Review of Oregon : 1000 Kilometers
1000 Kilometers is the second album by Oregon for CAM Jazz and is the follow up to Prime , the long awaited comeback album by this glorious group. For over 35 years, Oregon has been personifying their own way of making music, which is a natural meeting point between diverse sounds and equally diverse cultures.
The music by this American quartet is always one without boundaries, an adventurous fusion of jazz, chamber atmospheres, and folkloristic scents coming from various latitudes and longitudes.
But Oregon s music is also one where composition and improvisation find the right balance, in the depth of a profound melodic breath that in the course of time has remained one of the principle characteristics that distinguishes the group.
Most tracks on 1000 Kilometers are newly written by guitarist Ralph Tower who also plays synth guitar, piano and keyboards. But there s space for tracks by the other members Paul McCandless, Glen Moore and Mark Walker, as well as for two collective improvisations. Walker writes the track that opens the CD, Deep Six, which genius melodic design rests on insistent rhythmic themes. The track From A Dream follows, a tasteful entr'acte of classical style, and Catching Up, another episode that encompasses the truest spirit of Ralph Towner and his partners. The long, evocative title track is dedicated, as is the entire album, to Thomas Stöwsand, manager and great friend of Oregon for more than 30 years. 1000 Kilometers is a testimony of the rediscovered creative vein that has brought the group to express themselves on highly qualitative levels.

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Your latest reviews - Oregon : A fascinating find!
As the title suggests, this IS Oregon's first record, recorded back in 1970 but never released (on LP) until a decade later, in 1980. I have no idea as to how long the 1980 LP sat dormant before being released on CD, but it must have been quite a while. (The Amazon.com product page info states that the CD was released just two years ago, in 2002.)

As one who has followed the careers of both Paul Winter (and his Consort) and the Oregon group, this album is a very special find for me. It was recorded at roughly the same time as was "Road," the first Winter Consort album that included these Oregon musicians, as well as Winter and David Darling, on cello. This group would go on to record one other Winter Consort album, "Icarus," before Oregon established its own identity on a series of albums for Vanguard,and, later, Elektra-Asylum and ECM (although Paul McCandless worked with the Winter Consort both before "Road" and after "Icarus," most notably in "Common Ground" and "Canyon").

Perhaps the most amazing aspects, to me, of "Our First Record" are the facts that Oregon as a group had established its basic sound - its vision - as early as it did and that this vision was so uniquely different from that of the early Winter Consort. The liner notes, as well as some additional web-reading, suggest that the basic sound evolved during jam sessions while with the Consort, and that it all came together during studio work spread over six weeks in 1970.

Whatever one chooses to call Oregon's music (world jazz fusion, acoustic fusion, "the first of the new-age groups," among others, have been applied), it is immediately distinctive, both for its unusual combination of instrumental timbres and for its adventurous range of material. It can groove, as good jazz must, as in the bass work of Glen Moore in "Collin's Delight" and the piano jazz work of Ralph Towner in "Margueritte." Or it can feature the lyrical (and often stratospheric) oboe work of Paul McCandless ("Canyon Song" and "Jade Vision"). And Collin Walcott's sitar and tabla work give the group its "world music" flavor.

This is very much a "studio production" in light of the amount of multi-tracking that appears. (Particularly intriguing is "Recuerdos," in which Paul McCandless appears to be playing a trio of oboes in the background, beneath the bluesy work of Ralph Towner on guitar and Glen Moore on bass). But neither this, nor the group's apologies (in the liner notes) about the quality of the 1970 sound, can detract from what is a superb first effort. In fact, I found nothing about which to quibble as far as the sound is concerned; it's really very fine, and no apologies are required. (The only drawback, and it is a very minor one that doesn't affect my own 5-star rating for the CD, is its 47:14 running time, due to its LP origins.)

A few of these tracks (no.'s 3, 5 and 6) are duplicated on "Oregon: Best of The Vanguard Years" (which, for some, means the best of Oregon, as Collin Walcott was lost to the group before they established their ECM career). But, for those who - like me - are interested in just how quickly the group's sound evolved, "Our First Album" is a must-have.

With this very first Oregon album "safely home," now all this particular compleatist needs is the CD release of those three early Winter Consort albums (two with McCandless and one with the full Oregon group) on the A&M label: "The Winter Consort," "Something in the Wind" and "Road"; these remain major gaps in the shared catalogs of these amazing musicians. In the meantime, "Our First Album" will tide me over nicely, thank you very much!

Bob Zeidler