Takatsuki Trio Quartett (feat. Silke Eberhard) - At Kühlspot (November 5, 2021 577 Records)

In 2020, as live music tentatively returned to Berlin under strict regulations, the Takatsuki Trio Quartett organized a monthly concert series at the Kühlspot Social Club. Though the Takatsuki Trio Quartett, always includes Rieko Okuda (Piano), Antti Virtaranta (Bass) and Joshua Weitzel (Guitar, Shamisen), they exclusively perform as a quartet, inviting a fourth player to join them and lend a fresh perspective on their dynamic sound. This recording, At Kühlspot, documents one of those encounters with saxophonist Silke Eberhard, just days after she was awarded the prestigious Berlin Jazz Prize. The band itself derives their name from the Japanese city Takatsuki, located directly between two major metropolises Kyoto and Osaka.

Drawing from their namesake, they maintain a similar multi-directionality through structured ambiguity: Trio or quartet? Jazz or experimental sound? Minimalist composition or uninhibited crescendo? Between Kyoto, Takatsuki and Osaka is the unifying force of the Hankyu-Express train, a fourth object that draws the entities together. Like so, a trio becomes a quartet with its addition. At Kühlspot is the first 577 release for both Silke Eberhard and Takatsuki Trio Quartett. 

1. Hotspot Kühlspot

2. LITTLE PREVIEW FOR 'At Kühlspot' ALBUM

Silke Eberhard: Alto saxophone

Rieko Okuda: Piano, voice

Antti Virtaranta: Double bass

Joshua Weitzel: Guitar, shamisen

Recorded on August 20, 2020 by Antti Virtaranta at Kühlspot Social Club, Berlin

Mixed by Antti Virtaranta

Mastered by Jeremy Loucas as Sear Sound, New York City

PREORDER

Silke Eberhard Trio with Jan Roder and Kay Lübke - Being the Up and Down (May 21, 2021 Intakt Records)

"Being the Up And Down", Silke Eberhard’s new CD with her trio with Jan Roder on bass and Kay Lübke on drums was recorded both in the studio as well as at a live concert at the A-Trane in Berlin. This was the result of her winning the prestigious Berlin Jazz Prize, which affords the winner the honor of playing a concert and getting some recording days by Radio Berlin Brandenburg. Thus on this disc you hear a seamless blend of studio and live performances. The artwork on the cover, as on her previous Intakt release The Being Inn, is by Roman Signer, one of the most prestigious Swiss artists of today.

The American jazz critic Lynn René Bayley writes in the liner notes: "Yet whether being sensual or being edgy and experimental, there is so much to like and so much to hear in Silke Eberhard’s playing both solo and when interacting with this trio that one is held spellbound from first note to last. Small wonder that she has such a high reputation in the German jazz world!"

1. U11

2. Strudel

3. Von A Nach B

4. Laika’s Descent

5. Hymne

6. Zeitlupenbossa

7. Damenschrank

8. Stray Around

9. Yuki Neko

Silke Eberhard: Alto Saxophone, Bass Clarinet

Jan Roder: Bass

Kay Lübke: Drums

All compositions by Silke Eberhard (GEMA). Recorded August 13, 14, 2020, at Jazzclub A-Trane Berlin, Germany. Radio producer: Ulf Drechsel. Sound supervisor: Ralf-Peter Brinkmann. Recording engineer: Manuel Rieger. Digital cut and mastering: Benjamin Ihnow.

Cover art: Roman Signer, Installation. Kitfox Experimental, 2014. KINDL – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin.

Graphic design: Paul Bieri.

Liner notes: Lynn René Bayley.

Produced by Silke Eberhard and Intakt Records, Patrik Landolt, Anja Illmaier, Florian Keller. Published by Intakt Records.

Pre-order

Silke Eberhard Trio - The Being Inn (INTAKT RECORDS 2017)

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 Lu¨bke. 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 saxophonist 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)

1. Ding Dong 05:10

2. Willisau Suite 18:12

3. Schlappen 00:48

4. Mininatür 04:12

5. Kanon 02:44

6. Towels 00:37

7. In Drei 03:35

8. Wake-Up Call 00:35

9. 8915 04:40

10. Schirm 03:59

11. Another Pint 00:35

12. Verst Last Order 00:38

13. Last Order 00:38

Silke Eberhard: Alto Saxophone, Bass Clarinet 

Jan Roder: Bass 

Kay Lübke: Drums

I Am Three - Mingus, Mingus, Mingus (2016) LEO RECORDS

Kurt Gottschalk / downbeat

As jazz slowly becomes a more gender-neutral job market, it’s of great value to have talented women looking not just forward, but back as well. Saxophonist Silke Eberhard and pianist Aki Takase are prime examples of the latter, as they seem determined to help feminize the drunk-on-testosterone history of jazz.

They’ve each done albums of Eric Dolphy’s music and, as a duo, recorded two discs’ worth of Ornette Coleman compositions. Takase’s 2013 solo session, My Ellington, remains one of the most strikingly personal interpretations of the Duke’s songbook, and now Eberhard has taken on one of the most macho of bandleaders, Charles Mingus.

Together and separately, their projects have demonstrated a boldness in approach and interpretation, and that’s every bit as true for Mingus Mingus Mingus, the new disc by Eberhard’s trio, which takes the great man’s sentiment, “I am three,” as a band name. The music is stripped down to an unlikely trio of sax, trumpet (Nikolaus Neuser) and drums (Christian Marien), leaving Mingus’ two instruments (bass and piano) by the wayside.

It’s only by virtue of their economically crafty arrangements that the re-workings never seem thin or hollow. So confident are they in their approach that by “Jelly Roll,” the ninth of 12 tracks on this CD, they begin to dampen melodic sections as if to underscore how full the rest of the album sounds.

That's only after a round of successes, of course. The trio marches through Better Get Hit In Yo’ Soul,” does a pounding rendition of “Moanin’” and plays a wonderfully lyrical “Self-Portrait In Three Colors” (underscoring again Mingus’s trifurcated personality).

“Fables Of Faubus” is filled out by some exceptional mute-work by Neuser, and throughout the session Marien capably fills the lower register with bass and toms. The group’s “Orange Was The Color Of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk” uses the dual linearity of the two front line instruments to great advantage, making it dance.

Mingus looms all too large in progressive jazz of the last century to ever be forgotten. He’s too enigmatic a figure to replicate. To varying degrees, such diverse figures as Jean Derome, Joni Mitchell and Hal Willner—not to mention the standing Mingus Big Band and Mingus Orchestra—have attempted to fit into his shoes. This German double-horn trio stands up with the best of them.

 

 01. Better Get Hit In Yo' Soul
02.Fables Of Faubus
03.Oh Lord, Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb On Me
04- Opus Four
05. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
06. Moanin’
07. Self-Portrait In Three Colors
08. Eclipse
09. Jelly Roll
10. In Other Words
11. Orange Was the Color Of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk
12. Canon

Silke Eberhard, saxophone
Nikolaus Neuser, trumpet
Christian Marien, drums