Paul Winter & Brazilian Music

Brazilian Days
Paul Winter & Oscar Castro-Neves,
with Nilson Matta and Paulo Braga
(1998)

The Bossa Nova craze took over the U.S. by storm back in the '60's, due not only to Jobim and Gilberto (both Joaò and Astrud), but also to a long list of Brazilians that included Oscar Castro-Neves, and to the efforts and influence of a few Americans at the time: Charlie Byrd, Stan Getz and Paul Winter. (Getz got too much of the credit, in my opinion, and almost all of the money, but that, as they say, is another story.) "Brazilian Days" is a backward glance to a period nearly 40 years ago by two who were there at the start: Paul Winter and Oscar Castro-Neves. Calling upon all those decades of friendship and reminiscences, these two have gone back in time and selected their personal favorites, many of which will be unfamiliar to most. And it's just as well, for this collection is as fresh as a Bahian sea breeze. --an Amazon reviewer
 

Common Ground
title track is a cover of Ivan Lins's "Velho
Sermão" and "Promise Of A Fisherman"
interprets Dorival Caymmi's song "Iemanjá"
(1977)

For the past 30 years, Paul Winter has been the foremost exponent of integrating sounds from nature into environmental-themed music to espouse an optimistic kinship with Planet Earth's myriad creatures. Fusing animal callings with jazz, orchestral, and choral arrangements, folk, and world music, Common Ground is a cohesive concept album with more than its share of beautiful music. Winter's mimicry and accompaniment of wolf and whale on soprano sax is eloquent, though the human vocal passages sometimes verge on a sanctimonious folkiness. His "best of" collection, Wolf Eyes (which features various versions of about half of Common Ground's selections), is a more consistent introduction to Winter's distinctive music. --Richard Price

Jazz Meets The Bossa Nova /
Jazz Meets The Folk Song
(1962)

Double album; with "Jazz Meets The Bossa Nova," Paul Winter was one of the first Americans to record with bossa musicians and Brazilian percussionists; here he records songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, and Dorival Caymmi.

The Sound Of Ipanema / Rio
double album: the first features Carlos Lyra;
Rio has Luiz Bonfa, Luiz Eca, Roberto Menescal
(1964)

Before communing with nature and forming musical partnerships with whales, wolves and dolphins, Paul Winter (born 1939) cashed in on the bossa nova craze. His first such recording came in 1962, the year Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd launched it all with their immortal "Jazz Samba," the only jazz album ever to hit #1 on the pop charts. After that, many musicians jumped on the bandwagon, although a few had reservations. Herbie Mann, for one, denounced bossa nova as a fraud because it was not authentically Brazilian, and then released "Do the Bossa Nova with Herbie Mann." By the summer of '64, when Paul Winter recorded the albums on this twofer, the fad was fading, as Beatles displaced bossas. Yet 40 years after the flood, this music sounds remarkably fresh. --an Amazon reviewer
 

Also See:
Oscar Castro-Neves

The Brazilian Sound (U.S.)
Brazilian Sound (Canada)
Brazilian Sound (U.K.)
Brazilian Sound (Japan)
Brazilian Sound (Germany)
Le Son Du Brésil (France)