Oregon (the band)

[mjzee]

I don't think there's been a dedicated topic to this long-running band yet here. They were formed in 1971, and have recorded pretty consistently since. Their records are of a piece, and sui generis; their concept can be heard, fully formed, since their first recording. Their sound is unique. When I hear then, I admit the first thing I think of is the early '70's: vegetarian restaurants, patchouli, India, peace and love, etc., etc., etc., but their music is involving and complex, and sends me to a particular area that no other group or artist can.

This was all brought back to me when I recently found a pristine copy of their first LP on ECM, simply titled "Oregon." Ralph Towner plays more Prophet 5 synthesizer than he does guitar (this was 1983, after all), but he gets a sound on it that blends well with the oboes, sitars, violas, and their other special mix of instruments. While their albums sound utterly like themselves, each one also sounds fresh and thought-out. (I haven't heard the album they did with Elvin Jones, and can't imagine what that sounds like.)

So what do other people here think of their particular kind of jazz?

[Chuck Nessa]

I remember sometime in the late '70s in conversation with Michael Cuscuna he mentioned Glen Moore and I said I didn't know who he was. He laughed and said "that's what I love about you".

[kh1958]

They played at the Caravan of Dreams on three occasions in the late 1980s--I hadn't really listened to them before--I found them to be an excellent group--very fine musicians who were enjoyable soloists and very much a unified group as well. I particularly like Ralph Towner. I haven't had the chance to see them live since 1989 but would love to have the opportunity

[7/4]

I finally got to hear the band play at Birdland last year, he didn't play much guitar.

[mjzee]

I'd challenge the idea that Oregon is Towner's band. The other members make equal contributions and I think have an equal say in direction.

[Milestones]

A pretty cool group. Not too long ago I was listening to a couple of early albums: Out of the Woods and Roots in the Sky. Thse are solid works throughout, with a distinctive sound and a fine conception, with the group (as others have noted ) very unified. Good compositions too, like "Vessel" and "Water Wheel." Towner is the main man, but really more for his dominance as composer than as player.

I've kept up more on Towner than the group. In fact, I was quite surprised to learn that have stayed together and releases have been steady, though relegated (I believe) to obscure labels.

[JSngry]

Didn't really care for them that much back in the day, associated them with Paul Winter's Icarus, a very popular album with all the "wrong people" for all the "wrong reasons", but have come to appreciate them a lot more with the passage of time as music. What it came down to was once it used to really irk me that all that was being called "jazz" and I was like, oh HELL no, and now, hey, whatever, they could play, period.

I will say this, though - I went through a time when I was getting called for tux gigs by "classical" musicians who said they were playing "jazz" and it was all Winter Consort/Oregon type stuff, and they would cringe whenever I played a flatted third over a major chord. To me, that's still a problem, but it's more one of nomenclature than of actual music, I mean, why do you want to call it "jazz", to get more gigs from clients who don't know shit about shit? That's rich, to think that "jazz" will make you more money..well, ok, maybe "jazz" will, but jazz? Make me laugh, please, at least try.

Fortunately, time passed and they could start calling it "New Age", they got more gigs, and they stopped calling me for them. Win-win, that was. But in retrospect, Oregon was "hotter" than they seemed to me at the time, very engaged playing, and nowhere near as limp as a lot of people who followed claiming to be in their lineage (you may remember when Windham Hill came along and stole the hearts of millions, the label that was essentially ECM with the jazz removed... ... ...). It just took me a while to feel where they were coming from. Still a place I come at from "the outside", but I've gotten used to the view, and it's all good now.

[StarThrower]

Of their Vanguard albums, I really like Winter Light. Great material, and their recording of Jim Pepper's Witchi Tai To is sublime. The first ECM album is a lot different than the old stuff, but I enjoy it for what it is. The lead off track, The Rapids is a high point. Reminds me of Metheny a little bit, but Pat was obviously influenced by Ralph Towner. I also have their Ecotopia album w/ Trilok Gurtu which has some good material, and some very 80s sounding synth.

