It was a quiet revolution. After Eberhard Weber in the 1960s had been accompanied by colleagues ranging from Jean-Luc Ponty to Gary Burton, and then devoted himself to jazzrock in fusionbands like the Dave Pike Set, the Stuttgart bassist continued to develop his instrument following an idiosyncratic aesthetic. It was given a fifth string and exchanged its resonating body for an electrical pick-up, which allowed more sustained and singing sounds.

Weber’s sound and style were unmistakable; for instance, his work as part of the Jan Garbarek Quartet decisively influenced the sound of European jazz. Since 2007, however, due to a stroke, he is no longer able to perform, and so his friends had to come up with something special to enable him to share in the music of a concert homage at the Stuttgart Theaterhaus on the occasion of his 75th birthday, at which he was awarded the Honorary Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg for his lifetime achievement.