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Oregon - 1974


mjzee

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Release date August 6:

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Available for the 1st time.

1974 live-recordings of US - Jazz and World Fusion artists Oregon documenting the band at their mesmerizing best.

Oregon, formed in 1970, comprised Ralph Towner (classical and 12-string guitars), Paul McCandless (oboe and English horn), Glen Moore (double bass) and Collin Walcott (sitar and tabla). 

The band's music has always been almost totally acoustic. ''Acoustic instruments sound more expressive to me,'' Towner explained to Jazzwise magazine (UK) in September 1997. He further explained his guitar style: ''With classical guitar [you're] using all the fingers of your right hand to pluck which means you can be sounding anything from two to five notes in exact unison, rather than a strum.'' As well as their core instruments, Towner has played trumpet, synths and piano with the band, McCandless bass clarinet and flute, Moore flute and violin and Walcott clarinet and dulcimer. To name but some. ''At one time we were carrying eighty instruments on the road!'' McCandless has said. 

The combining of instruments from disparate musical traditions and the musicians' range of influences meant that 'jazz' was always an inadequate label for the band. ''Live In Bremen 1974'' documents Oregon at their mesmerizing best. The interplay between the four players is stunning and on each piece mood and texture are ever-changing, yet always following an aesthetic logic that seems irrefutable. ''Live In Bremen 1974'', however, is a reminder of a band that made music that had never been heard before, that had never been imagined before. One track is titled ''Brujo'', Spanish for ''sorcerer.'' Truly, Towner, McCandless, Moore and Walcott were musical sorcerers whose playing retains its power to enchant not only the band's original fans but even, surely, anyone lucky enough to be hearing the band for the very first time. 

Track Listing:

Disc 1:

Brujo
Ghost Beads
Dark Spirit
Ogden Road

Disc 2:

Distant Hills
Embarking
Raven's Wood
Canyon Song
The Silence of a Candle

Per the group "Oregon Jazz Group" on Facebook:  Shortly before the release of their third album, the commercially very successful “Winter Light”, the quartet toured Europe and also made a stop at Radio Bremen’s Sendesaal on 14 March 1974. In the past weeks, the Austrian sound wizard Johannes Schreibenreif meticulously prepared the 47-year-old tapes under the critical ears of Ralph Towner and Paul McCandless.

More info here: http://www.mig-music.de/en/oregon-will-release-live-album-on-the-moosicus-label-news/

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Definitely interested. First came to their music through Towner's and Walcott's non-Oregon ensembles. Still think Moore and McCandless are pretty underrated, and they arguably supplied the ensemble with most of its quote-unquote jazz.

Edited by Joe
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Tried playing music like that at various times, with various people... it's a place of it's own, for sure. But it's a place I could never feel really comfortable in. Wasn't room for everything I need music to have to do that. Just one of those things, different peoples got different things 

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Yeah, will hear into this when it comes.
Can't believe it's been almost 50 years,
but "...Another Present Era" caught my
attention by having colorful, interesting
textures without being cloying. Was one
of those albums that was often a request
during the radio show in those days and
was always happy to play it. We'll see/hear...

Edited by rostasi
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A musical name perhaps most closely associated in many minds with the band Oregon which he co\-founded, Ralph Towner (b.1940) the classical composer is particularly beloved of guitarists and is a prolific writer for the instrument. Having studied composition at Oregon University, Towner spent four years in Vienna studying classical guitar with the Czech teacher Karl Scheit. Having previously favoured the piano as a medium for his improvisational talent, Towner swung towards the classical and 12\-string guitars. His very individual approach to the guitar and its tone\-colour potential has been described as pianistic or even orchestral, with his renown as a performer on the guitar as high among classical musicians as in any other musical sphere. His solo recitals on the instrument have been primarily focused on his own numerous compositions, of which he has recorded over two hundred. This record follows the short guitar solos – many of them linked to the group Oregon such as Hermia’s Galliard from the band’s 1998 incidental music for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and When The Fire Burns Low originally for piano and recorded with Oregon in 1991 – with the Maddalena Variations (2011) a prelude and four variations. This larger\-scale work exemplifies Towner’s return to the more traditional classical forms in which he was originally trained in the 60s.

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I heard once, that Ralph Towner in the early 60´s had studied classical guitar at the Music Academy in Vienna with a famous classical guitar professor, I think his name was Karl Scheidt. I got to see Mr. Scheidt for a few times. A very very nice and smiling old gentleman. 

I saw "Oregon" one time in 1983 at Wiesen Jazzfestival. Some things, mostly with percussion sounded good, though this is not exactly my kind of music. 
 

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