cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6744
DURHAM – Pianist, composer and arranger George Winston got pegged in the 1980s as a “New Age” composer – a meaningless marketing label that does not do him justice.
It implies that Winston is nothing more than a pianist who plays pretty, but not very enticing, melodies. Closer listening and reading reveal far more substance to his music.
Listen to the 1982 recording “December,” one of his early recordings which helped make his reputation, and you hear wide-ranging influences. In his liner notes to a 2010 reissue on CD, Winston in his discussions of each piece mentions traditional folk melodies, J.S. Bach, jazz trumpeter Alfred S. Burt and film composer Dominic Frontiere’s influences on his compositions. On his 2010 release “Love Will Come: The Music of Vince Guaraldi Vol. 2,” Winston puts his stamp on his arrangements to some of the familiar tunes of Guaraldi, best known for his music for the “Charlie Brown” TV specials.
Winston, who has played at the Carolina Theatre in years past, will return to the venue Thursday for a solo piano concert. Winston, who called the Durham area “one of the most musical places on the planet,” spoke about some of his influences and new projects by phone as he was making his way from Londonderry, N.H., to Sellersville, Pa.
Winston grew up listening to the rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues of the 1960s (The Doors remain a major influence). In 1971, he began playing piano after he heard records by stride pianists like Teddy Wilson and “Fats” Waller. Since the late 1970s, he has been listening closely and trying to understand the work of the New Orleans-based R&B piano players – namely Professor Longhair (Roy Byrd), James Booker and Henry Butler.
In his listening and studying, he tries to understand bits and pieces of their solos, and to incorporate what they did in his compositions and interpretations – but without trying to be those artists. He compared the process to learning the recipe for a good soup, “then you end up adding your own things to the soup,” Winston said. “I want to know how to do that [passage] so I can know how to use it.”
He has spent years trying to understand the music of Professor Longhair. “I’m just coming to terms with it now after 32 years,” he said. Dr. John (another influence on Winston) also was influenced by Longhair, he said. “You go through Professor Longhair, you go through that inspiration, just like everybody who plays country music goes through Hank Williams sometime,” Winston said.
Winston is mostly self-taught as a pianist and arranger. He had some lessons in theory from a jazz pianist after graduating high school. His abilities as an arranger have come mostly from listening to recordings, he said. His first arrangement came in the summer of 1968, when he was a member of a four-piece band, and fell in love with the first album by Blood, Sweat and Tears, “Child is Father to the Man,” produced by Al Kooper.
Winston wanted to play the songs from that record, and set about trying to re-create the sound of Blood, Sweat and Tears’ large ensemble for a small group. From that first experience, he began to listen and “try to learn everything I can that somebody’s doing, and maybe throw it all away,” he said. Arrangements of another composer’s work are not direct copies, but have to “live and breathe,” he said. He cites Guaraldi’s piece “Skating” as one of the few times when he played the original solo pretty much as is, without much change or improvisation.
In 2002, Winston released “Night Divides the Day: The Music of The Doors,” drawing on a longtime love of the sound of that band. He was first attracted to Ray Manzarek’s organ playing for the band, but was intrigued by their overall sound. When he bought the band’s first album, “I put it on. I said … this is the greatest thing I ever heard. I have to get in a band.”
He compares his piano playing to a combination of James Booker’s influence in his left hand, and Jim Morrison’s expression in his right. Morrison “crooned and roared” as a singer, he said. “They were more than the sum of the parts,” he said of The Doors. “It’s hard to describe. Like anything that gets you in life, you can break it down, but that doesn’t explain it.”
His website lists diverse composers who influence him. One of them is songwriter Laura Nyro. “I’ve tried many of her things, but boy are they hard to do,” he said. He has an arrangement of her composition “He’s a Runner.” He arranged Frank Zappa’s “Peaches and Regalia. Other influences he lists are Abdullah Ibrahim, Milt Jackson, Sam Cooke and Curtis Mayfield. Winston also plays harmonica, and is recording the masters of Hawaiian Slack Key guitar style, a fingerstyle guitar tradition of Hawaii.
On this tour, Winston is asking audiences to bring canned goods for a local food bank, and he is donating proceeds from merchandise sales to food banks.
In 2006, he recorded “Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions: A Hurricane Relief Benefit” for victims of Katrina. In that vein, he will release a new recording next year as a benefit to the Occupy movement, and its emphasis on nonviolent change, he said.
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Go&Do
WHAT: George Winston, solo piano
WHEN: Dec. 15, 8 p.m.
WHERE: The Carolina Theatre, 309 W. Morgan St.
ADMISSION: Tickets start at $40. To purchase, call 560-3030 or visit www.carolinatheatre.org
ALSO: The audience is encouraged to bring a canned good for donation to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. Winston also will donate 100 percent of his merchandise sales to the food bank.
