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280: SILKE EBERHARD TRIO. The Being Inn

Intakt Recording #280/ 2017

Silke Eberhard: Alto Saxophone, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet
Jan Roder: Bass
Kay Lübke: Drums

Recorded January 2016 by Marco Birkner at Studio P4, Berlin.

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Original price
CHF 30.00
CHF 12.00 - CHF 30.00
Current price CHF 30.00
Format: Compact Disc
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It’s no secret that reedist Silke Eberhard is a keen student of jazz history, a player whose inspiration routinely gets recharged by immersing herself in the music of her early heroes. For her that means more than listening to old records by the likes of Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman (the subject of Eberhard’s 2007 Intakt debut, a duo album with pianist Aki Takase titled Ornette Coleman Anthology) – but diving into that repertoire and reshaping it with novel instrumentation. But Eberhard makes it clear that the trio featured on The Being Inn is the context for which she always imagines her own material. “I feel a lot of freedom with this group,” she says of working with bassist Jan Roder and drummer Kay Lübke. Although this particular group coalesced in 2006, her history with each player stretches back to the mid-90s and there’s no missing the rapport they’ve all developed together.

Eberhard and company make a conceptual leap on the album, with many of the pieces tied to the titular concept – an imaginary inn the Saxophoneophonist pictured as she composed numerous tunes. She jokes that the spry opening track, “Ding Dong,” is the kind of number she likes to open one of the trio’s sets with – “a door bell,” she calls it, although the first sounds we actually here are her footsteps leading toward a door that soon opens, inviting the listener in. (Peter Margasak, from the liner notes)

Album Credits

Cover art: Roman Signer
Cover design: Jonas Schoder
Liner notes: Peter Margasak
Photo: Manuel Miethe

All compositions by Silke Eberhard. Recorded January 2016 by Marco Birkner at Studio P4, Berlin. Mixed and mastered by Marco Birkner.

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K
Ken Waxman
Jazz Word

Part of the ever-burgeoning stratum of Berlin-based improvisers, alto saxophonist/bass clarinetist Silke Eberhard doesn’t limit herself to any one band or musical configuration. In fact she has partnered with players across the age spectrum from pianist Ulrich Gumpert to trombonist Matthias Müller. Additionally, while her ensembles usually concentrate on original material, she has also recorded interpretations of classic works by Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and others. These trio discs succinctly reflect her bilateral approach. Together since 2006, the trio of the reedist, bassist Jan Roder and drummer Kay Lübke plays 13 of Eberhard’s own compositions on The Being Inn, while I Am Three, completed by trumpeter Nikolaus Neuser and drummer Christian Marien tries its hand on a dozen of bassist Charles Mingus’ pieces on the other CD.

Mingus Mingus Mingus appears to be aiming for a snarky, punk-like reappraisal of the bassist’s work, and can be commended for reviving more obscure Mingus tunes as well, as his greatest hits. At the same time the lack of a chordal instrument and the undue prominence of Marien, who has been associated with Müller and bassist Clayton Thomas, almost makes it seem as if the horns are accompanying him. Lübke, who has recorded with bands led by reedists Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and Uli Kempendorff, and Roder, whose groups have included Die Enttäuschung, provide more equitable contributions to the other session, making the performances more balanced.

Demonstrating this three-pronged approach, the trio is most effusive on “Willisau Suite”, which at 18 minutes plus is almost twice the length of the next two longest tracks combined. A real suite, it moves from a splintered and shuffling introduction through a variety of duos and trios in tandem and in counterpoint, to end up a pleasing amble, encompassing cymbal shakes and a walking bass line. After a drum roll introduces bugle-call-like stuttering from Eberhard, her timbres accelerate to altissimo as she gesticulates theme variation on theme variation, Roder plucks and string pops with a watchmaker’s attention to detail, and is soon joined with equivalent rhythm precision by Lübke. When the percussionist eventually toughens his attack with New Thing-like rotary stick work the reedist’s irregular vibrations and honking eventually splutter to a moderato finale.

Among the aural light and darkness propelled by the trio during a series of short (staring at 38 seconds) and longer (a maximum of nearly six minutes) improvisations are other instances which let the three demonstrate their instrumental prowess. “8915” and “Schirm” for instance, confirm Eberhard’s debt to Dolphy, with an innate rhythm section swing on the former interrupted by a reed squall; while the bassist’s alternating high and low pulses and the drummer’s clockwork-like beats on the latter pace moody mellowness portrayed by Eberhard’s on the second. Simple and bracing, the bass clarinet solo on “Kanon”, tracked only by the drummer, shows how a profound idea can be expressed without massive elaborations. The contracts between the trios are most obvious with the other group’s treatment of the equivalent “Canon” on Mingus Mingus Mingus. While suitable as a final track, it appears more concerned with Marien’s heavy drumming then Neuser’s ex cathedra elaborations.

