|
 |
 |
Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Info: Biography, Pictures, Discography of all CDs & DVDs |
|
| InfluencesJim HallPat MartinoBill EvansGeorge BensonSonny RollinsThe George Benson QuartetBarney KesselFollowersFrancis JacobFormal ConnectionsChuck OwenPerformed Songs ByGeorge MarshJan HammerPeter ErskineMarc JohnsonAndy LaVerneJeff PalmerDan WallMore...John Abercrombie's tying together of jazz's many threads made him one of the most influential acoustic and electric guitarists of the 1970s and early '80s; his recordings for ECM have helped define that label's progressive chamber jazz reputation.Build your own online store or Advertise with us.Current Advertisers Sign InHelp improve Yahoo!Learn more about our paid syndication program.Abercrombie is more electric in this duet setting.Ralph Towner Biography
John Abercrombie's tying together of jazz's many threads made him one of the most influential acoustic and electric guitarists of the 1970s and early '80s; his recordings for ECM have helped define that label's progressive chamber jazz reputation.Shopping product information ' +
'on a mobile handset.Buy MusicWant to see your products in Yahoo!Shopping APIs, now powering Yahoo!Learn more about our paid syndication program.Query(form) else if( form.Timeout( "DefaultButton_Postback( '" + form.ButtonName + "', " + form.Highlights are the lovely "Fable" and the appropriately mysterious "Sargasso Sea.Sign in to get personalized recommendations.Hours() * 3600 + newCurrentTime.Hours() * 3600 + currentTime.This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but over a million other items are.See all 8 customer reviews...See all 8 customer reviews...To hear a song sample, click on "Listen" by that sample.Add a iframe that allows us to ping the server when this element becomes visible
a9AdsViewNamespace.Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.See all 350 customer reviews...The easiest way to shoot video reviews.Towner's occasional piano touches are also welcome.The compositions offer enough variety to help keep things interesting as well.Highlights are the lovely "Fable" and the appropriately mysterious "Sargasso Sea."This music was recorded in 1976.To my knowledge it has never been released on CD.Was this review helpful to you?"Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided to other Amazon.Your vote will be counted and will appear on the product page within 24 hours."Abercrombie fluid and stinging by turns, Towner crystalline.Bill Evans Trio with Scott LaFaro cover it!I'm not even sure it's datable through Carbon 14.Was this review helpful to you?Appreciating the skeptic
I feel the assessment by "A Customer"is a bit harsh, but hits at least one nail on the head, and I compliment him for not simply flattering these fine musicians.Published 2 months ago by D.Also, I rather enjoy the relatively...See all 8 customer reviews...Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.Music You Should Hear: Artists' PicksWant to know what Norah Jones, Sting, and Il Divo are listening to?Find out in Music You Should Hear, where these and other artists tell you about the music they love.If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.Track your recent orders.You have no recently viewed items or searches.After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.Through the Body and Tremolo Electric guitars.Find a Song
Find an Artist
Pandora Blog
Pandora Presents...John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner, who also plays piano.Pandora and the Music Genome Project are registered trademarks of Pandora Media, Inc.This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.See the talk page for details.Born in 1940 in Chehalis, Washington, Towner has made notable recordings of jazz, classical music, folk music, and world music.Paul Winter's "Consort" ensemble in the late 1960s.Towner has also made numerous appearances as a sideman, perhaps most famously on jazz fusion heavyweights Weather Report's 1972 album I Sing the Body Electric.Towner also obtains a percussive effect (e.Towner now lives in Rome, Italy.Gary Peacock
Anthem (2001)
Time Line (2006)
For a list of major Oregon recordings, please consult the group's entry.External links
Ralph Towner's Official Website
Ralph Towner on ECM
Ralph Towner interview by Anil Prasad from Innerviews
Ralph Towner interview by Anil Prasad from Frets
Ralph Towner guitar tabs
Guitar Player magazine interview.This page was last modified 08:25, 28 December 2007.More Guitar Gawdz Than You Can Shake A Les Paul At
What's Guinness Got That We Ain't?Waltzing through Oregonby Marc S.Unfortunately, though, recent years, which should have vindicated this assertion, have instead seen an inexplicable diminishment of the impeccable player's powers, a crushing blow to those who've long stood enraptured by a talent that first emerged in Paul Winter's old Consort.Towner was at the time a pianist, much influenced by Bill Evans.However, artists are mercurial and the impulse purchase of a classical guitar commenced the young man's true calling.In a return to the States, providentially to New York, he hooked up with the Paul Winter Consort and incubated Oregon from its membership: his buddy Moore, Colin Walcott, and Paul McCandless.Winter albums at all but, instead, the truest first releases by Oregon.Mudarra's "Fantasy, Fugue, and Beads," a gorgeous take.Gil Evans, and Miles as by middle and later, classicalist musics.It also blatantly infused the world flavors now common but then practically unknown, unless one was a fan of Gil, Costa, Bonfa, and others.Moore anchored everyone, fusing his bass role simultaneously as rhythm and lead instruments, approaching it in a fashion Colin Hodgkinson (Back Door) and others would shortly take."Icarus" was an immensely attractive tune, so much so that it was requoted in the studio, becoming the title for the 1972 album, also dominated by Towner and Darling's compositions.Walcott, for instance, could play the pants off Glen Velez with one hand tied behind his back, and none would ever come close to Towner.In plain fact, the students vastly outshone the master and would continue to do so.New Agey jazz before bowing out completely.Unfortunately, the dreams of the gent who underwrote that venture soon met harsh unyielding concrete in the real world, collapsing ingloriously.The tapes of the session went into storage, the equipment sidled out the door, and a condo tract arose where trees and grass had enjoyed pastoral sway but moments before.The group, despite its modern love of improv, was fundamentally baroque, owing to rare gifts for embracing classical virtues and intelligences so thoroughly that they