Oregon
McNeil Room
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (R.P.I.)
Troy, NY
1979-09-22

Ralph Towner- guitars, piano, trumpet
Glen Moore- bass, piano
Paul McCandless- reeds, flutes
Collin Walcott-percussion, sitar

source/lineage-digital file swap of WRPI FM recording captured on unknown equipment> Audacity> TLH> DIME

01-set 1 Brujo 10:00
02-set 1 Stage Announcement 0:51
03-set 1 Celeste 7:27
04-set 1 Group Improv 10:35
05-set 1 Kupala 7:54
06-set 1 Stage Announcement and tuning 0:49
07-set 1 Arion 7:34
08-set 1 Group Improv 2 7:01
09-set 1 Beneath An Evening Sky 9:56
10-set 1 Brief Radio announcement 0:13
11-set 2 Roots In The Sky 8:11
12-set 2 Water Wheel 13:25
13-set 2 Collin Walcott stage announcement 2:10
14-set 2 The Swarm 6:56
15-set 2 At The Hawk's Well 6:32
16-set 2 Walcott closing announcement 0:42
17-set 2 Rainmaker 14:07
18-set 2 Yet to Be (encore) 9:22

This is a fine sounding Walcott era show from the original Oregon quartet. Many thanks to Waterwheel, who sent me a copy of the show in a digital file trade. This is the band from the general time when they were signed to Elektra records. There's a stage reference to Roots in the Sky being their latest release at that point, but much of this night's music came from earlier Oregon albums on the Vanguard label, or from solo projects by Towner and Walcott that were recorded for ECM. The recording comes from a show at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. Troy is near the state capitol of Albany, about 160 miles north of New York City.
This didn't come up in various searches in the dimebot archive, but I'm guessing that it's been here before. It appears in the ukrockfestivals list of Oregon shows, a few etree collections, and in the past gigs page on Paul McCandless's own website. This seems to be a more complete version of the show than exists in a few places, and it came to me with a 2nd four minute fragment of a separate performance of the piece Water Wheel, that was alleged to come from a second show that same night. That second Water Wheel was preceded by a stage announcement that seems to refute that idea by mentioning a performance "the next evening in Huntington that would be videotaped". I believe that to be a reference to a venue called IMAC on Long Island, NY and a show there from 1983 or 84 (FWIW, I don't think too many people were being "videotaped" in 1979). IMAC also wasn't operating yet at that time, and McCandless's gig listing has them next playing in North Carolina a few nights after this Troy show. Therefore, that snippet of the second Waterwheel is not included in this share.
The only glitches in the recording involve a little distortion for the first 20-25 seconds of Brujo, and a weird cut a bit into At the Hawk's Well, which might've had to do with a tape flip. I re-tracked this to separate the individual pieces that were played together with the improvs in set 1. That was also done in the case of a few stage announcements and tuning sections. It's a fine capture that generally seems at or very close to accurate pitch, but it was, and is a little hissy in the quieter spots. EQ and Mastering tools in Audacity, were also very lightly applied to "brighten up" this 45 year old recording.
Many thanks to Christoph (Waterwheel) for sending me the show, and to Dieter (Lauramareike) for the included artwork. Enjoy!