For over three decades OREGON has inspired audiences in renowned concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, and Vienna’s Mozartsaal; at international jazz clubs and major festivals such as Montreux, Pori, Berlin, Montreal, and Newport Jazz; and on tours throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, Eastern and Western Europe, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Algeria, and Australia.
OREGON began in 1960 at the University of Oregon with undergraduate students Ralph Towner and Glen Moore who formed a musical friendship on bass and piano inspired by Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro and later by Brazilian music. Moore earned a degree in history and literature and Towner completed his in composition, taking up guitar in the process. In the mid 60’s, they both traveled to Europe. Towner studied classical guitar in Vienna with Karl Scheit; Moore studied classical bass in Copenhagen and sat in with such greats as Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon. By 1969, both were living in New York City, playing with a community of young musicians who formed the great fusion bands of the ‘70’s including Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Performing with folksinger Tim Hardin at the ‘69 Woodstock Festival, Towner and Moore encountered two members of the Paul Winter Consort who introduced them to the music of that group. In the studio with Hardin, Ralph and Glen connected with sitar and tabla player Collin Walcott. He was a graduate of Indiana University under George Gaber, studied ethnomusicology at UCLA and served as road manager for Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha. On a break at that session, Ralph and Collin played their first guitar/sitar duet in the hallways of Columbia Studios.
By 1970 Ralph, Glen, and Collin had joined the Paul Winter Consort for a 50-concert U.S. tour where they quickly formed an alliance with its oboist, Paul McCandless, who had studied at the Manhattan School of Music under Toscanini’s first oboe player, Robert Bloom. During that initial tour, Ralph began composing a new repertoire of original material including “Icarus”, which has since become a standard. The early development of OREGON took root in motel rooms and college dormitories where in private jam sessions, Towner, Walcott, Moore and McCandless began investigating new musical possibilities after getting a taste of collective improvisation on tour with the Consort. Winter’s group introduced them to the idea of performing concerts with uncommon combinations of instruments in an eclectic variety of musical styles. Incorporating these elements, OREGON emerged with a unique synthesis of European classical instrumentation, American jazz harmony, and ethnic influences from around the globe. The notion of recording their own music first arose at a party, where Towner and Walcott were entertaining friends in their guitar/sitar configuration. The group was offered the use of an 8-track studio in the Hollywood Hills, known as “The Farm.” A short-lived independent label in Los Angeles subsidized six weeks of taping and mixing. The company did not succeed in selling the results to a major label and the tape went into storage for ten years before its Vanguard release on disc called—Our First Record.
In 1971 the band made its debut in New York City, calling themselves Thyme—Music of Another Present Era, a phrase designed to answer the question. “ What kind of music do you play?” McCandless later proposed the name “OREGON” alluding to Ralph and Glen’s nostalgic reminiscences of their home state. The next year, Vanguard signed OREGON, recording a new set of original compositions which became the band’s debut LP, Music of Another Present Era. In that same period, they made Trios and Solos for ECM, a new label in Europe. The Vanguard album introduced them to their American audience and through their association with ECM, they developed their European following with tours beginning in 1974 where they received critical acclaim and growing recognition in the international community.
Six years and nine albums later, OREGON moved to Elektra/Asylum Records. Its first release on that label, Out of the Woods, reached a decidedly wider audience and was included in the 101 Best Jazz Albums list by Len Lyons. As the years spanned and the group’s versatility grew, bass clarinet, soprano and sopranino saxes, ethnic flutes, flugelhorn, French horn, clarinet, dulcimer, electric bass, violin, viola, and a myriad of percussion instruments all found their way into OREGON’s instrumentation which already included Towner’s nylon and 12 string guitars and piano, McCandless’ oboe and English horn, Moore’s 1715 Klotz bass and Walcott’s sitar and tablas.
At the end of OREGON’s contract with Elektra, and with the birth of Collin Walcott’s daughter in 1980, the band members took a year long sabbatical during which they pursued their individual solo careers. When they reassembled, OREGON’s unique fusion gained an electric dimension through Towner’s addition of keyboard synthesizers. The group recorded two more albums for ECM with the original personnel.
