Solstice Live!

Paul Winter | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 6, 2001)
• Original Release Date: September 15, 1993
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Living Music
• ASIN: B0000000US
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #203,374 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to a seasonal musical fest (and feast), May 3, 2001

By 

Bob Zeidler (Charlton, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Solstice Live! (Audio CD)

I have vivid memories of attending my first Paul Winter Consort "Winter Solstice" concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine some half-dozen years ago. At that time, I was perhaps just short of two years into acquiring and traversing his works available then, but this Solstice Live album was not one of those already in my library. And so that Winter Solstice concert was a certifiably new experience for me. And I was like and 8-year-old enjoying his first circus. I even had a stiff neck the morning after, just as that 8-year-old at his first circus would have had.

This annual gig is a perfect example of "theater in the round" (and an explanation for that stiff neck of mine). That it is "theater" as much as it is "music" may or may not come across in this excellent album, but I think that it will, in light of the sophisticated techniques used to record the program. And a good program this one was, fully up to the expectations of the thousands of members in the audience who have, since 1980, turned this event into an annual ritual.

The 66 minutes on this album makes it a "highlights" album, since Paul Winter's Solstice concerts typically run two hours or more.

But what highlights! The opening fanfare, a Solstice tradition, has Paul Winter high in the balcony of the cathedral, as far away as possible from the central stage placed at the "crossing" of the cathedral, followed by Gordon Gottlieb's wake-up call on timpani. A great pairing of two knock-your-socks-off voices: Nóirin Ní Riain singing "Christmas Day Is Come" and Kecia Lewis-Evans bringing the house down with "The Sparrow," a gospel song that truly soars. One of Rhonda Larson's virtuosic turns on flute in "Highland Heaven." World music from the Ecuadoran Andes (Andes Manta), Russia (the Dmitri Pokrovsky Singers), the Celtic world (Ireland, with Ms. Ní Riain, and Galicia, with Nando Casals), and just about everywhere else under the sun (with Glen Velez's world percussion turns).

Since these concerts celebrate the return of the sun, after the longest day of the year, an annual highlight is the "Turning Point Suite," which represents this return. The Suite on this album is a very good one, beginning with a procession through the cathedral by Nando Casals playing his Galician bagpipes (recorded with a terrific sense of space, and great "underpinnings" support by the cathedral organ), through "dark" improvisations, by the Consort musicians, representing the longest night, concluding with the raising of the "sun gong" (the world's largest such gong), finally breaking forth into sunlight with the "Solstice Chant."

A Paul Winter Consort performance at the cathedral would be incomplete without one of Winter's improvisations on his saxophone, in duet with the cathedral organ. The improvisation duet here, "Duet for the Longest Night," with Paul Halley at the organ console, is a soaring, yet melting, example of their way with "Cathedral Blues."

The finale, also a Solstice tradition, begins with a traditional Guinean song, "Minuit," made famous by Winter some years before this performance, segueing into "Adeste Fideles" with full audience participation. A good "wrap" on an excellent program.

Cathedrals can be notoriously difficult venues in which to capture music faithfully and clearly without destroying the acoustic ambience of such spaces. Not here; the recording is simply downright excellent, and one gets a clear sense of the ambience.

One of these Winter Solstice events is easily worth a visit to New York during the holiday season. Try to plan to take one in; it's well worth it. And watch out for your neck; it'll get a workout if you do catch one of these concerts for the first time.

Bob Zeidler

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a must hear; fantistic music!!!!!, October 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Solstice Live (Audio CD)

If you are interested in hearing a truly "BIG" sound of music, this is one CD that is a must for your collection. This CD coordinates, marvelously, the sounds of primitive instruments, woodwinds, percussion, gongs, etc., accompanied by the Great Organ of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York, where the concert was performed live. You, too, will join the audience in thunderous applause for this magnificent production!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A celebration of diversity!, May 26, 2003

By 

Brianna Neal (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Solstice Live! (Audio CD)

Fascinating, ever-evolving compositions and improvisations by musicians from around the world, performed in New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine to celebrate the Winter Solstice. Even though this is a recording of new material with numerous guest artists, it plays almost like a "Best Of ..." compilation in that it showcases the variety of composition and performance styles that the Paul Winter Consort has explored and perfected over the years--classic jazz, "cathedral blues", chamber music, South American, world fusion and collaboration with animals. For the first few times you listen to "Solstice Live!", you many never quite know what to expect next, yet all the diverse selections fit and flow together, blending mystery and excitement, joy and lament into a satisfying whole. Highlights of this album include "Tomorrow is my Dancing Day", "Hodie" and "Midnight/Adeste Fidelis", all of which reinterpret traditional Christmas songs, blending them with other musical styles and suitable new harmonies. Also striking are the lovely, soaring flutistry of Rhonda Larson, and the joyfully dissonant Russian singing of the Dmitri Pokrovsky Singers. One number that particularly struck me is "Boon Song", a wonderful trio for saxophone, flute and the Uirapuru (an Amazon rainforest wren who was presumably recorded in its own home rather than in the cathedral itself). The song is a great example of how this group can take inspiration from one of nature's voices and craft beautiful ensemble music, which sounds particularly fresh and new since the melody is not of man. In fact, the Uirapuru is given top billing as composer in the credits, with only secondary credit going to keyboardist Paul Halley. This is very cool stuff--a celebration of diversity, artistry, spirit, and triumph of light over darkness. I like this CD better and better every time I listen to it! For more recordings of the Winter Consort's Solstice concerts, try also "Journey with the Sun" and "Celtic Solstice".