Anthem

Ralph Towner & Marc Copland, Ralph Towner

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 13, 2001)
• Original Release Date: March 13, 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B000059OB9
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #103,633 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Ralph Towner is a guitarist's guitarist, and a whole generation of finger-pickers have absorbed his merging of classical technique, jazz voicings, and genre-defying improvisation. Usually heard with his chamber jazz group, Oregon, Towner has also kept a solo career going ever since the early 1970s. Anthem is his first purely solo recording since Ana in 1996. From the opening ballad, "Solitary Woman," Towner is at the height of his power with this haunting rumination that has a Renaissance air about it. Towner's classical background has always informed his music, but his fusion with jazz is inseparable. You can hear the influence of Antonio Carlos Jobim on "Haunted" and that of Bill Evans, a Towner touchstone, on "Gloria's Step," written by one-time Evans bassist Scott LaFaro. On "Simone," Towner captures the sultry yet imperious phrasing of Nina Simone. As a guitarist who plays with such precise and intricate technique, Towner can come off dry and cerebral at times, but in a music where it's often difficult to tell where composition leaves off and improvisation begins, he usually keeps you guessing. --John Diliberto

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite, Of Course, But More of the Same, March 23, 2001

By	Stephen Silberman "writer, Wired Magazine" (SF, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It's hard to fault this album: Towner's playing on this solo guitar recording is exquisite, full of sensitivity, quiet passion, and an "almost Asian sense of balance," as a New York Times critic put it sometime ago. There is no doubt that this is music that will be listened to in 500 years -- after three decades of fine recordings like this, Towner has practically become his own idiom, his own "classical" music.

"Solitary Woman" is a retitling of "Alia's Theme" from Towner's wonderful soundtrack to the Italian film "Un Altra Vita," and this is an excellent, brooding version. The reading of the great Scott LaFaro tune "Gloria's Step" is likewise sublime, even if it doesn't add much to the version Towner recorded on the Oregon album "Moon and Mind." Similarly, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is all well and good, but doesn't add more than Towner's intimitable control and subtlety to the hundreds of covers of this tune. The sound here, of course, is the total top-drawer ECM diamond-cutter treatment, with every harmonic and heart-rending shading glittering and precise. Any lover of solo guitar music should love this record -- and fans of, say, Bach's lute music should give it a listen if they want to expand into contemporary territory.

So, why didn't I give it the five stars it would deserve, if judged against anyone else's recordings? Because it's slightly boring, my friends. Towner's last ECM venture was another solo guitar excursion, "Ana," which I also found a bit enervated. I'm not prejudiced against solo guitar music -- Towner's "Solo Concert" is one of my favorite albums; but compared to "Solo Concert," "Anthem" seems a little tired and precious. Towner shines and swings in response to other instrumental risk-takers, as in the Oregon group, or on that terribly underrated masterpiece, "Batik," playing in the company of Eddie Gomez and Jack DeJohnette. His previous solo work -- such as "Diary" and "Blue Sun" -- used keyboards, percussion, and varying guitar textures to maintain textural interest. The "Un Altra Vita" soundtrack pushed in many directions while retaining a single mood -- as do all of Towner's best recordings.

I feel unfair complaining about music this refined, this lovely, this mature, but I wish Manfred Eicher would push Towner a little, instead of building one crystalline vitrine after another for the Towner Museum.

As they say on the street, Towner needs to get out more.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beauty, mystery and a lesson in what's important in music, April 3, 2002

By	D. J. Sapen - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Perhaps the quintessential Towner solo guitar album - though fans of Ana and Solo Concert may disagree - this features some of the most virtuosic playing and heartfelt music of his career. It has revealed surprises and new delights with repeated listening. More varied in spirit and dynamic than the others, with dazzling finger style runs and unique, heartfelt melodies and voicings, age has been more than kind to this artist - without losing what has been essentially his voice, he has grown and even developed in mastery of the instument. And for those who refer to this as "cerebral" music - I must say this is precisely the opposite - aesthetic, felt to the sublest nuance and requiring thought FROM the LISTENER to hear how he has, in his own words, brought the whole piano trio to the guitar - perhaps the least cerebral, though most inward and inviting, solo instrumental work crossing genres one is likely to find. A gem.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review from Jazzmatazz at ..., April 1, 2001

By	Russell Woessner (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

On his fourth solo recording for the ECM label, Ralph Towner demonstrates the power of understatement. Playing only classical or 12-string guitar, he takes advantage of ECM's close-miked recording techniques to make every nuance of his playing count. Even the sound of his fingers sliding along the guitar strings is clearly audible in this extremely intimate performance. Towner masterfully manipulates the dynamics of his playing to create both drama and emotion in his music. Rather than introduce a song with a flourish, the guitarist draws the listener in with a whisper. Likewise, he wastes little time on stating the obvious. On the only two non-original compositions, Scott LaFaro's "Gloria Step" and Charles Mingus' "Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat," Towner begins his improvisations almost immediately without bothering to state much of each tune's familiar melodies. In his own compositions, Towner blurs the distinctions between writing and playing even further. While his interest in both classical and folk music is obvious in his formidable technique and dancing melodies, it is often difficult to say exactly where his composing ends and his improvisations begin or to untangle his overlapping melodies. Towner creates an intricate and compelling universe of sound that carries the listener along with an easy but irresistible momentum. It is a journey that is well worth taking with him.

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