They had reached a peak of popularity when in November 1984, Walcott died in an auto accident in the former East Germany, leaving the ECM album Crossing as his final document_ This left OREGON with the seemingly impossible task of filling an enormous vacuum. They reunited for the first time in May 1985 at a memorial concert for Walcott in New York where the dazzling Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu joined them to pay tribute. Trilok, who studied tablas and jazz drumming, accepted an invitation to work with OREGON in 1986 which included a State Department tour of the Indian subcontinent. Over a five-year period, he played on three albums with the band: Ecotopia on ECM, 45th Parallel on Epic, and Always, Never, and Forever, the band’s first recording on Intuition. After the departure of Gurtu, the three original members continued their creative development as a trio making two CDs—Troika and Beyond Words.
For the 1996 Intuition recording "Northwest Passage", the group incorporated two masterful percussionists, former Chicagoan Mark Walker and Arto Tuncboyician of Armenia. Walker, who also performs and records with Cuban expatriate Paquito D’Rivera, has become the new fourth member of OREGON and together with Towner, Moore, and McCandless traveled to Moscow in June 1999 to record the double CD for Intuition entitled "Oregon In Moscow." This project is the band’s debut recording of their orchestral repertoire. Developing since the Winter Consort days, this prodigious body of work had been performed with the St. Paul, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Stavanger, Freiburg, and Stuttgart Orchestras, but never documented. Oregon In Moscow, produced by Steve Rodby of the Pat Metheny Group fame, features the band members as composers, orchestrators, and soloists in collaboration with the Moscow Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra. In 2001 this album garnered four Grammy nominations. OREGON’s last project for Intuition, a live CD recorded during a spirited week at Yoshi's, San Francisco Bay Area's premier jazz club, was released in 2002. Not since 1980 has the group's electrifying and poignant performances been captured on tape.
In 2005, OREGON established a new relationship with the Italian label CamJazz, and released “Prime”, which celebrates 35 years of touring and recording as a group. This was followed in 2007 by their latest release, “1000 Kilometers” which pays tribute to the late Thomas Stoewsand, OREGON’s long time friend and booking agent.
OREGON continues its musical journey today, recording, touring, writing and improvising new music.
European Booking:
Contact:
Karin Kreisl and Anna Takats
SAUDADES TOURNEEN - Thomas Stoewsand Ges.m.b.H.
Haus Nr. 369a, A - 6200 Rotholz (Austria), tel. +43 5244 61151, fax +43 5244 61155, e-mail saudades@saudades.at
U.S. Booking
Contact:
Glen Moore
4068 NE 15th Av
Portland, OR 97212
Tel: (971) 207-3957
Email: glenrmoore@mac.com
U.S. Symphony Bookings:
Marilyn Rosen
Ted Kurland Associates
173 Brighton Avenue
Boston, MA 02134
Tel: (617) 254-0007
Fax: (617) 783-9230
Email: marilyn@tedkurland.com
I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)
OREGON performing "1000 Kilometers" live in Leverkusen, Germany, 2006
OREGON performing "Redial" live i Leverkusen, Germany, 2006
OREGON performing "An Open Door" live in Leverkusen, Germany, 2006
OREGON (with Trilok Gurtu) performing "Waterwheel" in Freiburg, Germany, 1987
Thank you for wonderful concert in Vienna on Monday. I enjoyed it so much. I love your music. Wishing you all the best and a lot of inspiration. Love, Dana
i just want to pay a tribute to a group and players that are part of my musical background. Hope to see you many times again in France and Europe! On my myspace a small video of the recording of my last CD “LETTING GO” with MANU KATCHE among others. one impassioned of saxophone and music. All the best Jacques Helmus
I got your "Out of the Woods" album when I was in high school. That album was such an inspiration that it made me feel like I could do anything. The originality and virtuosity still inspires me. Although I have all of your group recordings, I have never seen you live. Hopefully I will some day. Thanks X 1000. Aage
While we play very little that could be considered jazz, Oregon was a huge inspiration in the founding of this group in 1992. Best wishes from Idaho. Aage
Music is but an ambition, No one can get it, just right! but you get it as close as it gets to a real deal. & I congratulate you and me & all your listeners, as it Belong to us all.
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