Artist Features
Guitarist-Pianist Ralph Towner Remembered
JGT Contributor Joe Barth pays tribute to Ralph Towner and looks back on past conversations with the legendary guitarist.
Ralph Towner passed away at age 85 at his home in Rome, Italy, on Sunday, January 18, 2026. He was surrounded by his wife of 30 years and other loved ones.
Towner was born on March 1, 1940, in Chehalis, Washington (south of Seattle), and then his family moved to Bend, Oregon, where he spent most of his childhood. After playing brass instruments in school bands, he went off to the University of Oregon in Eugene, where he majored in music theory and composition and took up playing piano. Hearing classical guitar played well in his senior year, he moved to Vienna to study classical guitar upon graduation from the University of Oregon. This unique background has made Ralph one of the most individual yet always satisfying fingerstyle jazz guitarists on the scene today.
Here are some excerpts of a conversation I had with Ralph about twenty years ago:
JB: Was it through guitar or piano albums that your sound was shaped?
RT: Not a single jazz guitar album. Piano albums, and then Julian Bream was the first classical guitarist who really excited me with his approach to playing. He was different than Segovia in that it was guitaristic but not as guitaristic as what Segovia played.
JB: So, once you had some technique on the guitar, Karl Scheit had you learning traditional literature like Fernando Sor’s and Hector Villa Lobos’ music?
RT: And a lot of Renaissance music, John Dowland and other Elizabethan composers, and Bach’s music as well. Not so much the Spanish composers.
JB: Is jazz self-taught for you?
RT: Yeah, transcribing voicings and solos off records, playing with people, learning the harmony on your own. There weren’t jazz schools back then.
Because then it was an inexpensive way to travel, I went to and from Europe on a freighter. On the boat back after that first year in Vienna, I heard Bossa Nova for the first time and was taken by the jazz harmonies that seemed so natural on the nylon string classical guitar. I wasn’t trying to force the guitar into being a bebop instrument and competing with the piano, because I could already do that music on the piano.
JB: Then, after the second year in Vienna, you moved to New York?
RT: Yes, by then I was playing piano in clubs. In fact, when I moved to New York, I survived financially by playing the piano. The only time I played guitar was when I wrote a composition for a small groups and wrote a guitar part for me to play…….. when I was in New York, there weren’t as many good pianists as there are today. I was a decent jazz pianist, so I was kind of a second or third call to Chick Corea and some of the other guys playing in town if they were busy and had another gig.
But, I continued to develop as a guitarist and worked on finding my own voice on the instrument. I also continued working out my approach to playing Brazilian music.
This January, ECM has just re-released Gary Peacock and Ralph’s 1994 duet album Oracle. Concerning this album, Ralph told me:
Another significant duet was A Closer View and the other album, Oracle, with bassist Gary Peacock. We did a number of composed and prepared tunes, but there are a lot of free improvised tunes on these records as well. Gary is my favorite bass player after Scott LaFaro. Gary is so good at playing up high and interacting, breaking things up rather than just being a timekeeper. His rhythms are so complex yet beautifully satisfying. We just musically clicked together.
Two of Ralph’s early ensemble records were Solstice and Sound and Shadows with bassist Eberhard Weber, drummer Jon Christianson, and saxophonist Jan Garbarek. Of these records, Ralph told me:
Solstice was the one that won all the awards. Recording it was so magical and impossible to top. I had written some great compositions, and the guys weren’t famous enough to have to maintain an image, and so they played so freely and creatively on that recording. It just came together so well in the studio with all the songs as first takes. It is just a stunning recording.
Sound and Shadows came later as a follow-up to the first. On Solstice, it was the first time that Eberhard played 5 string acoustic bass in the combo and then recorded solos over that on the electric bass. On the second, he overdubbed the cello. That first one was so magical, it would be hard to recapture that same magic on another.
JB: The textures are so different on those recordings than the traditional guitar saxophone quartet, say those Jim Hall, Paul Desmond records. Were you really seeking to move that type of quartet to a new level?
RT: Again, my approach to the guitar is not guitaristic but rather more like a pianist. I never studied jazz guitar or played jazz voicings on the guitar. I never played with a pick, ever. So, my whole approach is going to sound very pianistic. I also like odd meters and Eastern European meters as well as a Gershwin-type melody. Another thing that contributes to the sound is that I purposely avoid playing in swing time. I think bebop on a classical guitar sounds a little awkward sometimes. I didn’t have to force the nylon string guitar into a situation it wasn’t suited for.
