a post about Oregon
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Forum Name: Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
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Topic: a post about Oregon
Posted By: BaldJean
Subject: a post about Oregon
Date Posted: March 10 2008 at 17:28
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one of the most interesting entries in the archives are Oregon, a band featuring guitar and piano player Ralph Towner, sax, oboe and clarinet player Paul McCandless and bass / piano player Glen Moore. they were founded in 1970; the fourth founding member was percussionist and sitar player Colin Walcott, who sadly died in a car accident in East Germany in 1984. he was replaced by Trilok Gurtu, who played with them for 5 years. the current percussion player is Mark Walker, who joined in 1996. although I believe Oregon's music to be jazz without any rock ingredients I think they perfectly fit into the archives; their jazz is a kind of "world jazz". the combination of acoustic guitar, sitar, acoustic bass, acoustic piano, sitar and the warm wind instruments of Paul McCandless gives them a unique sound which is unlike any other jazz ensemble. what's more: somehow one does not think of "jazz" when listening to them; they certainly have nothing to do with the origins of jazz. their closest musical relative is European chamber jazz like Eberhard Weber's Colours; I consider Oregon, although not European themselves, to be a precursor of European Chamber jazz. highly recommended to any prog lover. as a starting point I suggest "Winter Lights", which is my favorite album of them -------------  A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Replies:
Posted By: Philéas
Date Posted: March 10 2008 at 17:53
| I'll see if I can find something by them. Sounds interesting. |
Posted By: soundsweird
Date Posted: March 11 2008 at 00:49
| Yes, "Winter Light"... haven't heard it in 25+ years, a friend had that LP, which I've never seen on CD. Of course, the title is a double entendre; the members of Oregon all came from The Paul Winter Consort, so when they broke off, they were minus Paul Winter, hence they were "Winter Light"... I have some later Oregon stuff, as well as many Towner solo albums and one by Walcott. Another Winter Consort alumnus, David Darling, has released a number of excellent ECM label albums, which often feature members of Oregon. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 11 2008 at 07:21
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I'd recommend starting with their live album In Performance, which has their masterpiece tune of beautiful music, Icarus. Certainly worthy of being considered one of the top ten beautiful instrumental pieces. If your taste in prog and music in general tend towards diversity, this is a band not to miss. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: omri
Date Posted: March 11 2008 at 09:52
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I love Webber's Chorus. I guess I should search for oregon.
BaldJean, It seems that you are the one to ask about Winter consort. Have you heared them ? They are also a non jazzy instrumental band that in their first years made beautiful albums : self titled, Icarus and Road are great IMO. Later they (or actually their leader - Paul Winter) became very involved in saving the world from human kind and IMO became less interesting.
You can see there is no He or She here. I made fool of myself once. ------------- omri |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: March 11 2008 at 10:53
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I really like Moon and Mind. Violin is interesting too. ------------- |
Posted By: BroSpence
Date Posted: March 12 2008 at 19:30
| I have all their recordings from the Walcott era including the Towner solo album that was him and McCandless/Walcott. What a fantastic group of musicians. All great performers, improvisers and composers. They are a prime example of a group that had no boundary really and weren't really categorize-able. My personal favorite is Distant Hills. That album is a huge mind trip! |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 13 2008 at 07:34
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One of my old favorites is Roots In The Sky. I don't think it's made it to CD yet...
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: soundsweird
Date Posted: March 13 2008 at 22:53
| I have Roots in the Sky on CD. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 14 2008 at 07:09
I hadn't checked on it for a while. The CD you have is out of print. Used ones are out there. There is a combo of that one with Out of the Woods, which I just ordered, available new.  ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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soundsweird wrote: