When he does interpret carols, Winston goes for only two obvious ones - Carol Of The Bells, and The Holly And The Ivy. Elsewhere his choices range from Jesus Rest Your Head, from 19th century Appalachia, to Alfred S. Burt's Some Children See Him, from 1951. Winston's winterscape is then fleshed out by the rest of the programme, stretching from his own compositions Thanksgiving and Peace that bookend the album, to rearranged bits of classical music including Pachelbel's Canon. Together it all works beautifully, adding up to the perfect 40-minute oasis of calm amongst the bustle of Christmas preparation.
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pw: sgtg
I was around way back in the day when I had to stock armloads of this out on the shelves. At that time WH used to use these slick, loose fitting outer plastic bags on their vinyl that made it a BITCH to try to deal with more than five or six of the damn things at a time, lest they squirt around all over the place on you.
ReplyDeleteAh, memories.
Oh,I see... was reading up about WH recently and there were references to 'big shiny outer sleeves', that'll be what it was referring to!
DeleteBeen getting hold of a small handful of early WH recently for future posts (and just to enjoy), I like the solo instrumental ones but that's probably as far as I'll go.
My favorite Winston is probably Autumn, though he's really not that big a deal to me. One thing I always found amusing was how at the time people always wanted to compare him to Jarrett - which is of course absurd on about 18 levels. Actually, if you wanted to compare him to somebody on ECM, he's a lot closer to Ralph Towner when he's in his piano mode. But even that is stretching things.
Deletegood holidays to you
ReplyDeleteCheers, you too
DeleteWindham Hill vinyl was superb back in the day; even their cassette releases were great quality. In spite of the "new age" moniker, there was some great music on that label. Looking forward to your posts.
ReplyDelete"New Age"? "Windham Hill"? "Vinyl"? "1982"? It's all good. 40 years on and I'm closing in on 60. I'm grabbing this from you in '22, because I am able to, am grateful to you for making that so, and because my original vinyl is in an attic box in Pittsburgh somewhere and my CD copy was left with a girl in L.A. circa 1998 because she seemed like she needed it. Is it easy to knock records such as this? I guess. I knock less and less as I age. I'm pretty sure mthe relevance such old-world jaundice and vitriol is about to be swept away by storms and tides we who were orn in the '60s did not come of age imagining
ReplyDeleteI simply corrected my typos. To whit: "New Age"? "Windham Hill"? "Vinyl"? "1982"? It's all good. 40 years on and I'm closing in on 60. I'm grabbing this from you in '22, because I am able to, am grateful to you for making that so, and because my original vinyl is in an attic box in Pittsburgh somewhere and my CD copy was left with a girl in L.A. circa 1998 because she seemed like she needed it. Is it easy to knock records such as this? I guess. I knock less and less as I age. I'm pretty sure the relevance of such old-world jaundice and vitriol is about to be swept away by storms and tides that we who were born in the '60s did not come of age imagining.
Delete