Callings

Artist: Paul Winter
Label: Living Music
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 010488150821
EAN: 0010488150821
ASIN: B00000AFPD

Release Date: 1998-08-25

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Listmania:

"Canonical Winter": Paul Winter's timeless classics
Instrumental arcana
The soprano sax is not a kazoo!

Tracks:

Lullaby From The Great Mother Whale For The Baby Seal Pups
Magdalena
Love Swim
Sea Storm
Blues' Cathedral
Sea Wolf
Callings
Sea Joy
Talking Bells
Sila
Arctic Jungle
Dance Of The Silkies
Seal Eyes

Customer Reviews:

A Paul Winter Landmark Recording.......2001-05-25

Callings, Paul Winter's first recording done for his Living Music label, set out a new course for his Consort, and introduced a fresh-sounding instrumental duo, with Winter on soprano sax and Paul Halley on the organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Put in historical context, Callings is his first album after Common Ground, which could be considered a "transitional" album, separating the earlier Consort of the 70's from the Consort of the last two decades. Recorded in the late summer of 1980, the album is a journey of musical exploration and discovery by Winter and his colleagues, particularly Halley, with whom there had to have been an instantaneous musical chemistry bordering on the psychic. While the journey continues to the present day, the roots were clearly set in place in that venue, at that time. And the tap root could well be called "cathedral blues."

Ever the one to experiment with instrumental combinations and timbres, Winter h!as often found a way to pair his soprano sax off with other reeds and woodwinds, frequently with them playing in his own register. The unquestioned acme of the album is Blues' Cathedral, imaginatively scored for soprano sax, English horn, organ and a pair of contrabass sarrusophones (!!!). Words are incapable of doing justice to musical spell-weaving of such blinding originality, unearthly beauty and bluesy expression.

Another highlight is Sea Joy, scored equally imaginatively for soprano sax, oboe, cello, guitar, steel drums and percussion. Fortunately for the audiophiles among us, Callings was Winter's first digitally-recorded and mastered album. It needed to be, to faithfully capture the steel-drums/timpani duo that makes up the sonic joy in Sea Joy. Audiophiles rejoice: this is truly an aerobic workout for your sound systems!

But Callings is not just about a track or two. It tells, in music, a story of another initial journey, a first story of nature that wou!ld find later expression in Canyon, Whales Alive, Earth: Voices of a Planet and Prayer for the Wild Things, comprising a set of five albums that could be said to be Winter's central canon. And it is just a short trip from Blues' Cathedral the composition to cathedral blues the style. The new sound of cathedral blues in Callings would find repeated later expression, as early as in Missa Gaia and Sun Singer, following on the heels of Callings, and as recently as in one of his latest albums, Celtic Solstice.

This is (or appears to be) the later, revised CD of Callings, in which tracks from the original double-LP album have been restored, along with Paul Winter's full narrative about his extramusical experiences providing the motivational "spark" for this incredibly creative, and musically beautiful, album.

In summary, an absolutely essential album for the Paul Winter fan, regardless of whether the interest is musical or historic. But, then, if you are a Paul Winter !fan, Callings will already be in your collection. So these words are really directed at the musical explorers among you browsing this Customer Review. Perhaps these words will help to lead you to Callings and to other Paul Winter albums, beginning with the few "core" classics noted above.

Get the album. Then, turn off the lights, and anything that adds to the background noise level, close your eyes, and let it wash over you. It will work its magic; I just know that it will.

Bob Zeidler

The Birth of the (Cathedral) Blues.......1999-09-03

Callings set out a new course for the Paul Winter Consort, and introduced a fresh-sounding instrumental duo, with Winter on soprano sax and Paul Halley on the organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Put in historical context, Callings is his first album after Common Ground, which could be considered a "transitional" album, separating the earlier Consort of the 70's from the Consort of the last two decades. Recorded in the late summer of 1980, the album is a journey of musical exploration and discovery by Winter and his colleagues, particularly Halley, with whom there had to have been an instantaneous musical chemistry bordering on the psychic. While the journey continues to the present day, the roots were clearly set in place in that venue, at that time. And the tap root could well be called cathedral blues.

Ever the one to experiment with instrumental combinations and timbres, Winter has often found a way to pair his soprano sax off with other reeds and woodwinds, frequently with them playing in his own register and thereby "breaking the rules." The unquestioned acme of the album is Blues' Cathedral, imaginatively scored for soprano sax, English horn, organ and a pair of contrabass sarrusophones(!!!). Words are incapable of doing justice to musical spell-weaving of such blinding originality, unearthly beauty and bluesy expression.

Another highlight is Sea Joy, scored equally imaginatively for soprano sax, oboe, cello, guitar, steel drums and percussion. Fortunately for the audiophiles among us, Callings was Winter's first digitally-recorded and mastered album. It needed to be, to faithfully capture the steel-drums/tympani duo that makes up the sonic joy in Sea Joy. systems!

But Callings is not just about a track or two. It tells, in music, a story of another initial journey, a first story of nature that Planet and Prayer for the Wild Things, comprising a set of five albums that could be said to be Winter's central canon. And it is just a short trip from Blues' Cathedral the composition to cathedral blues the style. The new sound of cathedral blues in Callings would find repeated later expression, as early as in Missa Gaia and Sun Singer, following on the heels of Callings, and as recently as in his latest album, Celtic Solstice.

It would be nice for Paul Winter to some day put into words a full telling of the magic of that initial Cathedral exploration (and it must have been magic indeed), beyond the expanded notes he provides in the double LP edition of Callings. In the meantime, we have Blues' Cathedral to conjure up what it must have been like, this birth of the cathedral blues. Turn off the lights, and anything that adds to the background noise level, close your eyes, and let it wash over you.

In summary, an absolutely essential album for the Paul Winter fan, regardless of whether the interest is musical or historic. But, then, if you are a Paul Winter fan, Callings will already be in your collection. So these words are really directed at the musical explorers among you browsing this Customer Review. Perhaps these words will help to lead you to Callings and to other Paul Winter albums, beginning with the few "core" classics noted above.

Bob Zeidler

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