1 	Wistful Thinking	4:19
2 	Punto Giara		6:20
3 	Chiaroscuro		6:30
4 	Sacred Place	4:13
5 	Blue In Green		5:44
6 	Doubled Up		4:55
7 	Zephyr		7:28
8 	The Sacred Place (Reprise)	1:58
9 	Two Miniatures		2:38
10 	Postlude	2:31

Paolo Fresu - Trumpet, Flugelhorn
Ralph Towner - Classical Guitar, Twelve-String Guitar [12-String Guitar], Baritone Guitar

Chiaroscuro at once has the feeling of inevitability and a sense of randomness about it, as if it were meant to happen, yet it's such a long shot that it ever did. Towner, the guitarist of the jazz/world/new age outfit Oregon, is an American who celebrated his 70th birthday in the year of this album's release, 2010 -- it's his 22nd for ECM. Fresu is an Italian trumpeter, not quite 50, whose only previous ECM connection (among some 300 albums he's appeared on in all) came in 2007 when he worked with pianist/composer Carla Bley on her release The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu. Towner and Fresu actually met some 15 years earlier, but didn't commit to recording together until now. Good thing they did, because they've made an exhilarating, affecting recording rich with great sensitivity and vibrant colors. Towner's spare, translucent acoustic 12-string and baritone guitar, and Fresu's bold, meaty trumpet and flügelhorn complement each other exceptionally well, their tight-knit interactivity and radiant melodicism reminiscent of collaborations of much longer duration. Laid bare in typically flawless ECM fidelity, their urbane compositions (most by Towner alone, the last two with Fresu) and perceptive improvisations are more like quiet conversations than contests. Each musician allows the other ample space to investigate and develop in solo format, but although their histories and perspectives are so unlike, when they meet up, they're always speaking the same language. Towner prefers a lighter touch than Fresu, but there is courageousness and respect in both of their statements. On "Wistful Thinking," the opening track (which appeared on an earlier Towner solo album), Towner's first notes feel as if they might just float away. Fresu's lines, though hardly brash and never aggressive, provide an anchor as the number builds. "The Sacred Place" is offered twice in balanced but dissimilar arrangements, while "Zephyr" is a more fully realized, more focused take on the song than the Oregon rendition that appeared on 1987's Ecotopia. "Blue in Green," the only non-original composition, can't be considered a cover of the Miles Davis/Bill Evans Kind of Blue track so much as a thorough reimagining of it -- Fresu doesn't mimic Davis; instead he suggests how the song might have developed independently of Davis had it originated someplace else. Chiaroscuro, naturally, boasts virtuosic musicianship, but it's never about that; it's about two artists coming together by chance and allowing their mutual respect to show them the way to something great. ---Jeff Tamarkin, AllMusic Review

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01.Harbinger 2'36
02.Trill Ride 3'00
03.Elan Vital 6'19
04.Summer's End 5'12
05.Col Legno 3'15
06.Soft Landing 2'16
07.Flying Cows 4'56
08.Mon Enfant 4'04
09.A Breath Away 5'15
10.Scrimshaw 1'27
11.Midnight Blue...Red Shift 3'24
12.Moonless 4'37
13.Sco Cone 3'44
14.Tattler 3'06
15.Taxi's Waiting 4'34

Musicians:
Ralph Towner -  classical and 12-strings guitars
Denney Goodhew -  sopranino,soprano,baritone sax,bass clarinet
Marc Johnson -  double bass
Jon Christensen -  drums