Otherwise the performances, recorded six months after the first disc, seem to swerve from POMO archness to livelier interpretations. A couple of tracks appear distantly lo-fi, hopefully a salute to Mingus’ 1950s mono records rather than a studio glitch; while a rather solemn reading of “Jelly Roll” is prefaced by the static and crackle of a stylus hitting a well-worn LP groove in a way that detracts from the overall performance. Plus it’s certain that its composer didn’t figure that the profound sentiments of “Self-Portrait in Three Colors” would be expressed by an explicit back-beat drum solo that has more in common with John Bonham than Dannie Richmond.

When the group pays fealty to the Mingus canon, the results aren’t that encouraging either. Performances such as “Oh Lord, Don’t Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me” or “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” come across as Mingus-lite, with musical nourishment stripped from them along with extraneous calories. Bludgeoned with percussion pressure, the trio doesn’t realize that the first tune is supposed to be played with satiric humor. The second is also a celebration not a dirge and is also weakened when the trumpeter’s exposition is close to “Taps”.

Nimble elsewhere, the band’s interpretations are more notable when it recasts other tunes, almost ignoring the originals. While Neuser’s exaggerated blowing reference Louis Armstrong rather than Ted Curson on “Fables of Faubus”, he later harmonizes perfectly with Eberhard’s alto saxophone and construct an original bent-note finale. As well, “Moanin’” is probably the liveliest cut with snorting saxophone smears doubling plunger trumpet l...

K
Ken Waxman
Jazz Word

Part of the ever-burgeoning stratum of Berlin-based improvisers, alto saxophonist/bass clarinetist Silke Eberhard doesn’t limit herself to any one band or musical configuration. In fact she has partnered with players across the age spectrum from pianist Ulrich Gumpert to trombonist Matthias Müller. Additionally, while her ensembles usually concentrate on original material, she has also recorded interpretations of classic works by Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and others. These trio discs succinctly reflect her bilateral approach. Together since 2006, the trio of the reedist, bassist Jan Roder and drummer Kay Lübke plays 13 of Eberhard’s own compositions on The Being Inn, while I Am Three, completed by trumpeter Nikolaus Neuser and drummer Christian Marien tries its hand on a dozen of bassist Charles Mingus’ pieces on the other CD.

Mingus Mingus Mingus appears to be aiming for a snarky, punk-like reappraisal of the bassist’s work, and can be commended for reviving more obscure Mingus tunes as well, as his greatest hits. At the same time the lack of a chordal instrument and the undue prominence of Marien, who has been associated with Müller and bassist Clayton Thomas, almost makes it seem as if the horns are accompanying him. Lübke, who has recorded with bands led by reedists Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and Uli Kempendorff, and Roder, whose groups have included Die Enttäuschung, provide more equitable contributions to the other session, making the performances more balanced.

Demonstrating this three-pronged approach, the trio is most effusive on “Willisau Suite”, which at 18 minutes plus is almost twice the length of the next two longest tracks combined. A real suite, it moves from a splintered and shuffling introduction through a variety of duos and trios in tandem and in counterpoint, to end up a pleasing amble, encompassing cymbal shakes and a walking bass line. After a drum roll introduces bugle-call-like stuttering from Eberhard, her timbres accelerate to altissimo as she gesticulates theme variation on theme variation, Roder plucks and string pops with a watchmaker’s attention to detail, and is soon joined with equivalent rhythm precision by Lübke. When the percussionist eventually toughens his attack with New Thing-like rotary stick work the reedist’s irregular vibrations and honking eventually splutter to a moderato finale.

Among the aural light and darkness propelled by the trio during a series of short (staring at 38 seconds) and longer (a maximum of nearly six minutes) improvisations are other instances which let the three demonstrate their instrumental prowess. “8915” and “Schirm” for instance, confirm Eberhard’s debt to Dolphy, with an innate rhythm section swing on the former interrupted by a reed squall; while the bassist’s alternating high and low pulses and the drummer’s clockwork-like beats on the latter pace moody mellowness portrayed by Eberhard’s on the second. Simple and bracing, the bass clarinet solo on “Kanon”, tracked only by the drummer, shows how a profound idea can be expressed without massive elaborations. The contracts between the trios are most obvious with the other group’s treatment of the equivalent “Canon” on Mingus Mingus Mingus. While suitable as a final track, it appears more concerned with Marien’s heavy drumming then Neuser’s ex cathedra elaborations.

