[.ca] Northwest Passage

From Amazon.com:
Oregon are a world/jazz-fusion group that have been performing together since 1970, when Paul McCandless, Ralph Towner, and Colin Wolcott left the Paul Winter Consort to form a band with bassist Glen Moore. Ralph Towner's 12-string guitar has always blended well with McCandless's stately oboe and English horn as the band combines Asian and Native American influences with jazzy improvisation. Oregon's percussionist Colin Wolcott was killed in an auto accident in the early '80s. Both Arto Tuncboyaciyan and Mark Walker fill the void left by Wolcott with sensitivity and skill while the three original members display a very special brand of musical maturity. Glen Moore's basslines underscore the gentle compositions of Towner and McCandless and Oregon's group improvisation is particularly intuitive. --Mitch Myers

This band has matured beautifully:
My Dad had a couple early Oregon discs around the house because he had been at the University of Oregon school of music at the same time as guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner and acoustic bass player Glen Moore, who both sat in on his pickup dance band once or twice. Moore remained a friend of the family over the years. I didn't much like the albums. Too many of the cuts were just too spacey, they didn't go much of anywhere. I liked a little more beat and melody to most of my music, which is why I went for Shadowfax for a while. Oregon's terrific _Ecotopia_ album answered these requirements, however, and this one does even better. There are so many different ways for music to be beautiful, and a lot of them are here. "Claridade" is delicately regretful, "Under a Dorian Sky" airily menacing (best use of the band's free-form style I've heard), "Fortune Cookie" a quirky bop, "Intro" expansive and introspective, "L'Assassino Che Suona" a typical sample of Moore's oddities (for those who remember "Leather Cats" from _Ecotopia_ or "Cream of Bartok Soup" from his solo disc; the title of this one comes from an Italian female acquaintance who saw the bassist slinking along in his trench coat and took him for an assassin). "Take Heart," "Joyful Departure" and "Yet to Be" are all upbeat, optimistic, and inspiring. (I've noticed that my local public radio station often uses snatches of these tunes for its incidental music.) For a change of pace, "Don't Knock On My Door" is a sort of East Indian rave-up, with percussionist Arto Tuncboyaciyan burbling vocally. But my favorite cut is "Nightfall" -- moody and apprehensive, cool yet jittery, eerie and rich. Towner's shifting chords under the main theme send shivers up your spine, McCandless's soprano sax wails over stinging notes from the guitar and aggressive thumps from the bass. It's even better live. One other thing I don't usually note: The packaging of this CD is gorgeous, too. I love this album. Progressive jazz at its very best. Buy it!

My first CD by the group Oregon:
I had not heard of this particular group except for an ad in a double reed journal. As an amatuer oboe player, I was curious enough to order the CD and was pleasantly surprised when I listened to it. This is a serious jazz album, with harmonic, melodic and rhythmic complexities to delight any jazz lover looking for something unusual. I was most curious about Paul Mccandless' oboe playing, which was great, as was his soprano saxophone work. But the string bass and percussion were also impressive. I also liked the HUGE variety of styles on this CD; all were played with great finesse, sensitivity, and enthusiasm. This is a great addition to my CD library.

• Take Heart
• Don't Knock on My Door
• Lost in the Horns
• Over Your Shoulder
• Claridade
• Joyful Departure
• Nightfall
• Under a Dorian Sky
• Fortune Cookie
• Under the Mountain
• Assassino Che Suona (The Musical Assassin)
• Intro
• Yet to Be
• Northwest Passage