Stanley Clarke's Journey to Love...

[thenazz]

I'm looking for another musician or group that sounds similar to the track "Song for John". It's acoustic bass and guitar plus piano. Nice and mellow but with top notch musicianship. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[Michedelic]

Track down stuff featuring acoustic guitarist Ralph Towner and upright bassist Glen Moore, most of which can be found on the ECM label. There was an outfit that started in the early 70's called The Paul Winter Consort that included those guys as well, look for an album from 1972 called "Icarus" on the CBS/Epic/Sony label(the PWC went through many personnel changes over the years, and the music became more and more 'new age', so just start with that first). Also, Towner and Moore had an ensemble called Oregon doing similar material. Eberhard Weber is another upright player on ECM to seek out.

 

[Michedelic]

Here's all the links:


While most of those guys came from jazz and classical backgrounds, at the time of its release this album was perceived as baroque or underground rock(or perhaps even 'progressive', way before that description became codified into a genre), maybe even 'fusion', which was at that time still sorting itself out(Billy Cobham played drums on this). But in hindsight, you can see this album(along with Paul Horn's "Inside")as the birth of New Age music.

Towner, Moore, and Paul McCandless jumped ship early on to form 'Oregon', incorporating elements of what was to be known as World Music...


Then these guys moved to the German EMC label to do solo work and ensemble combinations...



German bassist Eberhart Weber(featured on that last album)worked in similar musical territory, but with more impressionistic flavors...


Now, this next stuff may be a bit more whimsical than what you're looking for, but they're very unique, Freeway Philharmonic...


Chapman Stick player Larry Tuttle and violist Novi Novog helmed that ensemble; she's done an astounding number of notable sessions, best known would be the solos on the Doobie Brothers' "Black Water" and in the string section on Prince's "Raspberry Beret". FP morphed into String Planet years later...



Because John McLaughlin was on that Clarke piece, you might want to check out his Shakti albums.

 

[Passinwind]

Track down stuff featuring acoustic guitarist Ralph Towner and upright bassist Glen Moore, most of which can be found on the ECM label. There was an outfit that started in the early 70's called The Paul Winter Consort that included those guys as well, look for an album from 1972 called "Icarus" on the CBS/Epic/Sony label(the PWC went through many personnel changes over the years, and the music became more and more 'new age', so just start with that first). Also, Towner and Moore had an ensemble called Oregon doing similar material. Eberhard Weber is another upright player on ECM to seek out.

Oregon still exists as a band and they are still well worth checking out live.

The Winter Consort used to rehearse across the street from a close friend's house in the mid 70s, but it was the next lineup after the Icarus album was released and Towner et al split and formed Oregon. The cello player in both bands, David Darling, is phenomenal and is also still performing and recording.

And yeah, I saw Stanley and John do an acoustic jam at a NYC show featuring both their bands, and Shakti is another great suggestion.

My sleeper picks would be the albums by Dave Friesen and Uwe Kropinski, if you can track them down. I bought a couple via one of Dave's students.

 

[jerry]

The Charlie Hayden/ Pat Metheny album uses more space but is also great!

 

[Bob_Ross]

Shadowfax, when they played acoustic instruments, had a similar texture and harmonic vocabulary as the early Oregon and Paul Winter Consort stuff, and so were somewhat similar to "Song For John" (though to be honest I find "Song For John" less New Age-y than any of those acts)