Lyle Mays, Eberhard (Rating: 5-stars)

So beautiful, gentle and perfect, here's 'Eberhard,' the last recording of Lyle Mays who died last year. Mays, an acclaimed keyboardist, arranger and composer and multi-Grammy winner in his lifetime became closely identified with the music of Pat Metheny over many years and was part of the history-making sound that the Pat Metheny Group ushered in abidingly to the vocabulary of jazz from the late-1970s/early-80s onwards. The piece takes its title from the first name of the German bass icon Eberhard Weber. A 13-minute, long form composition composed in 2009 and recorded during the final six months of Mays' life it was in the late-1970s and early-1980s that he himself recorded with Weber on the Metheny album Water Colors (1977) and on Weber's Later That Evening (1982). The newly released recording sees Mays with a substantial cast of players: Bob Sheppard takes a communicative tenor saxophone solo that speaks volumes; Mitchel Forman is on keys; Bill Frisell, guitar; Steve Rodby double bass (and in a co-producer role); Jimmy Johnson, bass guitar; Alex Acuña, drums, percussion; Jimmy Branly, drums, percussion; Wade Culbreath, marimba/vibes; Mays' niece Aubrey Johnson on vocals along with fellow singers Rosana and Gary Eckert; cellists Timothy Loo, Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick, Eric Byers and Armen Ksajikian. The piece is a composition that dates to 2009 written for the Zeltsman Marimba Festival and recorded in Los Angeles during the second half of 2019 in the months preceding May's death. What a gift to the planet. Lyle Mays photo: lylemays.com