Ralph Towner - Spirit Lake
Continuing the March Of Inexorable Mortality -- OK, the January of that -- which often defines this page, we'll move along to the next headstone of 2026 with a tribute to a recently fallen Ultra Maestro.
I've gotten no less than three messages on the Blog Contact Form this week, alerting me to the necessity of a tribute to this guy, but before the first one came in I was already well into one show and headed, in prototypically manic fashion, for de facto box set territory.
He passed away last week, after a whole half century bringing a whole lot of beauty into this often unbeautiful world of ours.
This began in the 1960s at the U of O here in Eugene, where he studied piano, and he soon jumped to Vienna to study classical guitar.
He returned to the US in 1968 and joined the World Music-pioneering Paul Winter Consort, before quitting in 1970 to form the band for which he is perhaps most known. For which he stayed in the spiritual vicinity of Eugene and named, simply, Oregon.
This group continued the progression of the multiethnic music from the PWC and streamlined it into something even more sonorous and accessible, unintentionally helping launch both the World Chamber Jazz and New Age genres that now sell billions.
Can a music sound like a place? Because I can't think of a more Oregon sound than Oregon. Four bars and you're amid rows of pristine pines, gazing at mountain paths and springs at sunset in 1975. There's also a sommelier in a Sponge Bob costume, protesting the police or something.
Anyway he didn't just stop with Oregon... I mean, it's a great place and all, but it can get a little monochromatic and predictable at times, Sponge Bob sommeliers for social justice notwithstanding. My friend and I had a whole text debate a while back over whether Oregon is the Vermont of the West Coast, or just the Norway of America lolol.
Regardless, over a varied and prolific career, Ralph Towner -- as talented an instrumentalist and composer as has existed in our lifetimes -- collaborated with a million luminaries in a zillion combinations, many of them captured for perpetual posterity by Manfred Eicher's superlative-on-steroids ECM label I'm always babbling on praisefully about.
When he departed this rapidly nosediving plane a week ago, he left a vast discography people will be spelunking into for centuries to come, if by some miracle there's still people around in centuries not perma-tunneled into underground caves.
He made it to 85, so you can't say it's a crippling tragedy of a man taken too soon. Although I'd have had no issue whatsoever if he'd have lived and continued birthing his particular brand of brilliance for another 85 years.
To properly tribute such a seminal figure of culture, I started with one performance and quickly expanded my efforts to include a triple play of shows that feature Mr. Towner at the apex of his aperture, letting in the maximum light.
I guess the unifying field theory of these is that they were all taped in the same room, over the course of a decade's time starting 40 years ago, and all feature exactly the coterie of qualities that makes the music of Ralph Towner stand out like one of those wicked Oregon Coast sunsets we mentioned.
Ralph Towner
Hamburg, 1987-96
1.
Ralph Towner
NDR Funkhaus
Studio 10
Hamburg, Germany
12.21.1987
01 Les Douzilles
02 Spirit Lake
03 Reggae for One (aka Jamaica Stopover)
04 The Juggler`s Etude
05 Ralph's Blues
06 Ballad for Janet
07 Witchi-Tai-To
08 Nardis
09 The Donkey`s Jamboree
10 Nimbus
Total time: 51:40
Ralph Towner - guitars & percussion
NDR preFM reels of indeterminate origin
retracked, edited & remastered by EN, January 2026
261 MB FLAC/link below
261 MB FLAC/link below
2.
Ralph Towner & Gary Peacock
NDR Funkhaus
Studio 10
Hamburg, Germany
3.26.1993
01 untitled improvisation/Hat and Cane
02 Gaya
03 My Romance
04 Inside Inside/Janet
05 Veldt
06 bass solo
07 Sustained Release
08 Blue In Green
09 Jamaica Stopover
10 Burly Hello
11 Tramonto
12 Nardis
13 Celeste
Total time: 1:47:21
disc break goes after Track 05
Ralph Towner - guitars, piano & percussion
Gary Peacock - bass
NDR preFM reels of indeterminate origin
retracked, edited & remastered by EN, January 2026
493 MB FLAC/link below
493 MB FLAC/link below
3.
Oregon
NDR Funkhaus
Studio 10
Hamburg, Germany
12.11.1996
01 Waterwheel
02 Take Heart
03 Nightfall
04 Pepe Linque
05 Claridade
06 Raisa Point
07 Yet to Be
08 Joyful Departure
09 Fortune Cookie
10 untitled improvisation
11 Ecotopia
12 Green and Golden
13 L'Assassino Che Suono
14 Witchi-Tai-To
15 Icarus
Total time: 2:07:35
disc break goes after Track 07
Ralph Towner - guitars, keyboards, electronics & percussion
Paul McCandless - woodwinds & reeds
Glen Moore - bass
NDR preFM reels of indeterminate origin
retracked, edited & remastered by EN, January 2026
672 MB FLAC
all 3 shows are in the same folder/direct link
672 MB FLAC
all 3 shows are in the same folder/direct link
If you're wondering, I didn't intend this as one big box set -- it came together all modular, one set at a time -- but it kind of structured itself as a solo performance, followed by a duo and concluding with a trio. As easy as 1,2,3 you might say.
So I hope that's a satisfactory 5-hour feast to celebrate the legacy of this extraordinary player and writer. Obviously because these are pre-broadcast tapes, you'll find the sound quality exceeds that of a good many commercial albums people charge that funny paper we think is money to purchase.
I'll be back at month's end, when it'll be on to Chicago and let's win there. But no month of exquisite music could be complete without a necessary homage to a figure with the gregarious gravitas (is that a thing? it's late and I'm high as a lamppost on the lunar surface) and the colossal catalog of the instantly immortal Ralph Towner.--J.
3.1.1940 - 1.18.2026
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