PAUL WINTER — Icarus (review)

Album · 1972 · World Fusion

5/5 · 2024-10-11
FunkFreak75

Not your typical Jazz-Rock Fusion since there is little rock, R&B, or funk infused into these songs: what Paul Winter and company gives you is more of a classical, folk, and world music infusion with jazz--which is exactly why I've chosen to include this review among this list: to help illustrate how broad the styles of the sub-genre are.

Lineup / Musicians: - Paul Winter / soprano saxophone, vocals - Paul McCandless / oboe, English horn, contrabass sarrusophone, vocals - David Darling / cello, vocals - Herb Bushler - bass guitar - Ralph Towner / classical guitar, 12-string guitar, steel-string guitar, piano, bush organ, regal organ, vocals - Colin Walcott / drums, kettledrums, congas, surdo, tabla, mridangam, bass marinda, sitar - Billy Cobham / drums (4, 6) - Milt Holland / Ghanaian percussion (6) - Barry Altschul / random percussion - Larry Atamanuik / drums (1) - Andrew Tracey / dobro (9) Chorus on "Minuit": Janet Johnson, Paul McCandless, Bob Milstein, Paul Stookey

1. "Icarus" (3:02) one of THE anthems for the environmental/ecological movement--and a beautiful song, to boot. (10/10)

2. "Ode to a Fillmore Dressing Room" (5:32) wonderfully pregnant weave of multiple beautiful tho-sad melodies open this one before David Darling, Herb Bushler, and Ralph Towner put together a more pastoral Spanish theme over which Colin Walcott's sitar and other Indian instruments as well as Towner's amazingly sensitive guitar provide direction and mystical melody. Colin really gets cooking in the fourth and fifth minutes while Ralph supports from beneath. Then the winds and cello and percussion enter to give Colin a cushion for a safe landing. Brilliant! (9.5/10)

3. "The Silence of a Candle" (3:22) piano and voice open this one before being joined by bass and cello for the chorus. A surprising song for a jazz-rock album but perfectly appropriate for a band whose vision of activism was went far bigger than music alone could take them. (9/10)

4. "Sunwheel" (4:52) cello, funky bass, strumming guitar, rollicking drums (from Billy Cobham!) and percussion, cor anglais, and soprano saxophone converge to create this melodic jam that plays out like a little funkier version of "Icarus." (8.875/10)

5. "Juniper Bear" (3:10) essentially a tabla and 12-string duet. Okay. (8.666667/10)

6. "Whole Earth Chant" (7:42) one of the more complex and complete compositions on the album included Ralph Towner's Regal organ and Paul McCandless' contrabass sarrusophone as well as electric bass guitar Ghanaian percussion from Milt Holland and Billy Cobham's rather tame drums as well as David Darling's "funk cello" and Paul's soprano sax. There is funky transition in the fifth minute led by Billy and David into the rousing Ghanaian finish. (14.25/15)

7. "All the Mornings Bring" (3:48) wordless vocals and timpani open this before Ralph sets up a kind of WILLIAM ACKERMAN/Windham Hill style of song. After the intro the reed horns lead the way into a harmonized melody and then the rest of the troupe joins in with great jazz-rock drumming and bass playing from Colin Walcott and Herb Bushler, respectively. Paul McCandless' oboe play is superlative--one of my favorite expositions on the entire album. (9.375/10)

8. "Chehalis and Other Voices" (5:26) opens with some classical guitar and classical/chamber-sounding horn and cello arrangements. Quite lovely--and played very much like something out of an English folk song like Elgar, Delius, or Britton--or Copeland in the US--might have penned. This just goes to show you how accomplished/virtuosic classically-trained Ralph Towner really was--as well as how well-trained were the other members. I love it! At the end of the fourth minute David Darling starts "scraping" his cello fretboard in the way he was known to, a manouevre that kind of signaled everyone to back off so that Ralph could go solo classical. At 4:40 the rest of the "chamber quintet" rejoin to accompany Ralph's harp-like guitar to the song's close. (9.3333/10)

9. "Minuit" (3:06) falling back into the more Western/Americana/Copeland sound-style, the band creates a fairly simple, thin foundation over which they all sing (including folk singer Janet Johnson and Peter, Paul, and Mary's Paul Stookey!) Nice anthemic sing-a-long that I'm sure went over big with audience participation in intimate concert settings. Not proggy or even jazzy, it's a pretty little song. (8.875/10)

Total Time: 39:20

Recorded in 1971, the album's producer, the George Martin, claimed for years that, "Icarus is the finest album I've ever produced." I won't disagree.

A/five stars; a masterpiece of world folk-oriented jazz-rock fusion created by visionaries of human potential that the rest of the world is still trying to catch up to.