Eberhard (self-produced)
Lyle Mays
Released August 27, 2021
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition
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Artists on Eberhard
Lyle Mays
piano, synthesizers
The piece is a very serious tribute to German bassist and composer Eberhard Weber who was a huge influence on me when I first started out. It’s my humble tribute to Eberhard.
Bob Sheppard
tenor sax, woodwinds
“Eberhard” is a clear reflection of Lyle’s far-reaching imagination and musical landscapes. Lyle’s devotion to texture and structural balance are clearly demonstrated in this sublime composition. He loved to tell a story, always guided by a melody that would grab you and take you on a journey, making you wait and wonder until the moment arrives. Lyle’s musical intent was very serious, specific and fully open to individual interpretation. Lyle absolutely knew what he wanted and was uncompromising in a most supportive and gracious way. How lucky for me to have gained Lyle’s trust to interpret his music. Such a thrill and honor it was to be a part of his ultimate offering.
Mitchel Forman
Wurlitzer electric piano, Hammond B-3 organ
I was moved by the scope of “Eberhard”. I love the dynamic contours. It’s hauntingly beautiful at the end. I’ve been a fan of Lyle’s writing and playing forever and It was somewhat daunting to play a keyboard with Lyle listening. He’s truly shaped the landscape of piano and synth playing forever. So proud and honored to play rhythm keys to Lyles lead. I’m honored to have gotten to know him as a friend and my pool instructor.
Steve Rodby
acoustic bass, associate producer
The beauty of the music, the large canvas he painted on, the transformation of the vibe from elegant to fierce, and the way it’s all just so “Lyle” …
A year and a half since his passing, some of the emotional complexity of that time has softened, and I think I hear the piece more and more as standing on its own, another terrific composition by one of my favorite composers. And an excellent recorded version of it. I’m so happy that this is coming out, going to be shared with the world. As with so many of Lyle’s recordings, it’s about the notes he wrote, the textures he imagined, and the forms he built, as much as it’s about the performances. It was an honor to be a part of the process, for sure. It was a happy time to be back in the studio making music with my dear friend, who will always remain a great inspiration to me. I’d like to add a thank you to everyone on the team that Lyle assembled to make this happen, for all their hard work and soulful contributions.
Jimmy Johnson
electric bass
A lovely piece of music, an emotional journey from start to finish. Lyle’s writing and playing has always been heartfelt and a joy to listen to. Pleasing sonic surprises around every corner. I was simply honored to be invited to play on anything he was working on. We’re all saddened to realize there will be no more beautiful original music from Lyle. Thankfully he left us a good trove of recorded work to be discovered and rediscovered into the future.
Alex Acuña
drums, percussion
Lyle is one of my favorite composers. “Eberhard” – melodically, harmonically and rhythmically excellent – it’s rare to play music that has all three of these elements covered so beautifully and so completely. It’s a great privilege to be on the recording. Glad to know “Eberhard” will be coming out for the world to embrace and with a great line up of musicians.
Lyle always knew what sounds he needed for “Eberhard” and always explained his concept very clearly for this composition – I sent lots of my percussion sounds to be able to cover his musical desires and ideas. It was fun and is still and always will be very precious in my heart and memory. I was praying for his health all the time since I saw him. I asked Lyle if it was okay to pray for him, he said yes please and we embraced. Lyle, I miss you!!
Jimmy Branly
drums, percussion
When I first heard the demo of “Eberhard” Lyle sent me, my tears started to come out. I always loved Lyle’s music and his unique sound. “Eberhard” is a beautiful composition, the harmony, melodies and dynamics throughout the song are incredible. I love music that tells you a story. Working with Lyle at the studio and being able to reproduce his ideas with my instrument and to see him happy with the outcome, is one of the best gifts I have ever received.
Lyle was a very special artist and a beautiful person who always makes you bring the best of your performance, with confidence and with a smile in return. I truly didn’t know before we met at the studio for this production that this was going to be Lyle’s final recording. I knew he was not well, but I had confidence that he was going to be ok. But during the recording, I saw him going through these moments where he needed to rest for some time and the people around him helping, then I started to realize this might be my last moments with him. I met Lyle a while back when we did a concert at CalTech and had the opportunity to spend some valuable time with him during rehearsals and the concert. I learned so much with him. I’m very fortunate to have been part of this experience. “Eberhard” will always be a special gift from Lyle.