became second nature, a fundament to work from, not a tomb to die in.Composition, to them, became a sword with two very sharp edges.Blues, though the claim is highly controversial (despite books ethnomusicologically written about it), was far more "white" in its antecedents than is popularly credited, but it took the black culture, struggling against impossible odds, to bring everything together and hybridize the definitive new form.Jazz rose as a historic event.The main point of attraction lay in the sheer wealth of possibility inserted within scripted formats.Because of that, some players would never have the wherewithal to compose well enough to warrant documentation, but, in a group situation, what any individual might lack, another could make up for, providing just enough oomph to produce competitively valuable work.The result would be breathtakingly insightful on all levels and that's exactly what Oregon was.Paul McCandless was a brass and reeds player of astonishing vigor and imagination, indeed the high point of his output hasn't quite been seen since in anyone.This last was no accident, as he'd been a student of Ravi Shankar, whereas the mastery of his cardinal instruments can be traced back to studies under Alla Rakha.Glen Moore's chiefest virtue was an unimpeachably discerning bass hand, knowing exactly when to, and when not to, speak, investing what would ordinarily be a rhythm section role with outside integrities, forming a subtly and enticingly recessed main voice.One merely needed the wit to hear it properly.On the cut "Japan" alone, he assumed several levels of presence, switching strings back and forth from accompaniment to lead voice, brushing quiet tempera backgrounds before orating in the fore.Eagerly anticipated by those who'd caught their Winter years, the LP, selling middlingly, was a landmark.Everything shown on First Record continued here, save one very important expansion: almost every member broadened his instrumental palette, showing how deeply each was committed to the art.Moore tacked on the piano, Towner mellophone, Walcott a wealth of new percussives, with McCandless sticking to his customary oboe and English horn.The group's expansion of axes continued, with Walcott taking up marimba, clarinet, and guitar; Towner choosing trumpet; Moore with violin and piano; McCandless once again sticking with oboe and English horn.No longer were short gems the pattern; now, extensions provided the meat and potatoes, forums in which the players had opportunities to really stretch out.The numbers became moodier, as in "Dark Spirit," with Moore laying in profoundly mournful bowed bass lines over which Towner buzzed, gamboled, and strummed.LP but six to seven minutes of pure unscripted creativity.In "Tide Pool," Towner adopted a sprightly air.McCandless produces a wooden flute, furthering inventory in the group's hardware.Like most live documents, the purpose was to review the past, augment the present, and perhaps steal a glance at the future."Le Vin," the first cut, clearly shows why: such a loud and overwhelming instrument smothered the band.Oregon, though, was akin to inserting John Bonham into Chanticleer.Vanguard had been displaying tremendous tolerance in keeping a group that wasn't capturing revenues well, but this tested that alliance.Fortunately, the relationship held.This time, David Earl Johnson (later to make an LP or two with Jan Hammer) guested on percussion, Larry Karush on piano (he dueted with Moore for ECM a year earlier) and Bennie Wallace on sax, a gent who'd go on to host an LP for Blue Note with a stellar cast composed of Stevie Ray Vaughn, John Scofield, Dr.Ralph further chose what has since been covered by others and may eventually become a standard, the classic "Timeless," a John Abercrombie tune from an album of the same name two years earlier.The song closed the LP's scrambled incoherence on a good note but didn't reassure fans that all was well.It had been decided, while jamming in France, that more was needful in the acquaintance.This didn't change as side two emerged with "Raven's Wood," speaking more of Grappelli and Gershwin than Vivaldi and Cage, something perhaps that might be expected of the Flock or Jerry Goodman's solo work.Ironically, the song was the solidest of the release.Thank Christ a second LP appeared that year, this one on Elektra.What was most gratifying, though, was the fact that the group had been chastened in its relatively unwise expansion efforts.Most noticeable was Ralph's adoption of the piano in larger scope, sparklingly showcased in "Vision of A Dancer" but, returning to the guitar in cuts like "Waterwheel," a tapestry woven with McCandless, he again illustrated that singular method of engrossingly fingerplucked constant chording, shifting to a call and response with the oboe player, then tearing down the progressions before standing single notes in their stead, enunciated with punctuatorial downstrikes.Elektra may have provided a new branch but the lads knew their roots.Celtic harp's, making unusual use of the greatly reduced string lengths.By the third cut, the singularity of the LP made itself clear: Moon and Mind was a collection of duets.Towner had competition in Walcott this time around: the percussionist's sitar playing had improved dramatically, best shown doubled with Moore on "Rejoicing."The LP was also the group's moodiest outing in years.The album, solid as granite, was not only acclaimed by slavering fans but by critics in general.This masterpiece carried over to their next collection for Elektra.It not only requires an innate talent, but also a devotion to the art that is not blinded by the commercial glare of the popular culture.Ralph Towner is such an innovator on the modern musical landscape, his ideas ever fresh, though they span a career of more than thirty years.Best known as the lead composer, guitarist, and keyboardist for the acoustic jazz ensemble Oregon, Towner has also had a rich and varied solo career that ha s seen fruitful and memorable musical collaboration with such great modern musicians as Gary Burton, John Abercrombie, Egberto Gismonti, Larry Coryell, Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, and Gary Peacock.John Abercrombie and one with Gary Peacock.Guitar Player
"ANTHEM is an incredible study in understated elegance.This is a crystal pure recording that continues Ralph Towner's tradition, begun in 1980 with the live recording "Solo Concert", of musical leaps of faith using solo guitar with an approach that succeeds because of his rare willingness to take improvisational risks combined with creative genius."Ted Kurland Associates Inc. |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
