Ralph Towner

[Guest bluenote82]

egberto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! actually i prefer egberto to towner on both guitars and keyboards.

I do too. I love Egberto Gismonti. I feel bad because I only have about 4 or 5 of his albums. I need to explore more of his work.

[Guest bluenote82]

garbarek did a duo album with pipe organ, which i love, and the hilliard stuff is gorgeous.

Actually he did two, didn't he? One was "Officium," which was a beautiful album. I forget the name of the other one.

[alocispepraluger102]

garbarek did a duo album with pipe organ, which i love, and the hilliard stuff is gorgeous.

Actually he did two, didn't he? One was "Officium," which was a beautiful album. I forget the name of the other one.

i think garbarek is miscast as a jazz artist.

his profound meditative and contemplative sides trump his other stuff.

[six string]

My introduction to Towner was The Moors as has been previously noted in this thread. I was very new to jazz at the time and his 12 string playing on that tune really got my attention. No Suite:Judy Blue Eyes here! I bought the second Solstice album when I came upon it, but it was lost in a flood fifteen years ago. However, I've since acquired a few others like Trio/solo, Matchbook, and a few others that escape me at the moment. I love his understated piano sound and his guitar playing is of course quite excellent. I see a few albums on this thread that sound like they are worth picking up. I have a few of the early Oregon albums that I really like. Distant Hills in particular is a favorite.

[Hot Ptah]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned Ralph Towner's electric albums. Some of my favorites include:

1. "Scorched": This early ECM classic is best known for his 17 1/2 minute duet with Sonny Sharrock on "Bend Me Shape Me (Any Way You Want Me)". I agree that their interplay reaches heights of sheer sonic fury unmatched in other recorded sound. But for me, I prefer Ralph's power trio recording on this album with Jack Bruce and Buddy Miles. I share most listener's aversion to Buddy's "vocal" on this song--have stranger throat noises ever been put to record? But still, if you can screen out Buddy, what remains is fine indeed, and Ralph's wah wah guitar solo gives new meaning to the term "debilitating rash".

This is also the first ECM album without a pastoral cover or just the names of the musicians on it.

2. "Melt": This side project on Polydor suffers from some heavy handed overdubbing of anonymous female screaming and blasts of feedback noise, which were apparently the producer's idea of creating a suitably "edgy" background for Ralph's amazing torrents of pure electric energy. In addition to Ralph's consistently varied use of distortion, this album marks his debut recording with co-lead guitarist Ted Nugent. As strange as that matchup now seems in retrospect, one can't help but admit that it led to the creation of some amazingly compelling, and ear wrenching, albums.

Also, catch the small photo of an infant Wynton Marsalis on the cover, right under the photo collage of industrial plastic factory disaster scenes. How did they know? Wow!

3. "Serrated Edge": This is perhaps the best of the Towner projects for big band and electric guitar. It helps that Pete Cosey wrote all of the charts and contributes some of his usual guitar work. As subtle and muted as Cosey seems next to Ralph's more forceful and distorted efforts, the Cosey-Towner passages work surprisingly well. A very young David Murray makes his recorded debut with a shaky, but penetrating, ocarina solo on the Towner classic composition, "Excruciating Pain."

The less said about the tasteless cover art for this album, the better.

4. "Uff Da!!!": This frenetic collaboration between Towner and the cream of the Norwegian noise rockers is uneven, but in the end, functions as a 42 minute long grunt in the face of the piffle which passed for electric guitar music at that time. An underrated gem, which deserves renewed critical scrutiny.

5. "Oh Lordy Lordy": This foray into the realm of ecstatic religious devotional electronic fury music may have been misguided as a concept, but who can forget the towering climax when Ralph slams his fists into the fretboard at the end of the title cut, creating the much-imitated "fist of doom" sound.

We have all heard this cut so often that it is easy to forget the impact it had in its day on a generation of electric guitarists and bassists, who picked up on the idea of simply hitting their instruments with their fists and ran with it.

6. "Live At The Beaumont Club": Ralph's first live recording with Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen showed that he was quite capable of tasty, appropriate and still ear-curdling electric wallops of sound, within a faux Western swing/country/boogie woogie morass. This one really opened many people's minds to the versatility of Towner's electric playing, especially after they heard his spewing onslaught on the umpteenth Cody recorded version of "Seeds and Stems Again Blues." Towner's ability to make that song sound fresh should earn him a place in the electric pantheon, if nothing else does.

