The lineup is interesting. Ralph Towner himself, as he showed on an earlier record (‘Diary’ – ECM 1032 ST), is a guitarist and composer of considerable originality and imagination. ‘Diary’ was a solo effort with plenty of multiple taping: ‘Solstice’, on the other hand, is by an unusually fine group, containing some of Europe’s outstanding musicians. Jan Garbarek won four first places in Jazz Forum’s ‘Top People 75/76’, winning the European section for Musician of the Year, Combo, Soprano Sax and Tenor Sax. Eberhard Weber predictably came top for Electric Bass, while Jon Christensen came third in the Drum chart. Hearing them together on this disc explains the high regard and justifies it. Garbarek is in every sense a superior player on soprano and tenor (also excellent on flute). The lineage is no doubt Coltrane, but the voice is individual. Weber hardly needs praising, and Christensen shows immense skill and resource in handling the frequently complex rhythms, as in Piscean Dance.
One notices immediately strong Indian influences. During the sitar craze in the 1960s, the Indian gimmick in pop went too far and got nowhere. Ravi Shankar said it was not a real influence at all but simply a making use of certain sounds without any relevance to the true meaning. Now that the craze is over, the influence can come out. It is here. Towner uses 12-string and acoustic guitars, so avoids the besetting clichés of the electric variety; and the 12-string does produce some fascinating sounds. Weber’s work, too, often recalls Indian music in electronic terms, more surbahar (a kind of contralto sitar) being as it is in the bass area. Drifting Petals, however, indicates that the influences are generally Eastern rather than specifically Indian.
I am not, though, here to review influences but the music that is played. And this I find not only immediately effective but continuingly convincing. I have had the record for some time, and I have enjoyed it and discovered more to enjoy on successive hearings. There are one or two oddities: Visitation is decidedly spooky; it doesn’t exactly go bump in the night, but it does wail a good deal. And I wondered if the tiny Red And Black was a slipped-in anarchist manifesto; but it doesn’t give anything away if it is. There are clearly astral implications as well. A record to hear.
Discography
Oceanus; Visitation; Drifting Petals (20½ min) – Nimbus; Winter Solstice; Piscean Dance; Red And Black; Sand (19 min)
Ralph Towner (gtr/pno); Jan Garbarek (ts/ss/flt); Eberhard Weber (bs); Jon Christensen (dm/perc).
(ECM1060ST £3.29)