Ralph was best known for his work with his group, Oregon. Concerning Oregon, Ralph told me:
They have been a part of my life since 1970, when we all met in New York City in the Paul Winter Consort. Glen Moore and I met in college at the University of Oregon. Our music keeps evolving and getting better. We are all very compatible. We lost our original drummer in a terrible auto accident while on tour in East Germany in 1984. It has been like a marriage with going through low times, the crash, but six months later, we got together for some trio things. At the time, our emotions were really raw, but we felt that the music deserved that we continue.
JB: What recording would best represent Oregon?
RT: In the 22 years since Colin died, we have had two drummers, and each drummer has made the group distinctive in their own way. Our newest, Oregon Prime, best represents our current drummer, Mark Walker. My favorite with Colin is Crossing. He really shines on that recording. With Trilok Gurtu is Always, Never and Forever. Those three represent a kind of peak with each of the drummers.
Ralph was much revered by his fellow guitarists. Over the years, here is what a few have told me about Ralph:
John Abercrombie…
His contributions to the guitar are amazing. His whole approach is so different. He is the most successful version of what some people call Third Stream Music. He is the only person who could do this kind of 12-string thing. He invented it. It is him. He has everything going on. He is a brilliant composer who has influenced me deeply as a composer. I could never play like him, but some of his nylon classical-type playing has influenced me.
When I played with him, I had to learn how to phrase some of his tunes like him, and that was hard because in those days I played with a pick. He played more across the guitar, more vertically, and I played more up and down, like a jazz player. So, he did influence me in trying to play more across the neck. Listen to what he is doing here. It sounds so complete. It sounds like an orchestra.
Sheryl Bailey…
I love the early Oregon things and the duets he did with John Abercrombie and the Matchbook album with Gary Burton. Ralph and John were so open in how to approach the guitar duo.
Ralph is a huge influence on me as a composer. In the 1980’s at Berklee, I was really into this stuff. Ralph has such a unique approach to playing the guitar with his talents as a pianist. There is something so natural to his fingerstyle technique. It is his harmony that is so influential to me.
Gene Bertoncini…
Ralph is the greatest. You know he followed me in the Paul Winter Ensemble. Interestingly, Wayne Shorter asked me to play on what became the first Weather Report album, and I declined for personal reasons. Then they asked Ralph to play on their second album, I Sing the Body Electric. I have been a great admirer of Ralph since the Paul Winter days. Listen to what he is doing with the 12 string and with his nails! You have to have strong nails to do that.
His compositions are superior. He is also very creative as an improviser. Did you know that he is a wonderful pianist and looks at the guitar fingerboard very differently? He doesn’t just play chord grips. I think he first started playing the 12-string with Paul Winter. I really admire how he just gets up there and plays with such commitment.
Larry Coryell…
Ralph Towner is like an innovator with his fingerstyle concepts on nylon string as well as twelve-string guitar. He is very original. Beautiful stuff. Nobody does stuff like this anymore. He makes me want to get back and work on the twelve-string again. When I was in the Eleventh House, we were opposite of Oregon at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, and for a week, I would sit and listen to Ralph, and I thought he was the greatest guitar player in the world. We sat in with each other and did a duet, and he was so amazing. He was so aggressive and pushy in a good way. I really loved it.
Bill Frisell…
Ralph has such a monstrous technique. I don’t usually hear him playing Standard tunes. I first heard Ralph on Weather Report’s I Sing the Body Electric and thought, “What is that sound?” He plays the naked nylon string guitar with such a unique harmonic sense. Then I got his early Oregon stuff. Ralph is one of a kind.
Steve Khan…
When I moved to New York in 1970, Ralph was one of the first guys that I met. Ralph has such a great approach and tone. And damn him (laughter), he’s also a great pianist, in the style of Bill Evans.
After hearing this intro (“The Moors” from Weather Report’s I Sing the Body Electric), I called Ralph and told him how great it was, and he said that he had just been there in the studio, and he was warming up, and unbeknownst to him, they had the tape running. Weather Report ended up using this free improvisation by splicing it onto the beginning of that song. Wayne and Joe heard something in Ralph’s playing that, at that moment, he was not even aware of. They put him in the right context, and magic happened.
Solo Concert is one of the greatest albums on any instrument, but certainly on the acoustic guitar. Ralph uses the guitar in a very orchestral manner, employing wide contrasts in dynamics and shadings, using the hall’s natural echo to come up with this unique approach to a concert setting. He is a very special musician.
If you want to get an album that Ralph thought best represented his playing, here is what he told me:
Solstice for a group album. Anthem and I would have to add Solo Concert for my solo ones. With Solstice, it was just how that album came together. If I could dream of a concept of a perfect group and perfect music, that was it. It was a mini miracle for us. It came at a time in all of our lives when there was an excitement about it. Everything converged in the right way.
JGT’s Bob Bakert spoke to Ralph back in 2023.
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