David Friesen and John Stowell in Storyteller, 1981

Getting a little tired of this guy?  Uh, well, this one, from 1981, is very Oregon-like and enjoyable with the adding of oboes and English Horn played by the great Paul McCandless resulting in tracks that are shapely and well formed.  If you love Oregon (count me in that set), you'll like this one.  In addition, Tom Harrell appears on some tracks on flugelhorn.

The new agey Spirit Lake:





A nice slice of intellectual chamber jazz.

More Friesen and Stowell in 1980's Other Mansions

Artist involvement is quite sparse as can be seen by the release page here, in fact, the two men play all the instruments.  But it was a worthy purchase as it is without a doubt the best in the series, coming together quite nicely with the mix of acoustic ethnic elements, chamber instruments (Friesen on flute) and the Townerish guitar playing of Stowell. The other LPs of the collaboration were posted here, btw.  Friesen himself was quite prolific, in his solo discography there are numerous other LPs seemingly of interest.

For example, Brethren Ascending sounds like the best (acoustic pieces) from recently featured artists James Vincent or Don Mock:

David Friesen and John Stowell: Star Dance; Waterfall Rainbow; and Through The Listening Glass

Bassist David Friesen made quite a few albums back in the day with a very Oregonian feel, thanks to the frequent use of not just modern classical influences but also added string quartet, oboe and soprano sax textures.  There is a quite a bit of 'filler' (for me) bass solo material to wade through in these but here and there some true delights shine through, and these are far far less known than Ralph Towner and Collin Walcott's group.  (Incidentally I just recently heard their bassist Glen Moore's 1979 album Introducing which is also incredibly well composed.)

The towering Ralph Townering of Star Dance from Friesen and Stowell's first, 1976 album of the same name:

Note the scoring of oboe and clarinet with string quartet.

More of the same plus more chamber instruments on the Wedding Dance from the second album featured here:

From the final collaboration album, Opening Out:






Obviously, christian themes permeate.