Oregon (Glen Moore)

[Peter McFerrin]

Anyone else like these guys? I just discovered their first two albums and I think they're already one of my favorite bands.

I especially like Glen Moore's approach and tone--with such a sparse sound, his sound and note choices are perfect for the music.

[Sam Sherry]

Moore's tune, "Little Bronco" from Nancy King/Glen Moore Potato Radio is a monster warm-up played in A minor. It features lots of ninths & tenths across the fingerboard. It ranges from low F to thumb position in a very short period and has a great groove.

I have no idea how he fingers it -- I hear he tunes in fifths. It's a body-part-twister tuned in fourths.

[Peter McFerrin]

Originally posted by Samuel
Moore's tune, "Little Bronco" from Nancy King/Glen Moore Potato Radio is a monster warm-up played in A minor. It features lots of ninths & tenths across the fingerboard. It ranges from low F to thumb position in a very short period and has a great groove.

I have no idea how he fingers it -- I hear he tunes in fifths. It's a body-part-twister tuned in fourths.

I'll have to try tuning in fifths. I'm thinking of buying a fretless 4-string PLANK and tuning Bb-F-C-G.

[Marcus Johnson]

He's most definitely in fifths. They did a tune called "Leather Cats" that he did a short intro on. You can hear it to good effect there. Red Mitchell tuned in fifths as well, with amazing results. If you want to check out some info on this tuning, check out Joel Quarrington's website; he's pretty amazing. He's featured in the current issue of Double Bassist mag.

[Peter McFerrin]

Originally posted by Marcus Johnson
He's most definitely in fifths. They did a tune called "Leather Cats" that he did a short intro on. You can hear it to good effect there. Red Mitchell tuned in fifths as well, with amazing results. If you want to check out some info on this tuning, check out Joel Quarrington's website; he's pretty amazing. He's featured in the current issue of Double Bassist mag.

I'm a big King Crimson fan (that's a Discipline shirt I'm wearing in my avatar pic), so I've messed around with New Standard Tuning on guitar before. I'll be curious to try out fifths on bass. I might try CGDA first and buy cello music, to help with my reading and my fingering.

[Sam Sherry]

Peter, I just rememberd an Oregon spin-off record that I used to like a lot. Colin Wolcott hired Gateway (John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette -- no slackers there!) to back him up for a record. It's nice -- duets, trios, quartets. If you like that classic ECM thing, it should be up your alley.

[dhosek]

So cool to find other King+Moore fans out there. It's a bit frustrating that their albums go out of print so quickly (I got the first two new, found Cliff Dance 2nd hand, and still don't have the fourth with the train on the cover).

I had a chance to see them perform a benefit at a gallery in Portland way back in 92. Amazing show.

btw, Pete, since you're a Crimson fan, you might get a kick out of the Glenn Moore cameo in a recent Tony Levin diary entry(http://www.tonylevin.com).

-dh

[paulunger]

FYI. I studied w/ Glen for a while and he tunes his bass in a very unique way. Low C, A, D, high C.

[Mike Dimin]

Peter,

Cool you found Moore's work. He is a great player and a really nice guy. His bass is set up with action like an electric. It is a joy to play.

It is due to the years of listening to Oregon that I chose Paul McCandless to play on my CD, Big Droppins. His voice is so unique.

Oregon is about to tour. here is a quote from an email I recieved from Paul.

Dear Friends,

The Oregon band will hitting the road in September, celebrating the release
of our new CD, "Oregon ~ Live At Yoshi's" on Intuition. Listed below are the
dates in case you're around and want to catch a show.

