[Musicians] Ralph Towner

[AL_MAOT]

• Musician Name :  Ralph Towner
• Birthday / Location :  Born    March 1, 1940 (age 80) - Chehalis, Washington, United States
• Main instrument : 12-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion, trumpet
• Musician Picture :  
• Musician Awards & Nominations : Deutscher Schallplatten Preis
• Best Performance : Diary
• Other Information :  

  Towner was born into a musical family in Chehalis, Washington. His mother was a piano teacher and his father a trumpet player. Towner learned to improvise on the piano at the age of three. He began his career as a conservatory-trained classical pianist, attending the University of Oregon from 1958-1963, where he also studied composition with Homer Keller. He studied classical guitar at the Vienna Academy of Music with Karl Scheit from 1963-64 and 1967-68.

  He joined world music pioneer Paul Winter's "Consort" ensemble in the late 1960s. He first played jazz in New York City in the late 1960s as a pianist and was strongly influenced by the renowned jazz pianist Bill Evans. He began improvising on classical and 12-string guitars in the late 1960s/early 1970s and formed alliances with musicians who had worked with Evans, including flautist Jeremy Steig, bassists Eddie Gómez, Marc Johnson, Gary Peacock, and drummer Jack DeJohnette