Ralph Towner

Chiaroscuro at once has the feeling of inevitability and a sense of randomness about it, as if it were meant to happen, yet it's such a long shot that it ever did. Towner, the guitarist of the jazz/world/new age outfit Oregon, is an American who celebrated his 70th birthday in the year of this album's release, 2010 – it's his 22nd for ECM. Fresu is an Italian trumpeter, not quite 50, whose only previous ECM connection (among some 300 albums he's appeared on in all) came in 2007 when he worked with pianist/composer Carla Bley on her release The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu.

After critically-lauded projects with trumpeter Paolo Fresu (Chiaroscuro) and with fellow guitarists Wolfgang Muthspiel and Slava Grigoryan (Travel Guide), Ralph Towner returns to solo guitar for My Foolish Heart. Whether on classical guitar or 12-string guitar Towner’s touch is immediately identifiable. Solo music is an important thread through his rich discography and this new album – recorded at Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in February 2016 and produced by Manfred Eicher – follows in the great tradition of Diary, Solo Concert, Ana, Anthem, and Time Line. It features finely-honed new compositions as well as a pair of tunes (“Shard” and “Rewind”) from the songbook of Oregon, a dedication to the late Paul Bley (“Blue As In Bley”) and a single standard – Victor Young’s “My Foolish Heart” which Towner first came to love in Bill Evans’s interpretation.

A Closer View is the successor to 1993's Oracle, a record described by Downbeat as "charming and thoughtful, conveying the familiarity and empathy of partners who have worked together for years. Towner and Peacock share a deep interest in Bill Evans' music, which manifests itself in the light touch, intricacy and sensitivity that pervade the session." Oracle was initiated as Peacock's project and featured primarily the bassist's compositions. A Closer View reverses the formula, highlighting Towner's pieces. There are seven new tunes from the guitarist and three off-the-cuff joint compositions in an album completed by one Peacock "classic", the song "Moor".

An international summit meeting, Travel Guide features US guitarist Ralph Towner, Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, and Kazakhstan-born and Australia-raised guitarist Slava Grigoryan. The three musicians first came together in 2005, initially for concerts in Australia, and have since toured widely. A 2009 recording on Muthspiel’s Material Records label documented the group’s early progress. Ralph Towner subsequently brought the project to ECM and the trio recorded this album in Lugano in August 2012, with Manfred Eicher as producer. Towner has been a key ECM recording artist for more than 40 years, while Muthspiel and Grigoryan make label debuts here. Grigoryan is well known as the preeminent Australian classical guitarist of his generation, and Muthspiel’s been an important figure on the transatlantic jazz scene for two decades.

This 1974 album was given a well-deserved boost when ECM reissued it in 2001. It's a solo performance with a twist: Towner plays not only 12-string and classical guitars, but also very competent piano. Only "Entry in a Diary" and "Mon Enfant" are unaccompanied guitar solos; the latter, a traditional melody, is also the sole non-original. On four of the remaining six tracks, Towner accompanies himself via overdubs, playing both guitar and piano for an effect vaguely reminiscent of Bill Evans' Conversations With Myself.

The long overdue release of Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie's Five Years Later, originally released in 1982, may well be the most eagerly anticipated of the Re:Solutions series that brings into print—on CD (four titles for the first time, Five Years Later previously only available for a limited time in Japan), vinyl and high resolution digital formats—seven historic ECM recordings. Add the three Abercrombie Quartet albums recorded immediately prior to Five Years Later—1979's Arcade, 1980's Abercrombie Quartet and 1981's M, planned for release later this year in an Old & New Masters Edition box—and all of these two seminal guitarists' ECM recordings will finally be in print on CD internationally, and not a moment too soon.

Ralph Towner breaks out in more ways than one on City of Eyes. Despite his band Oregon's lagging creative slump and his own obsession with a synthesizer he is only beginning to learn how to "play," Towner cuts some new grooves on this set with an all-star cast. New to Towner's musical universe is drummer/percussionist Jerry Granelli and brass auteur Markus Stockhausen. Even Paul McCandless – who has spent the better part of the '80s making new age albums – doesn't muck things up this time out. The opener, "Jamaica Stopover," is Towner's freshest solo guitar piece in ages. It's slippery, has a groove, and is actually rooted in both the blues and gypsy swing. The first ensemble piece, "Cascades," sounds a little florid at the outset, but Granelli's percussive ambience is a cure for the rococo melody (it again reeks of Offramp-period Pat Metheny-ism).

Guitarist Ralph Towner (who also plays a bit of piano) teams up with the highly sympathetic bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Jack DeJohnette for five of his originals on this 1978 date. The music unfolds slowly but logically, and Towner's quiet sound displays a lot of inner heat. Highlights include "Waterwheel" and the 16-minute "Batik." Well worth listening to closely, at a high volume.

This very well-recorded album features Ralph Towner playing 12-string and classical guitar on "Nardis," two pieces by John Abercrombie, and four of his own originals. The interpretations are typically sensitive, thoughtful, and often introspective, but also show off Towner's impressive technique.