Wade Culbreath
marimba, vibraphone
This piece captures everything that I love about Lyle’s music. I first heard him in 1982 when I was in high school and bought the Metheny album, “Watercolors.” I followed him closely with all the Metheny recordings and finally heard The Metheny Group live at the Greek Theater after moving to L.A. in the late 80’s. I remember listening to this music so much in college like it was some kind of drug, but his collaboration with Metheny is unique and transporting. All of the compositions they created are like musical journeys. Working on “Eberhard” gave me a glimpse into Lyle’s process. He is meticulous and thoughtful about every facet of his music.
We actually didn’t know this would be the last project. After the session, he sent me a positive note to say that he was looking forward to the next one. He was always so gracious and appreciative. It is painful to realize that at the time he was likely fighting for every day. I believe he persevered because he may have suspected that this could be his last musical gift to the world.
Bill Frisell
guitar
The first time I heard Lyle was at the Jazz Workshop in Boston with The Pat Metheny Group in 1977. I think it was one of their very first gigs. I immediately became a fan. At the time, I never could have imagined that a few years later I would have the chance to meet him and that we’d be playing together on an Eberhard Weber album “Later that Evening” (1982). Eberhard was a big inspiration to us both.
Lyle then invited me to play on his albums “Lyle Mays” (1986), and Street Dreams (1988). Here was where I had the luxury of getting a first hand look at his compositional process. I feel so lucky to have gotten a little peek inside the workings of his extraordinary mind. A beautiful mind. Beautiful music. I learned so much.
Knowing that this was Lyle’s final recording … this is very difficult to put into words …impossible. So much history. So many incredible memories. I’m just so grateful that he invited me to be a part of this project and to have the chance to be back together with him again. I’ll never forget it. I feel so lucky. Thank you Lyle.
Aubrey Johnson
vocals
My favorite thing about “Eberhard” is that it is transcendent. Every time I listen to it, I find that my mental state is affected remarkably, that wherever I am emotionally and intellectually when I press play is not the same place I return to when the piece is over. Art is meant to transport us, and to show us what could be–“Eberhard” accomplishes this profoundly.
Well, throughout the recording process no one really believed (though they may have had an inkling) that this would be Lyle’s final recording. Lyle’s unexpected return to music after an eight-year hiatus filled him with such excitement, energy, and joy, that it seemed there was no one way he wouldn’t find a way to continue creating. There were moments when the music, and the loved ones that surrounded him, seemed to be a miraculous cure.
It is heartbreaking, even devastating, to accept that “Eberhard” is Lyle’s final recording, especially knowing that he had renewed plans for so much more, but also deeply moving that he left us with such a masterpiece to remember him by. Nando Lauria said he could hear Lyle’s love bursting out of the piece, and I believe that’s what it is: a love letter to his family, friends, and fans.
Rosana Eckert
vocals
”Eberhard” is a masterpiece. It feels like the story of Lyle’s life, a beautiful and dynamic arc. When I hear it, I’m transported and taken on a ride of emotions.
Lyle served all with his music. There was beauty at its core for all types of listeners to enjoy, but there was also complexity and intention at its core to feed the deepest listener. That kind of balance is special (and I think difficult to achieve), and he and I spoke many times of how much he valued that balance.
It is difficult to put this into words knowing that this was Lyle’s final recording. It was a privilege and an honor to have been a part of this – one of the highlights of my life. That he would think of including me and my husband Gary (Eckert) is a precious gift. The memory of those sessions, of his facial expressions and joy, of his brilliance, will stay with me until the end of my days.
Rich Breen
recording, mix, mastering
I had the privilege of knowing and working with Lyle off and on over the last 3 decades on various recording projects. A composer/performer of Lyle’s depth can’t be represented by a single composition, but “Eberhard” contains so much of what I’ve always loved about Lyle’s music; lyrical and impressionistic but not overly sentimental. Full of sophistication, intelligence, and surprise, and yet *always* deeply soulful and grooving.
