-half-minute "No Motion Picture".) Weber's old friend Rainer Brüninghaus plays keyboards and provides "No Motion Picture"'s whirling, repetitive, somewhat TUBULAR-BELLS-like themes on synths and multi-tracked electric pianos. Brüninghaus also provides some of the most limpid acoustic piano solos recorded during 1973! His playing contrasts beautifully with the massed forces of the cellos of the Südfunk Orchestra, Stuttgart, which lend the album some of its dreamiest passages. Two drummers appear on the album, and finally there's still Ack Van Rooyen on fluegelhorn, who provides a highly dramatic break on the magnificent title track.

If THE COLOURS OF CHLOE is anything, I suppose you can call it truly symphonic 1970s jazz, but without a trace of empy virtuosity or bombast. Unlike certain other ECM albums, the music is fascinating from start to finish. It never breaks down, and this is due, to a large extent, to Weber's knack for writing and arranging wonderfully mysterious and unforgettable melodies.

It comes as no surprise that the eight-minute title track was covered by Gary Burton on one of his own masterpieces, the 1974 album RING, featuring Burton himself on vibes, Bob Moses on drums, Weber AND Steve Swallow on bass, with Mick Goodrick PLUS Pat Metheny on guitars, all playing together. THE COLOURS OF CHLOE as a whole also made a strong impression on the then twenty-year old Metheny, since its influence (both melodically and structurally) can clearly be heard on Metheny's most ambitious album, THE WAY UP, where Eberhard Weber is explicitly thanked in the liner notes.

I cannot call THE COLOURS OF CHLOE 'a masterpiece of progressive rock' per se, but it is definitely one of the masterpieces of European jazz and of 'progressive music' in general. If you like intelligent, imaginative instrumental music, do not hesitate to get a copy! You'll enjoy it for the rest of your life.

With The Colours of Chloë, Eberhard Weber confronts the listener with a curious sound that feels less like jazz-rock fusion and more like some strange breed of ambient jazz which regularly fades into and out of more conventional ECM-ish sounds. The absence of guitar, in particular, distances itself from the bulk of jazz fusion (can you imagine Mahavishnu Orchestra without guitar?), but the pulsating bass lines Eberhard lays down provides a foundation for some downright frenetic playing from the rest of the band. With driving rhythms on the title track reminding me at points of some of the more esoteric moments of the Canterbury scene - it puts me in mind of Rock Bottom by Robert Wyatt in particular, and I've never heard anything which quite sounds like Rock Bottom - it's an intriguing album and a sorely underrated one at that.

All the colors of marbles.

An amazingly balanced 4 track release which is both traditional and yet way out of its time. Few musicians could actually bring on fresh as new alternate routes to these quiet walked Jazz/Fusion roads.

Eberhard Weber's "The Colours of Chloe", 1974, is full of daring surprises.

Track one "More Colours" has a symphonic melodramatic even cinematic quality as it also strips naked to solitary acoustic bass pluckings, as a runaway piano blends in to counterpoint the symphonic flow, which may also serve as a filter of the kind of Jazz/Fusion colors Eberhard Weber is talking about and these are not exactly mainstream ones. 3.5 stars.

Track two "The Colours of Chloe" is, for starters, the perfect blend between some Progressive Electronic elements which fit in with a more traditional Jazz/Fusion styling and its pertinent instumentation without submitting its electronic value but actually enhancing it as its true to the bone Jazz accomplice while the bass guitar provides really good dynamics and more than once one of the many highlights of the song at the time the piano structures the main theme line with colorful splendor and the strings built up the emotional mood. 4.5 stars.

The trumpet marks the melody and rhythm on track 3 "An Evening With Vincent Van Ritz" with complex drum beats building the dynamic tension while the obscure strings' melody monumentally cast a shadow subtly over the final theme's notes. 4 stars

Track 4 "No Motion Picture" the 5 stars track of this release, takes off where its younger Track 2 sibling left. It has the added bonus of reloading previous highlights and mixing them all at once. But above all it beholds a more personal and unique approach to the whole Jazz/Fusion styling.

This track is divided in 3 movements in a strict classical music sense, therefore its overture serves also as its closure.

In the first part the electric keys as the bass guitar's work set the melody lines for the rest of the ensemble to fall in.

The second movement is the acoustic piano's showcase aided by a creative and quiet obscure string/choir work which eventually builds the coda of the composition.

All in all adventurous, original, highly enjoyable and full of intelligent songwriting, devoid of any kind of mainstream cliches usually found in these Jazz/Fusion territories.

****4 PA stars.