This 1995 date shows guitarist and composer Ralph Towner in estimable form. For a guy who's released literally dozens of records under his own name and with his band Oregon and played on dozens more, he still seems to have plenty to say with only two guitars in his arsenal (well, there was the period where he used a Prophet Five synthesizer with Oregon, but we won't go into that here). Using familiar (Marc Johnson and Jon Christensen) and new (Denny Goodhew) faces, Towner goes searching for that elusive muse he has been pursuing for over 30 years: the root of what makes complex harmonic and melodic improvisation possible. His relentlessness is in fine shape here. Using the horns and Johnson's large dynamic range for texture and shading, he, with Christensen in tow, can go ferreting through intervallic forests of prismatic chromaticism and changeling modal systems to place notions of "song" firmly within the context of spontaneous composition. Nowhere is this more evident than on the striking "Élan Vital." Towner opens the track and Goodhew follows him playing soprano. There are three melodic exchanges, each more far-reaching than the last, before Towner goes off with Christensen trading fours and slipping through chorded wreaths and trills of augmented sevenths and ninths. There is a space at midpoint where Johnson, for the sake of adding color to the melodic abstraction, begins by playing chords and then others based on those, singly, then doubly, until the bass sings! There are 15 tunes on Lost and Found, most of them Towner's compositions, but two by Johnson -- "Col Legno" and "Sco Cone" -- deserve special note. On the first, his bowing of this wrinkled, out of time immemorial melody, and his restraint to keep the timbres in the piece from mixing too much, are stunning. On the second, a solo work, his subtle lyricism is in dramatic contrast to his funkiness and staccato playing. It was gracious of Towner to include them. This is a guitar player's recording, but it is obvious that Towner writes for ensembles equally well, and he has clearly written the vast majority of this recording for this particular ensemble. It's seamless from start to finish; it moves and is far less ponderous than some of his earlier outings; it's a winner for sure. ---Thom Jurek, Rovi

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01. Oceanus - 10:58
02. Visitation - 2:31
03. Drifting Petals - 6:51
04. Nimbus - 6:23
05. Winter Solstice - 3:56
06. Piscean Dance - 4:08
07. Red And Black - 1:11
08. Sand (Eberhard Weber) - 4:06

Personnel:
- Ralph Towner - 12-string guitar, classical guitar, piano
- Jan Garbarek - tenor & soprano saxophone, flute
- Eberhard Weber - bass, cello 
- Jon Christensen - drums, percussion
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- Manfred Eicher – producer

When Ralph Towner burst onto the contemporary jazz scene in the mid-70s, listeners were well aware of his awesome talent as a member of Oregon. But when Solstice was issued on the ECM label, it took the brilliant guitarist's caché to a much higher level, especially as a composer. With the otherworldly curved soprano sax and flute playing of Jan Garbarek, the precise drumming of Jon Christensen, and unique bass sounds of Eberhard Weber, the music on this album lifted the ECM/Euro-styled jazz and improvised music to a new realm of pure expressionism. Simply put -- this music is stunningly beautiful. The incredible "Oceanus" begins with Towner's cascading guitar, followed by the swelling and symphonic bass of Weber, a swinging drum line by Christensen with Garbarek's atmospheric and dramatic curved soprano layering contrasting timbres, symmetry, and unusual colors. "Nimbus" opens with some astounding technical harmonics from Towner, more so considering the acoustic nature of his instrument. A circular theme in implied 3/4 underneath 4/4 leads to overdubbed flutes from Garbarek, bowed bass, the curved soprano in 6/8 all identifying the pure ECM sound. "Piscean Dance" is a funky workout between Towner and Christensen, the earthiest track on the date, and an exercise of intuitive confluence. Other portions of the disc are space oriented like the loose, free and haunting "Red & Black," "Visitation" with multiple percussion sounds of flexatone and shakers under Weber's bowed bass and Garbarek's alien dragonfly flute, while Weber's "Sand" has the musicians staring at the Crab Nebula while firmly rooted in a strut later in the piece. Towner's wondrous piano is heard on "Drifting Petals," a pretty and pensive waltz with unison lines alongside Garbarek's flute, then Towner switches to guitar in a deeper discourse with the quartet. As cold as the Norwegian studio (Oslo) they were recording in, "Winter Solstice" is not so much profound as it is telepathic, as the players use stop-start techniques, again inserting a 3/4 rhythm into a 4/4 equation. Of the many excellent recordings he has offered, Solstice is Towner's crowning achievement as a leader fronting this definitive grouping of ECM stablemates who absolutely define the label's sound for the time frame, and for all time. --- Michael G. Nastos, Rovi

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