Yours Truly,
Paul McCandless

OREGON FALL TOUR 2002

THUR-SUN Aug. 29 - Sept. 1
Yoshi's at Jack London Square
CD RELEASE CELEBRATION
510 Embarcadero West
Oakland, CA
http://www.yoshis.com

TUES-SAT, Sept. 3-7
Jazz Bakery
3233 Helms Ave at Venice Boulevard
Culver City, CA
310-271-9039

SUN Sept. 8th
Victors on the Bay
Mission Bay Concerts
2702 North Mission Bay Drive
San Diego, CA
http://www.liveonthebayconcerts.com

THURS - SAT, Sept. 12 - 14
Martyrs'
3855 N. Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, IL
http://www.martyrslive.com
Box offfice: 773/404-9494

SUNDAY & MONDAY Sept. 15 & 16
Cedar Cultural Center
Minneapolis, MN
http://www.thecedar.org
Box office: 612/338-2674

TUESDAY Sept. 17
Generations Nite Club
St. Louis, MO

THURSDAY, Sept. 19
Blues Alley
1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington, DC
Tel: (202) 337-4141
http://www.bluesalley.com/

SATURDAY, Sept. 21
The Bottom Line
15 West 4th Street
New York City, NY
http://www.bottomlinecabaret.com/

[The Jazz Lawyer]

I just had a master class with Glen Moore the other night and here is his tuning:

Low C string, A, D, high C string each tuned to its intended pitch. note, no bass extension on the low C so C is open, first position is D etc.

Cheers

[mje]

Moore plays an instrumental version of "Little Bronco"on the Oregon album "Beyond Words", where it's called "Pepe Linque". I'm not sure which came first; I think "Little Bronco" did, as the Oregon album is from '96.

Hard to find the right superlatives for Moore; he doesn't sound like anyone else.

[Marcus Johnson]

C-A-D-C?!! Yikes! I'm having a hard time getting my little brain around that tuning.

[dhosek]

Oh, bugger, I knew I shouldn't've slacked off on reading here... I could've gone to see Oregon in person. The opportunity to see Glenn Moore play in person again would have been fantastic.

-dh

[wesi44]

Glenn is indeed a wonderful person!
He has a unique voice all his own.
It is Not just about the tuning either.
I had the good fortune to attend workshops
conducted by Oregon in the 80's, Glenn has been working on his thang along time. It is very powerful!
This is a very inportant aspect of musical development - your own sound -

[brianrost]

I have two Moore solo albums that I really enjoy.

The first is an old (1981?) LP on Elektra called "Introducing Glen Moore". On about half the tracks he plays in an interesting quartet: pianist Jan Hammer on drums , David Darling on cello and Zbignew Seifert (sp?) on violin. Very fusiony but of course 100% acoustic. The rest of the tracks have Glen solo in either piano or bass or multitracked with himself.

More recent (1999) on Intuition is a CD called "Nude Bass Ascending". Again, there is an odd quartet with Carla Bley on organ, Steve Swallow on bass guitar and the current drummer form Oregon (don't ask me to spell his name! ) with some tracks featuring just Glen and an oud player (!!).

Both are great listening, quite accessible though far from mainstream jazz.

[toman]

Glen Moore is ineed an amazing bass player. I am a former student of his, and his technique is rather abstract but it can work very well. (obviously). His bass is also a monster; the thing practically plays itself. Which is a good thing, since that tuning is rather mind boggling to mere mortals like myself... :-)

[Paul Warburton]

Glens bass is supposed to be a Kloz, though some people think it's a Frankenstein ( a bunch of different parts of several basses) He's got a story about it having a trip across the Gobi Desert on a camels back. He is an original! That tuning is amazing because it allows him to make these huge interval jumps. They're not jerky at all like you might expect but he's got it down to the point that you wanna jump out of your seat saying "What the?"

[toman]

The bass is supposed to be a Klotz, but the only things on it that are original are the top and the pegbox/scroll. Not that it's actually a scroll... I believe he still has the original ribs, but they're not on the bass because they were just to far gone to re-use when the bass was restored.

[McBass]

I actually did a duo gig with Glenn and a quartet gig with us and tenor and drums. It was really fun. At one point on the duo gig he got the idea that we should switch basses. I was useless on his tuning. He had a much easier time of it. I found his bass hard to play. It's high tension and he has moderately high action. But it sounds amazing under his hands.

[abaguer]

There's a great cd by Glen Moore and David Friesen, just the two of them, and they each use a lot of double stops supporting each other. Great tone from both of them too.