Those are just a few of my favorites in Ralph Towner's electric career.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Hot Ptah

[7/4]

Those are just a few of my favorites in Ralph Towner's electric career.

Creative, but you couldn't hold off until the 1st could you...

[Aggie87]

2. "Melt": This side project on Polydor suffers from some heavy handed overdubbing of anonymous female screaming and blasts of feedback noise, which were apparently the producer's idea of creating a suitably "edgy" background for Ralph's amazing torrents of pure electric energy. In addition to Ralph's consistently varied use of distortion, this album marks his debut recording with co-lead guitarist Ted Nugent. As strange as that matchup now seems in retrospect, one can't help but admit that it led to the creation of some amazingly compelling, and ear wrenching, albums.

Also, catch the small photo of an infant Wynton Marsalis on the cover, right under the photo collage of industrial plastic factory disaster scenes. How did they know? Wow!

The reissue has different (and less interesting, IMO) cover art - sans Marsalis. The original goes for pretty big bucks now, but is scarce.

[Hot Ptah]

Those are just a few of my favorites in Ralph Towner's electric career.

Creative, but you couldn't hold off until the 1st could you...

I was inspired by 1970s bathroom graffiti at the University of Wisconsin, in one of the main building's most used bathrooms (I know because it was often commented on by many students):

OREGON: A REAL KICKASS COUNTRY ROCK BAND!

[A Lark Ascending]

Surprised no-one has mentioned '(When I'm Cleaning) Windows' - his all-ukelele tribute to George Formby (with guest appearance by Chick Corea on the title track).

(This was recorded during a period when he was not making much money and so Bill Gates gave him a part-time job).

Edited March 3, 2008 by Bev Stapleton

[kh1958]

And what about his (uncredited) appearance in This is Spinal Tap?

[A Lark Ascending]

It's worth remembering why Towner was such a breath of fresh air in the 70s. To those of us who slid from rock to jazz we were used to mainly electric guitars, with the odd oasis of acoustic calm (McLaughlin knew how that worked!). Entire albums of beautifully recorded acoustic on pristine vinyl - a completely different world.

Though, I wonder if the attraction of his 12-string - still the sound of his I love best - was founded on listening to early Genesis albums!!!!!

[Hot Ptah]

It's worth remembering why Towner was such a breath of fresh air in the 70s. To those of us who slid from rock to jazz we were used to mainly electric guitars, with the odd oasis of acoustic calm (McLaughlin knew how that worked!). Entire albums of beautifully recorded acoustic on pristine vinyl - a completely different world.

Though, I wonder if the attraction of his 12-string - still the sound of his I love best - was founded on listening to early Genesis albums!!!!!

There was definitely an attraction to Ralph Towner then, among listeners coming over from rock. Certain ECM artists seemed to be appealing for rockers coming over to jazz, and he was one of them. The Genesis idea is very interesting.

It is interesting why younger people who were listening to Led Zeppelin in 1972 found themselves liking the ECM recordings of Ralph Tower, Keith Jarrett and Gary Burton in 1976, to name a few. Many other jazz artists did not benefit from this migration.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Hot Ptah

[A Lark Ascending]

It's worth remembering why Towner was such a breath of fresh air in the 70s. To those of us who slid from rock to jazz we were used to mainly electric guitars, with the odd oasis of acoustic calm (McLaughlin knew how that worked!). Entire albums of beautifully recorded acoustic on pristine vinyl - a completely different world.

Though, I wonder if the attraction of his 12-string - still the sound of his I love best - was founded on listening to early Genesis albums!!!!!

There was definitely an attraction to Ralph Towner then, among listeners coming over from rock. Certain ECM artists seemed to be appealing for rockers coming over to jazz, and he was one of them. The Genesis idea is very interesting.

Around the time I bought 'Solstice' I also bought Terje Rypdal's 'Whenever I seem to be far away' - didn't connect with it at all. I wonder if it was because it sounded too similar to what I'd been hearing in rock. Or even too similar yet not nearly as interesting as someone like Robert Fripp who seemed much less safe.

The 12-string was one of the defining sounds of 'Nursery Cryme', less so the later records as the keyboard technology got more up front. I suspect the dazzling acoustic guitar of some of the folk music players - English and American - also paved the ground.

But Towner's records sounded quite, quite distinct. One of those moments when you notice a door in the garden wall and open it into a further garden you never knew was there!

[youdig]

I was just listening to Oregon with Elvin Jones yesterday! What a trip.

