Deeply saddened to hear that guitarist, pianist and composer Ralph Towner passed away on 18th January. Whether playing classical or 12-string guitar Towner had an instantly identifiable and individual style, or indeed his first instrument, the piano.
Starting out on piano as a child and ultimately training as a classical pianist, Towner also studied classical guitar in Vienna in the mid-1960s. By the end of the decade, he was in New York playing jazz as a pianist and falling under the spell of Bill Evans.
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By the late 1960s and early 1970s he was also playing and improvising on both classical and 12-string guitars, and though he would continue to perform on piano throughout his career, in the latter part of his life it was the guitar that would be his instrument of choice.
As a founder member of the group Oregon in 1970, Towner along with Paul McCandless, Colin Walcott and Glen Moore found considerable success in a hybrid group that draw on music Indian classical music, free improvisation and folk music. It was around this time that Towner met record producer Manfred Eicher and so began an association with Eicher and ECM Records that would last more than fifty years.
Towner played a vital role in some of the imprints early albums and was instrumental in helping define what would become known as the ECM sound. The recording Dis with under Jan Garbarek’s name would become one of the labels signature recordings of the 1970’s as would be his own album, Solstice.
In addition to collaboration on other artist’s recordings, Towner recorded prolifically recording many solo guitar albums. His first solo endeavour was the wonderful Diary recorded in April 1973 which the guitarist uses the studio to overdub multiple layers and can be heard playing guitar and accompanying himself on piano, and 2016 was in the studio making the excellent My Foolish Heart that features acoustic guitar throughout.
For the most part Towner focussed on purely acoustic music and the interplay with other musicians, and there can few who heard the maestro perform live or on record that were not moved by his playing. Whether playing solo or collaborating with John Abercrombie, Gary Burton and Paolo Frescu in a duo format, or indeed with the quartet Oregon, Ralph Towner was one of a kind.
