Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner (born March 1, 1940, Chehalis, Washington) is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He plays the twelve-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion and trumpet.[1]
Ralph Towner | |
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Ralph Towner in concert with Paolo Fresu, Treibhaus Innsbruck 2010 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Ralph Towner |
Born | Chehalis, Washington, United States | March 1, 1940
Genres | Jazz, classical, world, folk |
Occupation(s) | Guitarist, arranger, bandleader, composer |
Instruments | 12-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion, trumpet |
Years active | 1960s–present |
Labels | ECM |
Associated acts | Oregon, Weather Report, Gary Burton, Paul Winter, Gary Peacock, Jan Garbarek, John Abercrombie, Glen Moore, Bill Bruford, Eddie Gómez, Slava Grigoryan, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Paolo Fresu, Jeremy Steig, Paul McCandless, Collin Walcott |
Website | www |
Biography
![](../I/m/Ralph_Towner1989.jpg)
Towner was born into a musical family in Chehalis, Washington. His mother was a piano teacher and his father a trumpet player. Towner learned to improvise on the piano at the age of three. He began his career as a conservatory-trained classical pianist, attending the University of Oregon from 1958-1963, where he also studied composition with Homer Keller.[2] He studied classical guitar at the Vienna Academy of Music with Karl Scheit from 1963-64 and 1967-68.
He joined world music pioneer Paul Winter's "Consort" ensemble in the late 1960s. He first played jazz in New York City in the late 1960s as a pianist and was strongly influenced by the renowned jazz pianist Bill Evans. He began improvising on classical and 12-string guitars in the late 1960s/early 1970s and formed alliances with musicians who had worked with Evans, including flautist Jeremy Steig, bassists Eddie Gómez, Marc Johnson, Gary Peacock, and drummer Jack DeJohnette.[3][4]
Along with bandmates Paul McCandless, Glen Moore, and Collin Walcott, Towner left the Winter Consort in 1970 to form the group Oregon, which over the course of the 1970s issued a number of highly influential records mixing folk music, Indian classical forms, and avant-garde jazz-influenced free improvisation. At the same time, Towner began a longstanding relationship with the influential ECM record label, which has released virtually all of his non-Oregon recordings since his 1973 debut as a leader Trios / Solos.
Towner appeared as a sideman on Weather Report's 1972 album I Sing the Body Electric. His 1975 album Solstice which featured a popular track called Nimbus demonstrates his skill and versatility to the full using a 12-string guitar.[5]
Since the early 1990s, Towner has lived in Italy, first in Palermo and then in Rome.[6]
Technique
Towner eschews amplification, using only 6-string nylon-string and 12-string steel-string guitars. As a result, he tends to avoid high-volume musical environments, preferring small groups of mostly acoustic instruments that emphasize dynamics and group interplay. Towner also obtains a percussive effect (e.g., "Donkey Jamboree" from Slide Show with Gary Burton) from the guitar by weaving a matchbook among the strings at the neck of the instrument.[7] Both with Oregon and as a solo artist, Towner has made significant use of overdubbing, allowing him to play piano (or synthesizer) and guitar on the same track; his most notable use of the technique came on his 1974 album Diary, in which he plays guitar-piano duets with himself on most of the album's 8 tracks.[8] In the 1980s, Towner began using the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer extensively[9] but has since de-emphasized his synthesizer and piano playing in favor of guitar.
Honors
Two lunar craters were named by the Apollo 15 astronauts after two of Towner's compositions, "Icarus" and "Ghost Beads."[10][11]
Discography
As leader
- Trios / Solos (ECM, 1973) with Glen Moore
- Diary (ECM, 1974)
- Matchbook (ECM, 1975) with Gary Burton
- Solstice (ECM, 1975)
- Sargasso Sea (ECM, 1976) with John Abercrombie
- Solstice/Sound and Shadows (ECM, 1977)
- Batik (ECM, 1978)
- Old Friends, New Friends (ECM, 1979)
- Solo Concert (ECM, 1980)
- Five Years Later (ECM, 1982) with John Abercrombie
- Blue Sun (ECM, 1983)
- Slide Show (ECM, 1986) with Gary Burton
- City of Eyes (ECM, 1989)
- Open Letter (ECM, 1992)