[Guy Berger]

I've only heard the Vanguard albums. Good stuff, especially Distant Hills and Winter Light. I never checked out the later work - the descriptions and reviews made it seem like not my cup of tea.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Guy

[marcello]

I have this one:

I haven't listened to it in ages, but as I remember, it's pretty fine in a non-Oregon kind of was because of Seifret's fire.

Tracks
1. Violin (Group Improvisations)
2. Serenade (Raph Towner)
3. Raven´s Wood (Ralph Towner)
4. Flagolet (Glen Moore)
5. Friend of the Family (Ralph Towner)

ZBIGNIEW SIFERT violin
PAUL McCANDLESS oboe, bass clarinet
GLEN MOORE bass
COLLIN WALCOTT tabla, percussion, piano on (4)
RALPH TOWNER 12-string and classical guitars, piano on (3)

VANGUARD VMD 79397 - UV 040

[A Lark Ascending]

Beautiful band. I came to them in the late 70s off the back of Towner's 'Solstice' album - 'Out of the Woods' was quite widely available over here where their earlier records had vanished if they'd ever been around outside the metropolitan centres.

They are probably too pretty for the more hair shirt jazz aficionado. But I've always found their melodies very strong, balanced in with improvisation and a real sense of tonal colour. I enjoy their more recent records too, where the synth is held in check rather more than in the early ECMs.

[JSngry]

(I haven't heard the album they did with Elvin Jones, and can't imagine what that sounds like.)

It sounds like it might not have ever happened if they both hadn't been signed to Vanguard at the time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX07s5DXIU0

I mean, that's pretty good, really, but it could totally have happened without Elvin.

But there is this one, for which, yes, that's Elvin, but there's that triplety doodly-doo that and passionate yawling that was already sounding more signifier than reality, and it was just the 70s! (hell, Elvin's own bands embraced it and moved it along!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLFfoh0BMJ4

But now, objectively and with the now historically proven fact that Trane-isms (as opposed to post-Trane conceptings) would not be moved past themselves but would simply become more accepted as ok to do by general audiences, hell, that ain't too bad, ok?

But as long as they were label-banging each other, why not bring in James Moody, that would have no doubt resulted in a curiosity...Last Light Beam To Overbrook or some such! Or maybe even Bunky Green. Yeah, Bunky Green, that was the time when the "new" Bunky Green was emerging, not that anybody was thinking about that happening at the time...but Places We've Never Been should not be ignored, ok?

Those 70s Vanguard jazz records were a mess, which is not a complaint mind you, just an observation. Oregon's records might well have been the most focused of the lot, actually.

But.

[soulpope]

Oregon`s chamber music like approach mirrors in it`s beginning the "Zeitgeist" of subject period - of course aptly being labeled as "worldmusic"....as a whole never too captivating to me, though Ralph Towner was an excellent guitar player......

Edited April 6, 2014 by soulpope

[JSngry]

Another thing was that that whole "bag" to me seemed to be used as an excuse by too many people who couldn't swing as an excuse for not needing to. Of course, the guys in Oregon could swing, did swing, and by swing, I don't mean in any one way, just as a fact of life. But the excuse-makers, I always felt that they used it in a very cultural-specific way, as a way of excusing their, excuse my french, "whiteness" instead of embracing it. And I, wrongly, projected that attitude back on to Oregon, because at the time, a lot of people who were getting "inspired" by them seemed to be nervous about taking showers in an integrated locker room, if you understand the implications of what I'm attempting to try to say, but would never admit to it, because that would be backwards thinking, like nobody would come right out and say that not having a large fat penis makea them want to create a world where they didn't have to worry about that.

Again, though, this is all the dorks who tried to ride the coattails. Oregon themselves, pretty much dealt straight, but you know how it is, you hang around with a big bunch of farters and it turns you off on beans, and that's just wrong, wrong and tragic alike.,

[mikeweil]

Until Colin Walcott's death in that fatal accident on their way from Berlin to West Germany I loved the band, their sound was like music from my dreams, and very influential. All players in my first real band were deeply influenced by Oregon, we played their records to extinction. After 1980 I became interested in other styles, and when I saw them perform again with Mark Walker, they sounded too much like a new age edition of Weather Report to me.