Otherwise the performances, recorded six months after the first disc, seem to swerve from POMO archness to livelier interpretations. A couple of tracks appear distantly lo-fi, hopefully a salute to Mingus’ 1950s mono records rather than a studio glitch; while a rather solemn reading of “Jelly Roll” is prefaced by the static and crackle of a stylus hitting a well-worn LP groove in a way that detracts from the overall performance. Plus it’s certain that its composer didn’t figure that the profound sentiments of “Self-Portrait in Three Colors” would be expressed by an explicit back-beat drum solo that has more in common with John Bonham than Dannie Richmond.

When the group pays fealty to the Mingus canon, the results aren’t that encouraging either. Performances such as “Oh Lord, Don’t Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me” or “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” come across as Mingus-lite, with musical nourishment stripped from them along with extraneous calories. Bludgeoned with percussion pressure, the trio doesn’t realize that the first tune is supposed to be played with satiric humor. The second is also a celebration not a dirge and is also weakened when the trumpeter’s exposition is close to “Taps”.

Nimble elsewhere, the band’s interpretations are more notable when it recasts other tunes, almost ignoring the originals. While Neuser’s exaggerated blowing reference Louis Armstrong rather than Ted Curson on “Fables of Faubus”, he later harmonizes perfectly with Eberhard’s alto saxophone and construct an original bent-note finale. As well, “Moanin’” is probably the liveliest cut with snorting saxophone smears doubling plunger trumpet l...

Reviews in Other Languages

M
Max Granvil
Blog de Garenne

Plus âgée que sa compatriote d’une quinzaine d’années, la quadragénaire Silke Eberhard (« The Being Inn ») est quant à elle restée en Allemagne où elle occupe depuis quelques lustres une place notable au sein de la scène nationale. La sonorité de son alto (elle pratique aussi la clarinette basse) est plus tranchante que celle de Charlotte Greve et c’est en leader qu’elle s’affiche avec un trio dont elle compose l’intégralité du répertoire. Elle y est accompagnée par les excellents Jan Roder (b) et Kay Lübke (dm) dont le jeu dynamique convient parfaitement aux improvisations fureteuses de la souffleuse.

https://blogdegarenne.blogspot.com/2020/10/gender-stories-2.html

M
Max Granvil
Blog de Garenne

Plus âgée que sa compatriote d’une quinzaine d’années, la quadragénaire Silke Eberhard (« The Being Inn ») est quant à elle restée en Allemagne où elle occupe depuis quelques lustres une place notable au sein de la scène nationale. La sonorité de son alto (elle pratique aussi la clarinette basse) est plus tranchante que celle de Charlotte Greve et c’est en leader qu’elle s’affiche avec un trio dont elle compose l’intégralité du répertoire. Elle y est accompagnée par les excellents Jan Roder (b) et Kay Lübke (dm) dont le jeu dynamique convient parfaitement aux improvisations fureteuses de la souffleuse.

https://blogdegarenne.blogspot.com/2020/10/gender-stories-2.html

J
Jean Buzelin
Cultur Jazz Magazine

Beaucoup plus aéré est le disque d’un second trio sax-contrebasse-batterie, celui de la saxophoniste allemande Silke Eberhard (saxo-alto et clarinette basse), fort bien accompagnée par Jan Roder et Kay Lübke. Son jeu, sinueux, son attaque franche, et son travail sur les intervalles renvoient un peu à Eric Dolphy, à Steve Lacy également, et peut-être à Arthur Blythe car elle navigue sur des thèmes et des structures rythmiques assez simples, mais parfaits pour susciter l’improvisation. Une suite de 18’, sept pièces qui n’atteignent pas 6’, et cinq intermèdes de 30/40’’ où le même thème est joué dans différentes tonalités, constituent un très bon disque de jazz contemporain. Silke Enerhard s’était déjà signalée avantageusement à nos oreilles dans des duos avec pianistes : Aki Takase « Ornette Coleman Anthology » (Intakt 129) et Uwe Oberg (cf. Culturejazz « Une année avec Leo (1) » 16/12//2016) et avec le trio I’m Three « Mingus, Mingus, Mingus » (LR 752 2016) . On voit qu’elle puise aux meilleures sources.

https://www.culturejazz.fr/spip.php?article3360