Ralph Towner, born in 1940, began by learning piano and trumpet and first took up guitar at the relatively advanced age of 22. He studied classical music with Karl Scheit in Vienna. On returning to New York, he started working as a pianist and guitarist,immersed himself deeply in the jazz scene and founded “Oregon”, a very adaptable group that is situated somewhere in the span betvveen chamber music,world music and jazz. Towner's music is unclassifiable. It is dominated by an improvisational spirit that links it to jazz, but at the same time there is a structural weight that indicates his classical training. The music moves smoothly from sensitive lyricism to jarring dissonances. He has an uncanny ability to play melodies, bass lines, and colorful chords up and down the neck all the time? As the notes swirl, complex flourishes ebb and flow like ocean currents. (Gary Joyner, Guitarist, August 1999)