Travel Guide is a guitar trio record by the American Ralph Towner, the Austrian Wolfgang Muthspiel and Slava Grigoryan, who was born in Kazakhstan and raised in Australia. Released by ECM in 2013, it was the group's first album for the label and its second overall. Its ten pieces are composed songs with measured improvisation, and the three players share the space evenly instead of competing, which sets the record apart from most summit meetings of virtuoso guitarists.
The story begins in Australia, where Towner and Muthspiel, touring there as soloists, crossed paths with Grigoryan. A first tour in 2005 presented them as soloists, then in duets and finally as a trio, and they went on playing together every year. Their first album, From a Dream, came out on Muthspiel's Material Records label. Towner then brought the project to ECM, and the trio recorded in August 2012 at the Auditorio RSI in Lugano, with Manfred Eicher producing and Stefano Amerio engineering. Towner plays classical and 12-string guitar, Grigoryan classical and baritone guitar, and Muthspiel electric guitar, adding his voice here and there. Towner had been recording for ECM for four decades by then, while this was the label debut for both his partners.
The writing is split evenly, five pieces by Towner and five by Muthspiel. Muthspiel's The Henrysons opens the set with a spiral of ostinatos and leading lines, each guitar moving between accompaniment and melody. On his Nico und Mithra, Muthspiel and Grigoryan state a demanding theme in unison before breaking off for separate solos. The same two play cascading harmony lines on Towner's title track, and Towner's brief solo Tarry leads into the closing Museum of Light. Muthspiel keeps the electric guitar soft and clean, so it blends with the two acoustic instruments rather than standing in front of them.
Writing for AllMusic, Thom Jurek described the pieces as "songs with limited but impeccable improvisation" and the album as "an understated, uncluttered gem of virtuosity and composition." In DownBeat, Bill Milkowski counted the title track among "the high-water marks of this brilliant six-string summit meeting." German critics stressed the same restraint. In NZZ am Sonntag, Manfred Papst wrote that none of the three soloists pushes to the front and that technique always stays at the service of the music.
This is the CD edition, ECM 2310, first released on 20 September 2013.
