Paul Winter
| Paul Winter | |
|---|---|
Clearwater Festival, 2007
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| Background information | |
| Born |
August 31, 1939 Altoona, Pennsylvania |
| Genres | Jazz, new-age |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Saxophone |
| Years active | 1961–present |
| Labels | Columbia, A&M, Epic, Living Music |
| Associated acts | Paul Winter Consort, Paul Winter Sextet, Earth Band, Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble, Oregon |
| Website | www |
Paul Winter (born August 31, 1939) is an American saxophonist (alto and soprano saxophone), and is a seven-time Grammy Award winner.
Paul Winter’s musical realm has long embraced the traditions of the world’s cultures, as well as the extraordinary voices of what he refers to as “the greater symphony of the Earth.” The saxophonist, bandleader and composer has recorded more than 40 albums, and won 7 Grammy Awards. His concert tours and recording expeditions have taken him to 52 countries and to wilderness areas on six continents, into which he has traveled on rafts, mules, dog sleds, horses, kayaks, sailboats, steamers, tug-boats and Land Rovers. With his music, he has found a means to connect people to a sense of place and promote relatedness to the larger community of life. His benefit concerts and various compositions have served the causes of environment and peace in a range of countries, including Russia, Brazil, Israel, Japan, and Spain.
Early Years Paul’s journey started in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he began playing drums, piano and clarinet after the age of five, and then fell in love with saxophone in the fourth grade. Playing in small bands with his schoolmates, first in ‘The Little German Band’, then a Dixieland band, and finally a nine-piece dance band known as ‘The Silver Liners’, he became enthralled first with big band music, and by the small be-bop groups of the 1950s, and embarked on his first professional tour at the age of seventeen.
Paul Winter Jazz Sextet At Northwestern University in Chicago, Winter formed a jazz sextet, which won the 1961 Intercollegiate Jazz Festival and was signed to Columbia Records by the legendary John Hammond, who produced seven albums for the group on that label. In 1962 the Paul Winter Sextet was sent by the U.S. State Department on a six-month goodwill tour of twenty-three countries of Latin America.
The success of this tour led to an invitation by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to play at the White House. The Sextet’s performance in the East Room on November 19, 1962, happened to be the first ever jazz concert in the White House.
The Sextet had spent a month in Brazil during the tour, at the time that a new genre, bossa nova, was blossoming there. Winter was so captivated by Brazilian music that he returned to Rio to live for nearly a year in 1964 and 1965, during which time he recorded albums with Carlos Lyra, Luiz Bonfa, The Tamba Trio, Roberto Menescal and Oscar-Castro-Neves, including the 1965 release of the album Rio, with liner notes by Vinicius de Moraes.. Brazilian guitar, Afro-Brazilian percussion, and the symphonic music of Villa-Lobos inspired the aural-vision of the new ensemble he would call the Paul Winter Consort.
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Wikipedia