PAUL WINTER AND FRIENDS
Celtic Solstice
(c) (p) 1999 Earth Music Productions
12tks/58mins
Paul Winter doesn't need to be introduced: all the amateurs of jazz
and world music know his name. The famous musician has created a lot of perfect
albums. Winter is a real pioneer, he experiments with the matters that later,
maybe slightly changed, may become very popular. Here should be mentioned
his joint project with chorus of Dmitry Pokrovsky (album Earthbeat),
developed in the years of Perestroika. Then, in the middle 80ths, nobody
heard about Deep Forest. But I think that just Paul Winter was one
of the first musicians who united folk and modern music, and whose ideas
later had been successfully used in the prosperous commercial project, like
well-known Deep Forest.
I have started my review of the new Paul Winter's album from such introduction
with certain purpose -- because the idea of this album has arisen in his
mind already in 1971, when Winter entered an Irish club and heard there Uilleann
Pipes. At that times Celtic music wasn't yet so popular and wide-spread as
now.
28 years passed from those old days, and now we are lucky to hear an album
of genuine Celtic music. The way which led Paul Winter to this album, the
interesting events in his life related to it - you can found detailed tales
about that in the booklet under album cover. And that topic deserves a separate
article.
The main personage of Celtic Solstice is of course Uilleann Pipes;
Davy Spillane brilliantly plays it. And Uilleann Pipes instrument is a
strange-looking big instrument to be handled with both hands. Uilleann pipe
makes noticeable deep, loud mooing sounds. They are so powerful that it seems
that the wind himself groans, releasing.
Besides the pipes, you can hear there a pure Irish vocal of Karan Casey,
which can be characterized as very feminine, tender, charming, even bottomless.
Sincerity and emotionality of that woman's singing together with deep sounds
of pipes create very special, cordial mood of the music of Celtic
Solstice. That is also arranged with Paul Halley's church organ and soprano
saxophone of Paul Winter. It should be noticed that the album was recorded
in a gothic temple, so majesty of church organ sound is not occasional.
And meeting of folk, jazz and church music in the single album Celtic
Solstice has become the diamond shining in the hands of remarkable master
Paul Winter. By the way, a lot of live instruments were used in the album
recording; there are violin, guitar, percussion, piano, Celtic harp…
So, lovers of ethnic music, you should obviously listen Celtic Solstice.
Both musically and emotionally, that's the greatest album I have heard during
the last time.
Serge Kozlovsky |
