Triumph - Paul Winter Consort

Triumph Paul Winter, Paul Halley, Davy Spillane (Living Earth Music, BMI; Back Alley Music, ASCAP) Paul Winter / soprano sax Paul Halley / pipe organ Davy Spillane / Uilleann pipes One of the instruments that has fascinated me for years is Ireland's Uilleann pipes. The term "Uilleann" refers to the elbow, which pumps the bellows that supply air for the reed pipes. It is not wind-blown, as are most other bagpipes in the world. Uilleann pipes have always sounded somewhat more poignant, to me, than the Scottish pipes. While I was in London in 1971, mixing the Consort's album "Icarus", I made a weekend visit to Dublin to hear the Uilleann pipes at the Piper's club. I would have loved to have incorporated this instrument into the Consort then, but couldn't imagine finding a player anywhere outside Ireland. So for the time being, I had to be content with the oboe to satisfy my double-reed cravings, and when the oboist is as stupendous as Paul McCandless, who was playing with us then, there's no need to go further afield. That dream stayed on the shelf for over a quarter of a century, until I began imagining a Celtic program for our annual Summer Solstice Celebration at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I felt the most essential voice for this event would be the Uilleann pipes, and I knew by then the player I wanted. Davy Spillane, the original piper in "Riverdance", had become somewhat of a legend. And from some of the fine recordings of his that I heard, I sensed he might be a musical kindred spirit. The Consort's great fiend Nòirín Ní Riain, who lived in County Limerick, knew Davy and made an introduction for me. I flew once again to Ireland and drove to the west coast, where Davy lives in an old stone cottage near the Cliffs of Moher. Our meeting felt like a reunion of long-lost brothers. We had a great time listening to each other's music, trading stories of our respective musical journeys, and talking about our dreams for the future. Davy agreed to come to New York that June for our Summer Solstice. On our first day together in the Cathedral, I wanted to record some free-play with the organ, sax, and Davy's pipes, as a way of getting to know how our instruments worked together. We had stationed ourselves at considerable distances from each other -- Davy seated with his Uilleann pipes in the Crossing under the Cathedral's dome, Paul Halley up in the organ loft of the Great Choir, and I with my sax far down the aisle of the Nave. We had no other plan. This improvisation, which came to be called "Triumph", was the very first thing the three of us ever played together. When Davy had arrived from Ireland the night before, he showed Paul and I his magnificent set of Uilleann pipes, which he had made himself, and explained the workings of all the components of this amazing instrument, which he alternately describes as like "playing seven oboes at once," or "an intensive care unit." Most of the playing is on one melody pipe, the chanter, with or without the three drone pipes. Then there are three other single-note pipes, activated by keys called regulators, for chordal tones, which Davy said worked especially well in the key of G. When we played, Organist Paul Halley, remembering this, very arttfully guided our harmonic journey so we would end up in G, and Davy obliged by opening up all his regulators, that gave us all the notes of a G major traid for our final chord. The title "Triumph" came to mind as we listened to the playback. The experience of making this music, in our first adventure together, felt triumphant: a triumph of community, of our collective instincts. It was a trio with "umph." Davy said later: "It's about communion."