Paul Winter

All Music Guide:

Winter first came to public prominence in 1961 as the winner of a collegiate jazz festival held at Notre Dame University; one of that event's judges, John Hammond, subsequently signed the group to a Columbia recording contract. In 1962, the band was sent on a State Department tour of Latin America. That venture planted the first seeds of change in Winter's concept. In 1967, he abandoned traditional jazz format in favor of a lineup that featured non-Western instruments. The Paul Winter Consort, as the band was renamed, became one of the earliest exponents of world music, combining elements from various African, Asian, and South American cultures with jazz. Members of the Consort interested in extending the music's experimental component -- guitarist Ralph Towner, oboist Paul McCandless, sitarist and percussionist Collin Walcott -- broke away from Winter's leadership in the early '70s to form the group Oregon. Meanwhile, Winter became increasingly involved with environmental issues. He participated in activities with the Greenpeace organization, and worked towards a successful integration of music and nature. Winter recorded his attempts at communication with whales off the coast of California, and used the tapes as the foundation of his 1977 album, Common Ground. Since 1980, Winter has headed a non-profit group dedicated to increasing public awareness of music's relationship to spiritual and environmental health. He continues to perform in support of his organization, frequently in settings conducive to the production of (and interaction with) ambient sound, such as the Grand Canyon, or New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine; in 1998, he also teamed with Oscar Castro-Neves to record Brazilian Days. Celtic Solstice followed a year later; Journey with the Sun appeared in early 2001.

Wikipedia:

Paul Winter (born August 31, 1939 in Altoona, Pennsylvania) is an American saxophonist (alto and soprano saxophone), and is a six-time Grammy Award nominee.

Biography[edit]

Paul Winter attended Altoona Area High School and graduated in 1957. In 1961, while he was in college at Northwestern University, the band that he founded, the Paul Winter Sextet, won the Intercollegiate Jazz Festival and was signed by Columbia Records.

The next year, the band toured Latin America as cultural ambassadors for the United States State Department, playing 160 concerts in 23 countries. The Sextet was also the first jazz band to perform at the White House.

Winter returned to Brazil in the mid-1960s and his interest in Brazilian music and the emerging bossa nova led to the 1965 release of the album Rio, with liner notes by Vinicius de Moraes.

In 1975, Paul Winter sailed aboard the Greenpeace V anti-whaling expedition for three days of playing saxophone to wild gray whales off the coast of Vancouver Island (Tofino). He was accompanied in this effort by Melville Gregory and Will Jackson, musicians attempting to "communicate" with the whales using various instruments and a Serge synthesizer. Photos of Winter and the whales [by Rex Weyler] appeared on wire services and in media around the world, helping the ultimate success of the mission against Soviet whalers. [AP Wire Service, 1975; "Warriors Of The Rainbow", Robt. Hunter 1978; "Greenpeace", Rex Weyler, 2003; "Once Upon A Greenpeace", Will Jackson, 2012]

After Winter's band changed its name to the Paul Winter Consort in the late 1960s, it contributed to the development of world music and space music. The Consort's 1972 release, Icarus, was produced by George Martin. Most of the musicians who worked on this album went on to form the jazz group Oregon. The Consort has continued over the years with different musicians.

Winter was awarded the Courage of Conscience Award for creating music that celebrates the sacredness of life and for his support of the arts. The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Recipients List

Currently, Paul Winter is working on two new albums: One album will be a compilation of material from his original group, the Paul Winter Sextet, titled Early Winter. The other is an album of new music, featuring the Paul Winter Consort, the Great Rift Valley Orchestra, and the calls of the birds that migrate from Africa to Eurasia. The new project will be titled Flyways, and will be a musical journey through the cultures that the birds fly over. Both projects will be released in 2011.

Winter is married and has two children.