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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deeply beautiful,
By liberty janus (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blue Sun (Audio CD)
For more than 30 years, Ralph Towner has graced listeners with his absolutely unique musical personality. Towner always plays and composes Towneresquely, which to many of us is a consummate gift, and places him in the pantheon of great American artists pursuing their art outside the mainline of American popular music culture. Naturally, but still curiously, to others espousing the pure jazz party line, a magnificent recording like Blue Sun, with it's deep aching crystalline beauty, appears to be a superficial effort. The further from pure jazz an artist like Towner gets, and the more incisively he probes the emotional depths, the more the purist disregards his effort. All the more reason to embrace Towner's rich musical and emotional vocabulary and lift him up as a really vital representative of the individual soul at work.It's all here: the amazing guitar voice with the tunings, the fingerings, and the phrasings, (American non-mainstream music has been gifted with guitarists, like Towner, of unique personality and skill); the economy and the rich spare depth (plus some fun) of Towner's electronic keyboards; the economical percussion; the occasional brass; and the Towner piano. Most artists long for a voice this unique. Embrace this recording as a seminal example of this man's work and as a rich emotional experience courtesy of a true American original.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ralph's "other" masterwork, wonderful music,
By
This review is from: Blue Sun (Audio CD)
This record (along with "Solo Concert") is Ralph's musical highpoint, in an impressive career as a jazz guitarist. Blue Sun is not really jazz, at least not as I understand the term. It is more like the composed works of Pat Metheny (Secret Story) or Steve Tibbetts (Safe Journey) without the percussion. This record sounds like a series of duets between guitar and synthesizer/horn. Playful and melodic on most tracks, it also moves into a quiet, reflective place where single notes seem to fall into a pool of deep silence. Ralph's skill with the guitar is well known, his only weakness is in his ability to compose engaging melodies. Here, there are no weak tracks, all the songs are lovelly and well worth repeated listening.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ralph Towner Blue Sun,
By
This review is from: Blue Sun (Audio CD)
This is really a great LP (I don't own the CD yet). I had the good fortune to meet Ralph after a concert at the Musicians Exchange in Fort Lauderdale in oh..? 1990 maybe. I met him and had him sign my album. He's a great guy, and it bears explanantion that he plays all instruments on this album! ...piano, Prophet 5 synthesizer, 12 string and classical guitars, french horn, cornet and percussion. Quite amazing -- no other musicians on the album! It's beautiful, quite Spanish, but quite American too. He's a tremendous talent. I feel very honored to have met him. He's a great guy, a nice guy, and a tremendous musician. I really recommend this album. The production standards on ECM records are very high indeed -- excellent sound quality.
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