PAUL WINTER — Count Me In (review)

PAUL WINTER — Count Me In album cover Boxset / Compilation · 2012 · Hard Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
js
I’ve always known Paul Winter as one of the first jazz artists to cross over into “new age” territory, as well as one of the first to use straight rhythms and simple harmonies in a jazz context, a tendency that consequently caught on with a lot more artists over the years. He always seemed like a nice guy, so I won’t get hysterical and say he ‘ruined jazz’, but he has always been highly suspect, ha. That’s why it was a surprise to hear this compilation of his earlier material, turns out Paul used to play real jazz, and it was really good jazz too. “Count Me In” is a compilation of 32 tracks recorded in the early 60s that shows Winter working with a very imaginative sextet that blends complex ensemble arrangements with short solos for a modern quasi-big band approach somewhat similar to some things Miles Davis and Art Farmer had been doing. The style is hard bop with a west coast cool approach, a style that was very popular with early 60s college kids who also dug Dave Brubek and Chet Baker. This was an excellent time period for jazz, sandwiched between the excesses of the past bop era and the greater excesses of the coming fusion era, early 60s jazz was smart, compact and eternally hip.

The first ten tracks on this compilation are the best. They feature Winter’s original sextet; six young college kids who won the 1961 Intercollegiate Jazz Festival, which won them a recording contract with Columbia and a US state department backed tour of Latin America. Their youthful enthusiasm and fresh new ideas really come through. Many of these guys would leave pro music after this sextet broke up, including the very talented baritone player Les Rout. Tracks 11 through 17 feature this same sextet playing the first ever jazz concert at the White House. These tracks are nice as history, but the recordings don’t sound great, and the band sounds uptight, nervous and a even a little off sometimes. The final tracks, 18 - 32, feature the last version of Winter’s sextet, which by now had picked up more familiar names such as Ben Riley and Chuck Israels. The music is still good, but I miss the more ‘modernist’ sound of the younger naïve group, plus these recordings are live and are of less than best quality. Mostly I would recommend this CD for the first ten tracks, excellent hipster jazz for young college kids in the years right before post hippie-lemming mentality would trample all over this more subtle culture.
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