Ralph Towner essay (English) / Concert Hall ATM

Special Essay by Ralph Towner

I discovered the classical guitar at the age of 22 only in my last year as a university student of classical music composition. My firstinstrument was the trumpet which I began at age seven, although I had already begun to improvise at the piano when I was 3 or 4 years of age. In these early years, I was fortunate to play in many dance bands, polka bands, swing, dixie and marching bands. This experience, along with an extensive 78 rpm record collection of Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong etc. etc. exposed me to a large world of music at a very early age.

I decided immediately to study the classical guitar with a master, and went to Vienna to study for two years with Professor Karl Scheit. After the first year, consisting of practicing for 10 hours a day, seven days a week, I was able to perform classical concerts quite ably.

My interest in jazz piano had been set aside during this period, but I resumed in order to work in standard jazz formations. The Bill Evans trio with Scot LaFaro had made a tremendous impact on my jazz conception. I began to employ a similar pianistic approach to my composition and improvising on the classical guitar. I had moved to New York City in 1968, and I played piano to gain entry into the jazz world, playing the guitar usually with Brazilian musicians. In this early period, I played piano with such musicians as Stan Getz, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Garrison, Sonny Rollins, as well as musicians from my own generation including Dave Holland, Mike Brecker etc. Eventually I began to compose more music for the guitar, and found a perfect group setting with "Oregon", a group that I co-founded in 1970 in New York.

This unusual background, pieced together over the years, has resulted in my personal approach to music on the guitar, which is to present music on the instrument that is more pianistic than the more idiomatic approach one usually hears on the classical guitar. I also like to imply that there is more than one instrument playing the music, drawing the listener into the musical story and away from the consciousness that the music is being played on a single guitar.

Ralph Towner

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