“Eberhard,” the late-pianist-composer Lyle Mays’ “mini-symphony” dedicated to the great German bassist Eberhard Weber, who had a profound impact on Mays and his longtime collaborator Pat Metheny, has been released [see video below]. We reached out to participants Steve Rodby, who served as co-associate producer and played acoustic bass, and Jimmy Johnson, who played fretless and fretted bass, for their thoughts on the project. Steve Rodby: "Eberhard" was commissioned by Nancy Zeltsman for the Zeltsman Marimba Festival in 2009, and I was able to play the bass (both electric and acoustic) at that very exciting premiere. Lyle continued to work on it for a bit after that, finishing and finessing a complete MIDI demo of the work, before he stepped away from public music-making altogether and pursued other interests for a decade. In 2019, his health took a bad turn, and at the same time he decided to try to get this piece recorded. As was his way, he continued adding material,