Paul Winter - Celtic Solstice
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CD Details
Artist: Paul WinterEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1999-02-09
Music Label: Living Music
Soundtracks:
- Triumph
- Golden Apples Of The Sun
- Hollow Hills
- O'Farrell's Welcome To Limerick
- Dawnwalker
- My Fair And Faithful Love/Blarney Pilgrim
- Sweet Comeraghs
- After The Fleadh/Running Through The Weeds With Keetu
- The Minstrel's Adieu
- Fare Well To Govan
- Golden Apples Of The Sun (Reprise)
- Dawnwalker (Reprise)
Music reviews of Celtic Solstice
Music Review: "Boiled Potatoes for the Soul"
Rating: 5 Stars
I became hooked on Paul Winter's music some four years ago, when it was recommended to me that I listen to "Prayer for the Wild Things." That album grabbed and has yet to let go, and it led to my acquiring all of Paul Winter's albums, most recently "Celtic Solstice."
I have now had "Celtic Solstice" for some four weeks, and have since lost count of the number of times it has been played. More-or-less coincident with St. Patrick's Day, and purely as a lark, I decided to be a "music reviewer" for the album, without amazon.com in mind. (The original intended audience was significantly smaller.)
Being able to write this review is a double treat: If it happens that I am an early customer to write an amazon.com review of "Celtic Solstice," that would be a personal honor. At the same time, it gives me an opportunity to share my opinions with other amazon.com browsers, which I trust can be helpful to them. It is difficult for me to imagine just who would be disappointed with this album.
The results ended up being equal parts whimsy, comments on the musicianship evident in the album, heart-on-sleeve reaction to the music's effect on me, and "referential" in terms of how each new album by Paul Winter succeeds in bringing to mind his earlier works. But I let you, the readers, judge for yourselves. Below are some excerpts:
"Karan Casey's... is a voice that comes straight from Heaven. She-and Paul Winter and Paul Halley-in `Golden Apples of the Sun,' will move you, quite probably to tears. Twice."
"...a 20-year odyssey to find ever better acoustical magic in this massive edifice (the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC). Winter has raised to an art form the ability to use this vast space to intimate perfection. ...like being there!"
"...alternately bluesy and toe-tapping; a romp!"
"...the perfect instrumental trio for this venue. The combination of Spillane's reedy pipes, Winter's limpid sax and Halley on the Cathedral organ is guaranteed to reduce the listener to quivering jelly. If you are one who thinks that `The Sea of Dreams,' `Sun Singer' and `Nightwatch' represent the best work to date of these three, then I have very good news for you."
"...Mar bhrata sróil le seolta gleásta..."
"Paul Winter recently wrote `...our best work is yet to come.' It has already arrived. `Celtic Solstice' is the apogee of a very long arc, ...distillation of a lifelong musical vision and a credo that `less is more,' and again demonstrates that his circle of friends is boundless."
"...not an ordinary desert island album, this is the one I'll take with me to my old brown earth."
"This album finds Paul Halley at the top of his form. It has been the better part of two decades since we last heard him commit improvisations this good to recorded posterity."
"...brilliantly conceived, perfectly recorded and flawlessly performed, from the first note to the last fading echo."
"A Blues Cathedral dweller's dream come true. ...instant Grammy..."
"...the one that hits home. Had you been there, by dawn you would have been changed forever."
"...Boiled Potatoes for the Soul..."
The true Paul Winter aficianado will recognize many, if not all, of the references buried within the quotes. (Unless you are fluent in Irish Gaelic, one quote does demand that you dig into the text of the liner notes for "Celtic Solstice" for decoding. Once having done that, you will likely agree that the quote is apt.)
For the Paul Winter newcomers among you willing to accept the above "reviews" as a purchase recommendation, you are about to go on a fantastical musical journey. I feel comfortable in stating that "Celtic Solstice" will be just the first step of this journey and that the journey will be enjoyable indeed.
It is with some bemusement that I find this remarkable artist and impresario to be not better known or appreciated. An explanation may lie with the fact that his music knows no conventional genre barriers, and defies pigeonholing; another would appear to be related to what I perceive to be his modesty and absolute lack of interest in self-promotion. That his music typically ends up with the "New Age" rubric is misleading and unfortunate, since virtually nothing in this genre can be taken seriously, whereas his music wears amazingly well under repeated listening (surely a must for music to be considered "good"). His Consort members, collaborators and musical circle of friends have come from all fields, including classical, folk, jazz, pop, gospel, ethnic and world music. His albums have encompassed musical forms and forces both large and small. I most readily connect with what I choose to call "world chamber music," utilizing very reduced forces to convey small-scale yet vivid tonal pictures, as well as what I call "Cathedral blues." This latter describes the sense of the music that he and Paul Halley, his long-time collaborator, keyboardist and Consort composer, have achieved time and again, both in performance and on recordings. It is also a tongue-in-cheek take-off of a title in "Callings," the first album he produced and recorded in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine nearly twenty years ago.
"Celtic Solstice" is Cathedral blues perfected.
Bob Zeidler
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