Overview: Saxophonist and environmentalist Paul Winter has traveled a fascinating path, from a small central Pennsylvania railroad town to touring South America at the invitation of the U.S. State Department and playing at the Kennedy White House.

He played in Russia, recorded in the Grand Canyon, discovered the music of Brazil, organized a town party for Charles Ives’ birthday. For his group, he adopted an Elizabethan English musical model known as the “Consort,” a group of collaborative, talented, and expressive musicians who experimented with diverse musical forms.

Bringing wolves, whales, and elephants into his compositions, he is a pioneer of interspecies jazz and musical ecology. This is the first book on his life and work.

Verdict: For millions of listeners world-wide, Paul Winter’s music provides the wholeness that comes as we recognize our place in the vastness of the world. In The Musical World of Paul Winter, author Bob Gluck has done his homework.

The biographical resonance is further burnished by extensive quotes from Winter’s gifted colleagues articulating the guiding aesthetic that has, for sixty-five years and counting, radiated throughout his musical collaborations.

In truth, and as someone going in knowing barely anything about Paul Winter, I myself found this book to be an expertly written, dutifully cultivated and wholly wonderful prose about the life and music of the man himself, Paul Winter.

For what author Bob Gluck dutifully does is bring a colorful, yet at all times well-rounded and informatively sturdy insight into the creative process of not just Winter but of his colleagues and associates therein. Also focusing on Winter’s intent of bringing us all closer to, and thusly in harmony with nature, the book is a brilliantly alluring and highly addictive read from start to finish.

Learning that the seed for his musical motion was born back in 1968 when Winter first heard whale songs on a recording played at a lecture by scientist Roger Payne at Rockefeller University, he was deeply moved from the off and thus during the 70’s he began to participate in whale watches and celebrations and even organized benefits for whale protection.

Indeed, during the mid-70’s, Winter then expanded his thinking and learned more about wolves and then started to play music that was his way of communicating with whales.

And so, as you can tell, this book goes beyond one musician’s story directly into your own. It gets you to musing, “Where do I really fit in? Where does anyone?”

About the Author - Bob Gluck is the author of You’ll Know When You Get There: Herbie Hancock and the Mwandishi Band (2012), The Miles Davis ‘Lost’ Quintet and Other Revolutionary Ensembles (2016), and Pat Metheny, Stories beyond Words (2024). He is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University at Albany in Albany, New York.

Official Bob Gluck Website

Official Amazon Book Purchase Link