eMusic Q&A: Paul Winter

There are few musicians who travel a path of both grace and success to the degree that Paul Winter has. Raised in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he grew up listening to oompah bands while studying classical music in school, the combination of formalism combined with his love for ethnic music and swing jazz inspired him to start his own group. By the time he reached college age, Winter entered jazz competitions and won his second contest, which led to a signing by the legendary John Hammond almost on-the-spot. That was the beginning of a rich and rewarding career, one that ultimately resulted in six Grammy Awards. Along with Paul Horn and Tony Scott, Winter is one of the founding fathers of what we have come to know as new age music. But, like most serious musicians, Winter prefers other terms to describe what he has sought to achieve in his life — which is to create a harmonious relationship between himself, his fellow musicians, other forms of life such as wolves and whales and even The Earth itself. Winters’ way has been one of wholeness, and his success has been based on his ability to follow his muse, from the shore of the Baja coast, to the floor of The Grand Canyon.

Here is a dialog with a man who has worked with both Sir George Martin and Humpback Whales, and has found a common ground between the two.

Most people are familiar with you as a sacred music artist, and an iconic one at that, but I’m not sure how familiar they are with your beginnings and what inspired you in your early years to become the musician we know of today.

That’s interesting that you use the word “sacred,” because I guess that some people think of us as new age because that’s where we’ve been marketed for quite some time, or where we have been placed by the industry. My sense is that people refer to the ecological aspect of the music. We did one album called, Missa Gaia, or the mass for mother earth, which is kind of an ecological mass. I don’t mean to challenge your view of how people hear us, because you may be totally right — we play in a cathedral a lot in New York but the concerts are all secular concerts. Anyway, you asked me a question . . .

I just wondered, because I really struggle with the term “new age.”

Yeah.

I think quite frankly there are some artists where that moniker is a complete fit — they wear the ideology and musical expression right on their sleeves and that’s fine for them. I just view your work in connection to the environment and animals as being comprehensively sacred. I used it as an overarching term, but I’d be willing to re-think it and use something else.

Well I completely agree with you in the sense of sacred. The best definition of that I heard is actually from the dean of St. John The Divine and it’s about being “connected and the idea of worshipping something.” Although when you see the term “sacred music” you often think that it’s going to be Christian or gospel music as it used to appear in the Billboard charts. I have found over the years that most descriptive terms of music are confusing and it’s a challenge to always express in words that is, not off putting to people or confuse them. Your sense of it is actually how I embrace it.

Was that how it always was for you?

I started out in a community, Altoona, Pennsylvania, that was rich in a variety of musical traditions, as were most Middle-American towns were before the media began to homogenize the culture and local culture began to fade. This was in the '40s. I grew up in the big band era and it was the music that I first loved the most. But I was also studying Bach and other classical music with piano and clarinet teacher. So I grew up with one foot on either side of the fence in classical and jazz. The thing I loved the most was creating little bands, which I did at the age of twelve. My first was “The Little German Band,” where we played oompah music and told terrible jokes. That eventually evolved into dance band, where we played the standards of the era. By the time I was in high school, I was intrigued by the small jazz groups of the '50s and be bop music as well.


To read more of Robert Phoenix's interview with Paul Winter, click here.