- If You Look Far Enough with Arild Andersen, Nana Vasconcelos (ECM, 1993)
- Oracle (ECM, 1994) with Gary Peacock
- Lost and Found (ECM, 1996)
- Ana (ECM, 1997)
- A Closer View (ECM, 1998) with Gary Peacock
- Verso with Maria Pia De Vito (Provocateur, 2000)
- Anthem (ECM, 2001)
- Time Line (ECM, 2006)
- From A Dream (Material Records, 2008) with Wolfgang Muthspiel and Slava Grigoryan
- Chiaroscuro (ECM, 2009) with Paolo Fresu
- Travel Guide with Wolfgang Muthspiel, Slava Grigoryan (ECM, 2013)
- My Foolish Heart (ECM, 2017)
With Atmosphere
- Atmospheres Featuring Clive Stevens & Friends (Capitol, 1974)
- Voyage to Uranus (Capitol, 1974)
With Oregon
- Music of Another Present Era (Vanguard, 1972)
- Distant Hills (Vanguard, 1973)
- Winter Light (Vanguard, 1974)
- In Concert (Vanguard, 1975)
- Together (Vanguard, 1976)
- Friends (Vanguard, 1977)
- Out of the Woods (Elektra, 1978)
- Violin (Vanguard, 1978)
- Roots in the Sky (Elektra, 1979)
- Moon and Mind (Vanguard, 1979)
- In Performance (BGO, 1980)
- Our First Record (Vanguard, 1980)
- Oregon (ECM, 1983)
- Crossing (ECM, 1985)
- Ecotopia (ECM, 1987)
- 45th Parallel (Portrait, 1989)
- Always, Never, and Forever (veraBra, 1991)
- Troika (veraBra, 1994)
- Beyond Words (Chesky, 1995)
- Northwest Passage (ECM, 1997)
- Music for a Midsummer Night's Dream (Oregon Music 1998)
- Oregon in Moscow (ECM, 2000)
- Live at Yoshi's (ECM, 2002)
- Prime (C.A.M. Jazz, 2005)
- 1000 Kilometers (C.A.M. Jazz, 2007)
- In Stride (C.A.M. Jazz, 2010)
- Family Tree (C.A.M. Jazz, 2012)
- Live in New Orleans (Hi Hat, 2016)
- Lantern (C.A.M. Jazz, 2017)
With Paul Winter Consort
- Road (A&M, 1970)
- Icarus (Epic, 1972)
- Earthdance (A&M, 1977)
As sideman or guest
- Horacee Arnold, Tribe (Columbia, 1973)
- Horacee Arnold, Tales of the Exonerated Flea (Columbia, 1974)
- Azimuth, Depart (ECM, 1979)
- Bill Bruford, If Summer Had Its Ghosts (Discipline Global, 1997)
- Gary Burton, Six Pack (GRP, 1992)
- Larry Coryell, The Restful Mind (Vanguard, 1975)
- Pino Daniele, Che Dio Ti Benedica (CGD 1993)
- Cyrus Faryar, Cyrus (Collectors' Choice Music 2006)
- Robben Ford, Blues Connotation (ITM Pacific, 1997)
- David Friesen, Waterfall Rainbow (Inner City, 1977)
- Jan Garbarek, Dis (ECM, 1977)
- Egberto Gismonti,Sol Do Meio Dia (EMI, 1978)
- Jerry Granelli, Koputai (ITM Pacific, 1990)
- Jerry Granelli, One Day at a Time (ITM Pacific, 1990)
- Gerri Granger, Add a Little Love (United Artists, 1972)
- Trilok Gurtu, Usfret (CMP, 1988)
- Charlie Haden, Helium Tears (NewEdition, 2005)
- Tim Hardin, Bird on a Wire (Columbia, 1971)
- Keith Jarrett, In the Light (ECM, 1974)
- Maria Joao, Fabula (Verve, 1996)
- Joseph LoDuca, Glisten (Cornucopia, 1982)
- Vince Mendoza, Start Here (World Pacific, 1990)
- Vince Mendoza, Instructions Inside (Manhattan, 1991)
- Andy Middleton, Nomad's Notebook (ECM, 1999)
- Maria Pia De Vito, Nel Respiro (Provocateur, 2002)
- Maria Pia De Vito, Moresche e Altre Invenzioni (Parco Della Musica, 2018)
- Duke Pearson, I Don't Care Who Knows It (Blue Note, 1996)
- Terry Plumeri, Ongoing (Airborne, 1978)
- Michel Portal, Musiques De Cinemas (Label Bleu, 1995)
- Weather Report, I Sing the Body Electric (Columbia, 1972)
- Kenny Wheeler, Deer Wan (ECM, 1978)
References
- "Biography". 1940-03-01. Retrieved 2019-11-30.
- "Oregon ComposersWatch: Homer Keller". composerswatch.proscenia.net. Retrieved 2019-08-11.
- Feather, Leonard (2007). The biographical encyclopedia of jazz. Gitler, Ira. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 650. ISBN 9780195320008. OCLC 123233012.
- "Ralph Towner | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 2019-08-11.
- Cline, Nels (2017). "Focused: An appreciation of the genre-bending guitar work of Ralph Towner". Fretboard Journal. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
- Jazz, All About. "Ralph Towner: The Accidental Guitarist". All About Jazz. Retrieved 2019-08-11.
- Lesson, Dale Turner 2018-03-19T14:53:03Z. "Ralph Towner's Nylon and 12-String Craftsmanship". guitarworld. Retrieved 2019-08-11.
- "Diary - Ralph Towner". ECM Records. Retrieved 2019-08-11.
- Grillo, Tyran (2011-12-20). "Ralph Towner: Blue Sun (ECM 1250)". Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond. Retrieved 2019-08-11.
- "The Consort". Paul Winter. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
- "Now he's over the moon about Icarus". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2002-11-25. Retrieved 2019-08-11.