donn (11/03/82)
I saw OREGON in concert Monday night at San Diego State University. The
members of the group (Ralph Towner, Paul McCandless, Glen Moore, Collin Wal-
cott) each spent a year or so at solo projects and have apparently reunited,
although as far as I know they have no new album out.
OREGON is back in its usual eclectic form. Their usual instrumentation is
refreshingly bizarre even for a jazz group: Towner on 12-string guitar,
McCandless on oboe, Walcott on tabla and Moore on bass. The technical capa-
bilities of the performers are very good to amazing even when they switch to
other instruments, which they do frequently. Monday night they used a piano,
2 12-string guitars, 1 6-string guitar with and without a plastic insert to
make the strings rattle, a trumpet, a french horn, a Prophet 5 synthesizer,
tape loops (Towner -- the last two are new for the group), oboe, bass oboe
(?), soprano sax, baritone sax, wood flutes, recorder (McCandless), cymbals,
tabla, a sitar, talking drums, various bells and a whistle (Walcott), bass and
violin (Moore). I noticed all this because I made a point of walking up to
the stage during intermission and looking at all the crazy stuff. The music
ranged from straight improvisation (which they excel at) to lively and complex
tunes (typically composed by Towner) to mystical pseudo-Eastern/West-Indian
folk music (Walcott).
I enjoyed all this but unfortunately this concert didn't seem as good as the
previous OREGON concert I went to (at dear old UC Santa Cruz, longhair
heaven). Some of the problem was technical -- Towner seemed to have a hard
time integrating the new instruments (synthesizer and tape loops) into a con-
cert performance. Partly because of the terrible acoustics and the noisy
amplification system, these often clashed with the music instead of blending
with it. Towner may get better at this with practice. Another problem was
the nervousness of the performers, which may have been related to the audi-
ence, or lack of it. The hall (which appeared to be a converted cafeteria
dining hall) was only about 2/3 to 3/4 full, compared to the SRO crowds at
UCSC which necessitated two shows on the same night. I overheard a conversa-
tion among the SDSU concert directors during the intermission to the effect
that fewer than 400 tickets sold plus a ticket price of only $5.50 meant a
great leap for art and a major collapse for finances. The audience was a
mixed bag too. I hope none of them came expecting "the rock group OREGON"
which the local paper had promised... I only found out about the concert a
week or so before it was held and I think the promotion was rather lackluster.
Don't get the impression I didn't enjoy the music; the group put it all
together in the end and by and large did a creditable job. It's just that I
would have preferred to see them at Carnegie Hall (one of the locations
featured on the album OREGON: IN CONCERT)... If you've never bought an OREGON
album, I suggest you try OUT OF THE WOODS or IN CONCERT and maybe you'll get
hooked like me.
Donn Seeley UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn