OREGON

Ralph Towner must be the only North American guitarist who records for one of the world's leading jazz labels (ECM) while using only acoustic guitars - no electric ones. His solo albums for the label, especially DIARY and BLUE SUN, have been exceedingly lovely. (Towner lends his compositions extra colour by also employing piano and synthesizers.) If these albums arrived on Prog Archives, I would give most of them 4 or 5 stars.

Oregon is the band in which Towner originally climbed to fame, at least in jazz circles. What kind of music can you expect from them? When you look at the wide variety of instruments the band's members use, and you bear in mind Oregon play a mixture of jazz (modern, but never harsh), European chamber music, psychedelic music, "world music" and folk, you can more or less imagine the style. These guys are adventurous, melodious and predominantly gentle, but never sentimental or bland - at least not on this particular album. The only thing I regret is that we get to hear comparatively little of Towner's guitar. Paul Mc Candless (on oboe, soprano sax, English horn and musette) is by far the most dominant player here.

Wholeheartedly recommended to all listeners who long for subtle "acoustic prog".