Search - Paul Winter :: Spanish Angel

Richly atmospheric.

Bob Zeidler | Charlton, MA United States | 05/23/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album represents a number of Paul Winter Consort milestones. It is the first - and so far the only - album recorded while the Consort was on tour, throughout Spain in 1992. It was the first Grammy-winning album for the Consort. And, perhaps most important of all, it was the farewell album for Rhonda Larson, the long-time flautist with the Consort. And what a send-off it was!



Two of the tracks were written for, and feature, Ms. Larson: "Montana," depicting the mountain meadows of her birthplace, and "Fare Well," as a send-off tribute for the start of her solo career. That she is a brilliant instrumentalist is without question. (Her major post-Consort album - "Free As A Bird" - can be found elsewhere at Amazon.com. If "Spanish Angel" whets your appetite for more of Ms. Larson, there is no better place to start. Then you can begin to think about where that famous bearded Irish leprechaun, doing business as Sir James Galway, fits into repertoire such as this [and discover that he may well have met his match].)



Eugene Friesen and Paul Halley have raised cello/piano "duo" improvisation to a high art. "Almería Duet" is one of the very best of their joint efforts. One can only marvel at the psychic connection that must be required for this type of improvisation to work, and work it does: Eugene really smokes on this track! (I find it interesting that, years later, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Connor were to travel down a similar path. For those who have had the pleasure of listening to Meyer's "First Impressions" on their best-selling Appalachia Waltz album, this connection will be almost immediately obvious. And, to this fan of both Friesen and Meyer, seemingly a nice tribute from Edgar to Eugene.)



The lead-in above refers to "Music for a Sunday Night in Salamanca" (one of the tour venues in Spain), and, for me, the highlight of the album. It is indeed richly atmospheric, with the sense of aromatically perfumed air at dusk. The locale-capturing timbres that the Paul Winter Consort manages to coax out of what is in reality a small group of musicians have seldom been realized to such good effect as they are here.



I save the best for last, as has Mr. Winter. "Blues for Cádiz" can only be described as a lusty gas! All in all, an unforgettable Rhonda send-off. I'm laughing as I write this. You will too as you listen to it.



Bob Zeidler"