Solo Concert

Solo Concert

This CD catches guitarist Ralph Towner at a 1979 solo concert, but as the title of the closing John Abercrombie tune suggests, there's a timeless quality to Towner's music, from crystalline runs to singing harmonics. It's not just the unadorned sounds of his acoustic 12-string and classical guitars but what he does with them. Towner's astonishing 12-string technique reaches back through folk sources to suggest a baroque harpsichord, while his modal improvisations return the Miles Davis influence (e.g., "Nardis") to its original flamenco and near-Eastern sources. While the appeal of combining folk, classical, world, and jazz elements can easily lead to pastiche, this concert emphasizes shared features. What could easily be the display of empty technique in lesser hands becomes whole music in Towner's hands--a complex, rhythmically vital, personal idiom. --<i>Stuart Broomer</i>