I hadn’t seen him for a good 5 or 6 months prior to sitting down with him to listen to his mockup and ‘talk’ about the music, and it was clear his health wasn’t good. While I hoped it might turn around, I think we knew all along that he was coming to the end. Through it all, Lyle’s ability to muster his energy and concentrate, despite his physical condition, on the music was remarkable – this was a *big* piece with a lot of details, and Lyle paid attention to every single one of them. It was a joy and an honor to help him see this recording through to the end. I hope this parting gift from Lyle brings joy to all those who love his music – I know it brought Lyle joy to work on it and to hear it finally and completely realized.
Bob Rice
associate producer
My history with the piece “Eberhard” began around the time it was originally composed, maybe 2009-2010.
Lyle asked me to come up to the house to mix his original “midi demo” of the work, which we both lived with, and periodically reviewed over the next 9 years. He finally called me in July 2019, while I was on tour in Ireland, and said “call me when you get home. We’re going to finish recording Eberhard.”
The composition represents for me, many cups of coffee with my dear friend, and a unique opportunity to become immersed in the realization of this very special piece of music.
I enjoy a million things about “Eberhard”, but those that stand out to me at this moment are: the masterful development of thematic materials, the elegance of each transition, the musical puzzles that unfold throughout, the clarity of lines, the profound beauty of every sound you hear, and, of course, his incredible touch on the piano.
Every time I listen, something else reveals itself.
The piece also represents a gathering of many incredible people who Lyle loved and respected, some old friends, some new friends. I was very moved by some of the reunions that I witnessed in the course of those sessions. Everyone brought their heart, their respect of his music, and their virtuosity. It was a powerful time.
I consider it a gift to have been able to spend so much meaningful time with Lyle before he left us. It’s rare to have something so profoundly beautiful to show for that kind of an experience. I will miss his company, but his spirit is very much alive in this music. Everything about him is in there.
Jon Papenbrook
project coordinator, musician contractor, music preparation
Lyle Mays was a true friend of mine for over thirty years. His life exemplified the architecture of living, carefully crafting a complex and careful self-design structure. Lyle demonstrated his versatility across many life ventures including music, architecture design, computer programming, billiards, and even Legos.
Lyle’s greatest gift and true genius remains music. His lasting legacy is encapsulated in the “Eberhard” project. His final in-person musical experience, “Eberhard” takes the listener on a Lyle Mays compositional journey. A telling true story of his musical camaraderie with Eberhard Weber.
The “Eberhard” project was composed approximately 10 years earlier just before Lyle stepped back from the music business. The impetus for his decision to produce and complete it was likely his health decline. Demanding this work be produced “world class” with no expense spared, musicians were hand picked for each part. Not one time during the production of “Eberhard” did Lyle let his heath impede the integrity of his music or final product. The energy and focus he exhibited amazed and inspired all involved. Personally, I never imagined this would be his last in-person musical project. So please enjoy the “Eberhard” journey… Lyle Mays’s best.