I also have a great Video of an Oregon Concert in Germany

[7/4]

Though, I wonder if the attraction of his 12-string - still the sound of his I love best - was founded on listening to early Genesis albums!!!!!

or Mahavishnu or Larry Coryell or Jimmy Page or the Byrds or...

[Hot Ptah]

Though, I wonder if the attraction of his 12-string - still the sound of his I love best - was founded on listening to early Genesis albums!!!!!

or Mahavishnu or Larry Coryell or Jimmy Page or the Byrds or...

I suppose that McLaughlin's "My Goals Beyond" and Page's acoustic playing on "Led Zeppelin III" especially, could have paved the way for Towner.

[A Lark Ascending]

Spent much of this week listening back to Ralph on his own records and with Oregon. A real treat.

Two which made a huge impact:

'Batik' - the trio with DeJohnette and Eddie Gomez. I bought this on LP when it first came out and just listened for the first time in many years. One of his 'jazziest' records - the long title track (16 mins or so) is amazing - a slight theme used as a vehicle to build up real momentum with marvellous solo passages from all three. Due for reissue very shortly. Worth getting if you like Ralph but don't have the record.

'1000 Kilometers' - the most recent Oregon record. They've returned to a more acoustic approach after the electronic colours of the 90s. There's a marvellous track called 'The Bactrian' which sounds like its title suggests - vaguely middle eastern. McCandless in particular works up a wonderful head of steam.

I also finally CD-Rd my copy of 'Oregon in Concert', another really thrilling record.

[A Lark Ascending]

And a word for Towner doing standards!

Not something he's usually associated with but he drops one or two in every now and then. A lot of Bill Evans associated tunes scattered over the Oregon/solo discs.

Just been listening to his last album - 'Timeline'. Marvellous versions of 'Come Rain or Shine' and 'My Man's Gone Now.'

Must be about time for a new one!

[Sundog]

And a word for Towner doing standards!

Especially his solo chord melody arrangements. They are so unique and creative. He's a monster!

[A Lark Ascending]

And a word for Towner doing standards!

Especially his solo chord melody arrangements. They are so unique and creative. He's a monster!

My grasp of the technicalities is limited in the extreme (I'm no musician) but there is definitely something very personal about the way he approaches them.

Impressive that he has never strayed into electric guitar or using electronics to alter the sound of his guitars (not that I have anything against the electric guitar). Yet he's been happy to play around with synths and programming on keyboards. This has certainly helped him cut a quite distinctive corner in the jazz world.

[7/4]

A few days ago I created a bunch of ECM mp3 files on my computer for a Foobar random play fest. Both Solstice albums and Batik are part of the mix, showing up once in a while.

[Sundog]

And a word for Towner doing standards!

Especially his solo chord melody arrangements. They are so unique and creative. He's a monster!

My grasp of the technicalities is limited in the extreme (I'm no musician) but there is definitely something very personal about the way he approaches them.

IMO his classical sensibilities play a large part in making his approach unique. To call his solo arrangements "chord melody" really doesn't do them justice. He effortlessly goes between chord melody, bassline comping, and very subtle combinations of all three elements (chord, melody, bass). All this wouldn't mean all that much if the music wasn't so good. He's monster, but his arrangements and compositions are interesting. That's what keeps me coming back.

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm way too guilty of buying the next CD before properly listening to what I already have.

One of the delights of the last couple of weeks has been discovering just how rich his music is. Some of the discs that I've enjoyed but then quickly moved past (the duos with Peacock for example and the more recent solo albums) are absolutely blossoming in my ears.

He's also written some absolutely exquisite tunes. Every now and then I'll be reaching for the sleeve to work out what that one was. 'If' and 'Tramonto' have really caught my ear in the last 24 hours.

[A Lark Ascending]

A few days ago I created a bunch of ECM mp3 files on my computer for a Foobar random play fest. Both Solstice albums and Batik are part of the mix, showing up once in a while.

'Solstice' was my first Towner record (c.1976), opening the door not only to the guitarist but Weber and Garbarek too. The guitar opening to 'Nimbus' I still find jaw-dropping.

[7/4]

A few days ago I created a bunch of ECM mp3 files on my computer for a Foobar random play fest. Both Solstice albums and Batik are part of the mix, showing up once in a while.

'Solstice' was my first Towner record (c.1976), opening the door not only to the guitarist but Weber and Garbarek too. The guitar opening to 'Nimbus' I still find jaw-dropping.

Sounds a lot like the beginning of this thread.