In general I think that a lot of the promises made by music in the early 1970's were not fulfilled, among them the vision of some real high level world music like Oregon proposed.

Edited April 6, 2014 by mikeweil

[Mike Schwartz]

Beautiful band. I came to them in the late 70s off the back of Towner's 'Solstice' album - 'Out of the Woods' was quite widely available over here where their earlier records had vanished if they'd ever been around outside the metropolitan centres.

They are probably too pretty for the more hair shirt jazz aficionado. But I've always found their melodies very strong, balanced in with improvisation and a real sense of tonal colour. I enjoy their more recent records too, where the synth is held in check rather more than in the early ECMs.

I agree wholeheartedly....a beautiful band, having caught onto them early on, both on recordings and in concert.

No arguments from me on what they're NOT.

[7/4]

I thought Oregon would have found a permanent home at ECM...maybe they don't have the kind of distribution that kind of music needs. Ralph seems to do more shows with the band than ob his own these days.

I've probably said it before, I like Towner's solo albums more than Oregon. Although I do have a few favorite albums by Oregon...

[randyhersom]

12 string guitar was the sound that lured me in, but in the end the Oregon track I find most captivating features Towner on piano - Yet To Be from In Concert. The Vanguard material is the best, but I've heard some later live tapes that could reasonably be compared to Sun Ra. I always appreciated Dennis Gonzalez for appreciating Oregon on his Jazz Corner corner - it's not all that common a view among forward looking players in the jazz tradition. I have no trouble with somebody saying jazz is only part of what they do, but Yet To Be clearly builds on Bill Evans and just as clearly does not copy him. I am definitely a fan and always try to hear their latest releases.

[A Lark Ascending]

Ralph has played over here solo quite often, sometimes with Brit musicians. But I don't recall an Oregon concert. I'm sure they must have.

[skeith]

I am a big fan... my two favorites are Music of Another Present Era and DIstant Hills....with a prefence for DIstant Hills since they stretch out a bit more with the solos.

[peterintoronto]

I adore this:

[mjzee]

(I haven't heard the album they did with Elvin Jones, and can't imagine what that sounds like.)

It sounds like it might not have ever happened if they both hadn't been signed to Vanguard at the time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX07s5DXIU0

I mean, that's pretty good, really, but it could totally have happened without Elvin.

Thanks, Jim; I really enjoyed that. I disagree that "it could totally have happened without Elvin" - this track has a harder edge and an insistent groove that Oregon wasn't doing. He drives them more into a Yusef Lateef area. It's great that Collin Walcott, accompanying Elvin, sounds more like a Ray Barretto on one of Lou Donaldson's records. Very nice.

[Jerry_L]

I picked up a copy of Out of the Woods back in the seventies, probably a promo copy from 3rd Street Jazz in Philly. I now have just about their entire catalog on CD.

Their music creates a particularly introspective mood. Good for meditation.

I'd challenge the idea that Oregon is Towner's band. The other members make equal contributions and I think have an equal say in direction.

It's a band Towner is in, but I don't think he is considered the leader, either. Oregon deserves it's own thread.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Jerry_L

[etherbored]

it's never about distribution with ecm....

[JSngry]

(I haven't heard the album they did with Elvin Jones, and can't imagine what that sounds like.)

It sounds like it might not have ever happened if they both hadn't been signed to Vanguard at the time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX07s5DXIU0

I mean, that's pretty good, really, but it could totally have happened without Elvin.

Thanks, Jim; I really enjoyed that. I disagree that "it could totally have happened without Elvin" - this track has a harder edge and an insistent groove that Oregon wasn't doing. He drives them more into a Yusef Lateef area. It's great that Collin Walcott, accompanying Elvin, sounds more like a Ray Barretto on one of Lou Donaldson's records. Very nice.

Didn't meant that Elvin didn't change things, just that it;s not an "only Elvin could have made this happen" kind of things like the other cut was. That one screams Elvin. This one is more like, hey Oregon's playing with a different drummer, eh?

But yeah, you play with Elvin, things change, automatically. Always!