Track Listing:
1. Eberhard 13:03
Personnel:
Lyle Mays: piano, synthesizers
Bob Sheppard: tenor sax, flute, alto flute, clarinet, bass clarinet
Mitchel Forman: Wurlitzer electric piano, Hammond B3 organ
Steve Rodby: acoustic bass
Jimmy Johnson: electric bass
Alex Acuña: drums and percussion
Jimmy Branly: drums and percussion
Wade Culbreath: marimba, vibraphone, orchestra bells, xylophone, tone bells
Bill Frisell: guitar
Aubrey Johnson: vocals (featured)
Rosana Eckert: vocals
Gary Eckert: vocals
Timothy Loo: cello principal
Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick: cello
Eric Byers: cello
Armen Ksajikian: cello
Recorded from August 2019 through January 2020 at:
Sphere Studios LA (Assistant Engineer: Xavier Stephenson)
EastWest Studios (Assistant Engineer: Brendan Dekora)
Henson Recording Studios (Assistant Engineer: Chenao Wang)
The Village Studios (Assistant Engineer: Matt Dyson)
Autumn Audio (Eric Fisher)
Produced by Lyle Mays
Associate Producers: Steve Rodby and Bob Rice
Executive Producers: Lyle Mays and Aubrey Johnson
Recorded, Mixed, and Mastered by Rich Breen
Jon Papenbrook: project coordinator, musician contractor, music preparation
Bob Rice: project coordinator, additional programming & engineering
Ryan Andrews: score supervisor, composer’s assistant, additional electric piano
Pierre Piscitelli: score preparation
Review:
When pianist, keyboardist, synthesist and composer Lyle Mays passed away at the far too young age of 66 following a long battle with a recurring (but, to this day, undisclosed) illness in February 2020, it was a major loss for his fans. It was an especially deep body blow to those who’d followed his decades-long work as performer and compositional collaborator with Pat Metheny in the guitarist’s critically and commercially acclaimed Pat Metheny Group.
Mays had been largely MIA from the music scene as a performer for the past decade, but even longer when it came to recorded works. During his lifetime, Mays’ own discography as a leader/co-leader ultimately amounted, beyond a small series of media scores, to just six recordings, from 1981’s classic collaboration with Metheny and Brazilian percussionist/vocalist Nana Vasconcelos, As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (ECM Records) through the 2015 release of a German live performance, The Ludwigsburg Concert (SWR Music).
The Ludwigsburg Concert was certainly a most welcome event for fans starved for new music from Mays, whose previous release under his own name, Solo: Improvisations for Expanded Piano (Warner Bros.), dated back to 2000. Undeniably superb, Ludwigsburg featured Mays, along with a stellar group of band leaders including in-demand Los Angeles-based reed and woodwind multi-instrumentalist Bob Sheppard (Chick Corea, Chris Botti, Bill Cunliffe), double bassist Marc Johnson (Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, Eliane Elias) and drummer Mark Walker (Oregon, Eliane Elias, Paquito D’Rivera). But the two-disc set actually represented the long overdue document of a live performance that had taken place 22 years prior in November 1993, in support of Mays’ then-recently released trio album, Fictionary (Geffen Records, 1993).
All of which makes the release of Eberhard such a major event, even if it consists solely of a single 13-minute piece, originally written as a tribute to renowned German bassist Eberhard Weber and first performed at the 2009 Zeltsman Marimba Festival. Weber had suffered a major stroke two years earlier, discussed at length by the bassist in a 2013 All About Jazz interview. Mays’ extended composition was, then, a most timely homage to an important influence and collaborator who was still recovering and determining if he’d ever be able to play bass again (sadly, he could not).
The composition’s inception began when Mays was invited to perform the closing concert at the festival, but it was not until 2019, when the pianist’s health took a serious turn for the worse, that Mays finally decided to document the piece. And if the original “Eberhard” already had much of its architecture in place a decade earlier, Mays took the opportunity of the ensuing years to further hone its multiplicity of musical ideas and colors. The result is an extended work that reveals far greater complexities when examined more closely, despite flowing with the kind of apparent ease that was a cornerstone of Mays’ work.
The last large-scale recording to feature Mays’ writing and playing was Pat Metheny Group’s studio swan song, The Way Up (Nonesuch Records, 2005). Following an intense, globe-trotting tour in support of that album, beginning in February 2005 and wrapping up, five months later, at a free outdoor concert in front of about 125,000 fans at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, Mays toured Europe and Japan one more time with Metheny five years later, for the unofficial (and, so far, undocumented) Songbook Tour.
Eberhard appears to be Lyle Mays’ own musical swan song, one in which he was fully involved from beginning to end despite its posthumous release. Its relative brevity renders double bassist, co-producer, Metheny Group collaborator and close friend Steve Rodby’s liner notes all the more upsetting, as he describes that the piece “wasn’t meant to be Lyle’s last piece of music, and if he’d lived longer, he had plans for more.”
