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BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that guitarist and composer Ralph Towner, known for his solo work as well as that with the chamber group Oregon, has passed away. He was 85 years old.
Born into a musical family, Towner started playing music at the age of 6, developing into a young multi-instrumentalist adept at trumpet, French horn, and piano. He was 22 before he took up the classical guitar, heading to Vienna to study with Karl Scheit.
Some of his early work included Weather Report’s 1972 album I Sing The Body Electric, as well as the studio and live solo albums Diary (recorded 1973) and Solo Concert (1979). Solstice (1974) brought Towner together with Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber, and Jon Christensen.
Towner played with his friend and fellow guitarist John Abercrombie on the album Sargasso Sea (1976), which led to many concerts on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a follow-up, Five Years Later. Towner's contributions to the recordings of others included Keith Jarrett’s “Short Piece for Guitar and Strings” on In The Light (1973) and, Jan Garbarek’s Dis (1976).
In parallel with his leader dates and his life as a touring soloist, Towner was a member of the transculturally oriented chamber group Oregon. The band’s classic line-up, with Towner, sitarist and tabla player Collin Walcott, oboist and saxophonist Paul McCandless and bassist Glenn Moore, appeared on the albums Trios/Solos (1972), Oregon (1983) and Crossing (1984).
Towner’s later works are featured on a series of solo albums: ANA and Anthem, recorded at Oslo’s Rainbow Studio in 1996 and 2000, followed by Time Line, from Sankt Gerold in 2005, and then My Foolish Heart and At First Light, both recorded in Lugano in 2016 and 2022.
