PAUL WINTER'S WORLD OF LIVING MUSIC:
EXPLORE PAUL WINTER'S
WORLD OF LIVING MUSIC:
The story of Living Music is interwoven with that of the Paul Winter Consort, two entities which evolved during a forty-year saga of adventure-through-music, beginning with Paul Winter's college jazz sextet in the early 1960s.
Milestones in this musical journey include the Sextet's horizon-expanding tour through twenty-three Latin American countries in 1962; the group's seven initial albums for Columbia Records under producer John Hammond; Paul Winter's sojourns in Brazil during the mid-Sixties; his meeting with Pete Seeger in 1966, who encouraged him towards more participatory music; and finally Winter hearing for the first time the songs of humpback whales. Their haunting voices affected him in the same way as had those of the great jazz players and singers, and planted the seeds of creative ideas that blossomed on a number of his later albums.
Infused with the rhythms and melodies of so many of the world's cultures, Winter decided in 1968 to form the Consort as a forum for all the musics he had come to love, and to explore a broader texture of sound.
The early Consort recorded four albums for A & M with producers Paul Stookey and Phil Ramon, and one for Epic produced by George Martin
- THE WINTER CONSORT (A&M SP 4170) in 1968, produced by Paul Stookey
- SOMETHING IN THE WIND (A&M SP 4279) in 1969, produced by Paul Winter and Paul Stookey
- ROAD (A&M SP 4279) in 1970, produced by Phil Ramone
- ICARUS (Epic (currently LM) LMUS 0004) in 1972, produced by George Martin
- COMMON GROUND (A&M SP 4698) in 1978, produced by Paul Winter, Oscar Castro-Neves and David Greene
The Consort who created ROAD included David Darling, Paul McCandless, Glen Moore, Ralph Towner, and Collin Walcott. With Paul Winter, this team which went on to create ICARUS, produced by George Martin and recorded in the summer of 1971. Paul McCandless, Glen Moore, Ralph Towner and Collin Walcott later went on to form the group Oregon; David Darling continued as a member of the Consort for many years, and Paul McCandless also collaborated on several of Winter's later albums.
ICARUS was created in the unhurried, unpressured atmosphere of a rented house near the sea. This landmark experience underscored the importance of establishing a place where the group could nourish its music and sense of community. Paul Winter found a farm in northwest Connecticut and the album COMMON GROUND was recorded there during a summer-long outdoor music "village", interweaving elements from different musical traditions with the voices of whale, wolf and eagle.