Still, if Eberhard is, indeed, the final contribution to come from Mays’ mind, heart and soul, it’s as fine a piece of music as could be hoped for by those familiar with this remarkably fertile, innovative and deceptively sophisticated composer, performer and conceptualist. For those unfamiliar, there are many fine places to begin acquaintance with Mays’ oeuvre. In its paradoxical concision and expansive musical reach, however, Eberhard is as superb an entry point as any to Mays’ extraordinary and exceptional body of work.
Mays’ was a multidisciplinary intellect, as taken with the challenges of architecture, computer programming and musical synthesis as he was the music from which his reputation stemmed. The truth is, however, that if we are all the sum total of our life experiences and interests, then the many seemingly disparate avenues down which Mays traveled throughout his life all seem to have coalesced in the conception and ultimate realization of Eberhard.
Considered, by many, to be one of the most distinctive performers and composers of his generation, Mays’ relative absence from the musical sphere for over a decade was sorely missed by many. Following that 2010 tour with Metheny, however, the pianist decided to enter musical semi-retirement, though he was far from inactive. A lifelong interest in architecture culminated in Mays designing his Los Angeles house and home studio, in addition to sister Joan’s house, back in Wisconsin where he was born in late 1953. A self-taught computer programmer and music synthesist, Mays also spent some of his last decade working in the computer field, in part due to the negative shifts in the music industry that continue to be felt to this day.
In his career as a leader, Mays had long expressed a disinclination towards the kinds of logistical and physical challenges with which Pat Metheny Group regularly engaged from its late ’70s inception. As he grew older and began to deal with health issues, Mays became even less interested, much to the upset of his many fans around the world.
All of this, again, rendering the release of Eberhard such a major event.
Beyond the composition itself, there are certain aspects to “Eberhard” that make it something of a stylistic sequel to Lyle Mays (Geffen, 1986), one of the most audacious and promising leader debuts in contemporary jazz. Beyond the music itself, Eberhard possesses a direct connection to Lyle Mays through the pianist’s reenlistment of that album’s drummer/percussionist, Alex Acuña (Weather Report, Lee Ritenour, Joni Mitchell), and Bill Frisell, whose subsequent career as a leader and in-demand guest collaborator has positioned him as one of his generation’s most important guitarists, both in the realm of jazz and beyond.
Despite its relative brevity, however, “Eberhard” features an additional collection of 13 musicians, making it the largest scale recorded work of Mays’ career as a leader, even if the total of 16 musicians rarely, if ever, play together. Instead, Mays treats his collaborators like a modern chamber ensemble, mixing and matching instruments as his composition’s various sections demand. This is not to suggest, however, that “Eberhard” doesn’t live, at least in good part, in the jazz world, with plenty of groove, interpretation and spontaneity.
Mays’ use of a cello quartet draws a clear line to some of Weber’s best works, including the bassist’s award-winning The Colours of Chloë (ECM Recordings, 1974) and The Following Morning (ECM Recordings, 1976), as well as guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner’s classic Solstice (ECM Records, 1975). Wade Culbreath contributes a variety of tuned percussion instruments, from the melancholic marimba figure that opens and closes “Eberhard” to vibraphone, xylophone, orchestral bells and tone bells. All of these instruments reflect and help to realize Mays’ broader interests in extended, finely detailed classical forms, but in particular the work of Steve Reich and the traditional Balinese Gamelan music that informed the minimalist composer’s early works.
Other musicians that contribute to Eberhard include Rodby (on double bass) and Jimmy Johnson (Allan Holdsworth, James Taylor), whose fretless electric bass work provides an early theme that mirrors Weber’s own relatively rare predilection for using bass as a lead instrument. Bob Sheppard is the composition’s primary soloist, delivering some of the composition’s most uplifting, exhilarating and electrifying moments on tenor saxophone, but also contributing a variety of other reeds and flutes throughout.
Despite his own inestimable skill on electric keyboards and synthesizers, Mays also brings in Mitchel Forman (John McLaughlin, Mark Egan, Wayne Shorter) on Hammond organ and Wurlitzer electric piano. Three singers contribute the kind of wordless vocals that were not only a signature for many of Pat Metheny Group’s albums, but for Weber as well, heard on his sublime Fluid Rustle (ECM Records, 1979), an album which, coincidentally, represented Frisell’s first major label appearance.
