The Paul Winter Sextet - Count Me In: 1962 & 1963 (2012) FLAC

The Paul Winter Sextet emerged in Chicago during Paul's years at Northwestern University. After winning the 1961 Intercollegiate Jazz Festival, the band was signed to Columbia Records by legendary producer John Hammond. In 1962 the Sextet recorded its first three albums, and, on recommendation from Festival judges Dizzy Gillespie and Hammond, was sent by the State Department on a six-month tour of 23 countries of Latin America. The success of this tour led to an invitation from First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to play at the White House. The Sextet's performance in the East Room on November 19, 1962, happened to be the first-ever jazz concert in the White House. The group continued to tour and record throughout 1963, and made their final album during the week of President Kennedy's assassination. Then, numbed by that tragedy, and discouraged by what they felt was the end of that optimistic era, the Sextet disbanded and the players went on to other pursuits - the drummer eventually to Count Basie's band, the bassist to Ahmad Jamal's trio, the trumpet player to medical school, the baritone saxist to teach at Michigan State, and Paul to Brazil, to resume his exploration of the world's music.

'The Sextet was conceived as a kind of 'little' big band, and with our instrumentation of three horns and rhythm, it has quite a different sound from that of the Paul Winter Consort, which people have known me for during the last several decades. But on a primary level, it's all the same lineage: a spirit of celebration, in the democracy of ensemble, aspiring toward a balance between the improvised and the composed.' -- Paul Winter