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Paul Winter & Friends “My Brazil” Featuring renowned Brazilian percussionist Rogerio Boccato and Paul Meyers, whom Paul Winter regards as North America's greatest Brazilian guitarist!

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Paul Winter’s musical odyssey has long embraced the traditions of the world’s cultures, as well as the wildlife voices of what he refers to as “the greater symphony of the Earth.” From the early days of his college jazz sextet, which toured Latin America for the State Department and performed the first-ever jazz concert at the White House for the Kennedys in 1962, to his later ensemble, the Paul Winter Consort, his concert tours and recording expeditions have taken him to 52 countries and to wilderness areas on six continents. He has recorded 45 albums, of which 7 have been honored with Grammy® Awards. Paul's program, "My Brazil," on Sunday March 1st, will embrace the gamut of his favorite Brazilian music, including the classic songs of Carlos Lyra and Antonio Carlos Jobim; Afro-Samba music of Bahia in Brazil's northeast; Carnival songs; and music of Brazil's great classical composer Villa-Lobos.

PAUL WINTER - SOPRANO SAX
ROGERIO BOCCATO - DRUMS
NILSON MATTA - BASS
PAUL MEYERS - GUITAR

In a review of Brazilian Days, Paul’s award winning Latino influenced release, Pulse Magazine wrote:

"Winter's...Latin sound goes down smooth, seductive and sophisticated. Like a warm Rio breeze, he wraps his soprano saxophone around melodies by Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Rosa and other Brazilian composers."

Our blogger Emily recently chatted with Paul Winter about his upcoming "My Brazil" program debuting at Infinity Hall Norfolk!

Paul Winter

Connect with this artist:

www.paulwinter.com

Artist Bio

Soprano saxophonist Paul Winter is one of the pioneers of world music. In addition to combining elements of

African, Asian, Latin, and Russian music with American jazz, Winter was one of the first to incorporate the sounds of nature and wildlife into his compositions. Winter was initially rooted in the jazz tradition. Although he majored in English composition at Northwestern University in Chicago, he frequented the city’s jazz clubs. With his college band, the Paul Winter Sextet, he won the Intercollegiate Jazz Festival competition in 1961, and was signed by John Hammond to Columbia Records, recording a self-titled debut album that December. In 1962, a cultural exchange tour of 23 countries of Latin America, sponsored by the U.S. State Department, opened Winter’s ears to a broader world of music. The success of the tour led to an invitation from Jacqueline Kennedy to play at the White House, and the Sextet’s concert on November 19, 1962, was the first ever presented by a jazz group there. Winter was so captivated by Brazilian music that he returned to Rio to live for nearly a year in 1964 and 1965, during which time he recorded albums with Carlos Lyra,

Luiz Bonfa, The Tamba Trio, Roberto Menescal and Oscar-Castro-Neves. In 1967 he formed the Paul Winter

Consort, as a forum for the whole range of music he had come to love, borrowing the group’s name from the house bands of the Elizabethan Theatre of Shakespeare’s time.

Brazil has long been Paul Winter's second musical home. He first visited Brazil in 1962, during a six-month State Department tour of Latin America with his college jazz sextet. It happened to be at the time when a new musical genre, called "New Touch," or Bossa Nova, was blossoming in Brazil, and Paul and his jazz colleagues were mesmerized. They began recording an album in Rio during that tour, and finished it later that summer in New York. That October Columbia Records released Jazz Meets the Bossa Nova, which became a minor hit, and when The Paul Winter Sextet was invited by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to play at the White House, two of these Bossa Nova songs were included in the program, November 19, 1962, which was the first-ever jazz concert program at the White House.

Paul returned to Brazil in the summer of 1964, and lived in Ipanema for most of the next year, recording albums with Carlos Lyra (The Sound of Ipanema) and with Luiz Bonfa, Roberto Menescal, and Luiz Eca (Rio). Another of the Bossa Nova pioneers Paul met in Rio was guitarist/composer Oscar Castro-Neves, who after moving to the States in the late '60s toured with the Paul Winter Consort, and became co-producer of many of the Consort's albums over three decades. In the late '90s, Paul and Oscar revisited the golden era of Bossa Nova songs with their award-winning album Brazilian Days.

Since 1980, Paul and his Consort have been artists-in-residence at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where they have presented over 200 unique events, including their famed annual Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice Celebrations. Paul is currently producing an album with singer Renato Braz, who has been described as the most alluring voice to emerge from Brazil since Milton Nascimento.

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