Of the three vocalists, Mays’ niece, Aubrey Johnson (Billy Childs, Bobby McFerrin), is featured roughly two-thirds of the way through the piece. Her voice is doubled with Culbreath’s marimba, in a brief section that demonstrates Johnson’s remarkable ability to accomplish complex intervallic leaps and rapid vocal gymnastics, before the percussionist takes a brief vibraphone solo that leads into Sheppard’s lengthier feature.
Beyond writing this tribute to Weber, Mays’ connection to the bassist was more direct. He played, alongside Weber and Pat Metheny Group’s first drummer, Dan Gottlieb, on Metheny’s second album as a leader, Watercolors (ECM Records, 1977), as well as appearing on one of the bassist’s best albums, Later That Evening (ECM Records, 1982).
“Eberhard” also references Weber’s work directly. Most notably, a repeating thematic figure, at a little over two minutes into “Eberhard,” is culled from one of Weber’s core melodies from “T. on a White Horse,” from The Following Morning. And yet, irreverent as he is reverential to Weber, Mays injects his own propensity for melodic mathematics and complexly layered polyrhythms, reiterating the first four notes from Weber’s repetitive six-note figure and moving it from straight 4/4 time to alternating bars of 6/8 and 4/8, albeit layered over Culbreath’s marimba-driven minimalism, in another contrasting time signature.
Dissecting the myriad of colors, tones, timbres and textures that comprise Eberhard in detail would ultimately detract from this complex yet remarkably cohesive 13-minute journey. Suffice to say that its broad range of intersecting and coalescing thematic, chordal, atmospheric and stylistically diverse components sometimes appear clearly and discretely, but are elsewhere developed with finely honed, pointillistic detail. Ideas appear and disappear, only to reappear again, sometimes together with other concepts that also wind their way in and out of this cerebral yet, at the same time, remarkably evocative collection of multifaceted emotional expressions.
Impressionistic at times, “Eberhard” is also imbued with no shortage of greater expressionism, in particular during Sheppard’s potent tenor solo. In many ways, “Eberhard” represents also the sum total of a lifetime of far-reaching musical interests. Stemming from the many musicians’ contributions, of course, it’s also a wonderful reminder of Mays’ impressive ability to use synthesis and sampling to fashion layer upon layer of atmospheric sonics, detailed percussives and sophisticated harmonic tendencies.
“Eberhard” is also a vivid testament to Mays’ remarkable skill as a pianist. Possessed of an inimitably pliant touch, Mays could be as delicate as a feather, but also firm and muscular when necessary. Despite being possessed of chops to burn, Mays never overstates or overstays either, whether waxing with spare lyricism during the composition’s opening minutes or more robustly bolstering Sheppard’s solo alongside Rodby, Acuña and in-demand drummer/percussionist Jimmy Branly (Carol Weisman, David Garfield, Jimmy Haslip).
At the guitarist’s Ottawa, Canada gig with Gary Burton, shortly before leaving the vibraphonist to form his first Pat Metheny Group lineup with Mays in 1977, a young Metheny exuberantly described Mays as “the next Keith Jarrett.” He may have never have achieved the same degree of prolificity or widespread acclaim as the older pianist, but in his broad musical methodologies and an unmistakable ability to draw music from the ether, both in the moment and across longer, more considered compositional forms like “Eberhard,” Mays’ musical legacy is unequivocally secure.
“Musical tour de force” is a phrase often overused and abused, but it seems like the best and only way to succinctly summarize Eberhard. A monumental swan song and most heartfelt tribute to Eberhard Weber, “Eberhard” pays homage to the bassist’s body of work while being something of which only Mays could conceive. Fans may have hoped for more music to come from the pianist, but in just 13 relatively short minutes, Eberhard will, no doubt, be remembered as one of Lyle Mays’ crowning achievements.
John Kelman (All About Jazz)
