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Paul McCandless

During a distinguished career spanning six decades, Paul McCandless has brought a soaring lyricism to his playing and composing that have been integral to the ensemble sound of two seminal world music bands, the Paul Winter Consort and the relentlessly innovative quartet, OREGON. A gifted multi-instrumentalist and composer, McCandless has specialized in a broad palette of both single and double reed instruments that reflect his grounding in both classical and jazz disciplines.
 
Born in the small town of Indiana, Pennsylvania to a musical family, McCandless inherited his artistic passion from his parents, who were both music teachers.  Like his grandfather, his father played the oboe and acquainted Paul with the world of musical instruments in his repair shop, where pieces of old horns became toys. By age nine, McCandless was playing the classical clarinet. He was introduced to jazz during junior high school and was learning saxophone at the time that he took up his primary instrument, the oboe.

As he continued his studies at Duquesne University and the Manhattan School of Music, McCandless embarked on his performing career playing with the Pittsburgh Symphony at Carnegie Hall and the United Nations when he was only 19.
 
At the recommendation of his oboe teacher, Robert Bloom (Toscanini’s principal oboist), he joined the Paul Winter Consort. “At that time,” Paul recalls, “improvisation and classical music were completely separate. I started to bring those things together when I joined the Winter Consort. Paul (Winter) was looking for someone who could improvise on double reeds, so that’s when I began improvising on my classical instrument.”

While recording the album, "Icarus", McCandless worked with producer George Martin, who also produced albums for "The Beatles". Martin played the oboe himself as a young man and later wrote in his book ("All You Need is Ears") that Icarus was his favorite recording project of his entire career. McCandless said of this, "I still glow with pride at that quote, because he was a real visionary and helped bring a lot of creative music into the world." McCandless played with the Paul Winter Consort until 1973, recording five albums and appearing at the Fillmore East and the Fillmore West, the Tanglewood and Schaeffer Festivals, and numerous colleges throughout the U.S.

While he was a member of the Consort, McCandless formed an alliance with guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner, bassist Glen Moore, and percussionist Collin Walcott to form the group Oregon.

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Album Review

Oregon: 1974

Read "1974" reviewed by Mario Calvitti


Tra le numerosissime pubblicazioni di materiale inedito che emerge dagli archivi rischia di passare inosservata questa preziosissima gemma, che riporta alla luce un concerto tenuto in Germania nel 1974 dagli Oregon, uno dei gruppi musicali più importanti dell'ultimo mezzo secolo per il loro approccio rivoluzionario a una concezione della musica senza confini o barriere create da categorizzazioni dovute più a esigenze di mercato che espressive. La loro musica fonde in maniera pressoché perfetta elementi jazzistici, classici, folkloristici ed etnici attraverso ...

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Album Review

Yelena Eckemoff: Desert

Read "Desert" reviewed by Mark Sullivan


Pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff was born in Russia and in 2018 lives in North Carolina--neither location suggests a desert theme. But Eckemoff became fascinated by the Arabian Desert, producing not only music but also prose stories connecting the compositions to each other, as well as poetry and paintings (including the album's cover image). Her albums are usually organized around a theme. This one is unusual in having a musical style directly associated with it: so much of this program combines Arabic ...

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Album Review

Yelena Eckemoff: Desert

Read "Desert" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Pianist Yelena Eckemoff's backstory doesn't suggest the potential for a rise to the category of top level jazz pianist. But here she is, after emigrating to the U.S. from Russia with her husband--leaving her children (temporarily) and everything else (permanently) behind in 1991 to escape repression and to start a new life. Classically trained in her homeland, Eckemoff came to jazz relatively late. With persistence, talent, ambition, audacity and a seemingly unshakable optimism, she has navigated her way to the ...

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Album Review

Paul McCandless: Morning Sun

Read "Morning Sun" reviewed by Jack Bowers


First things first. The full title of this decorous CD is Morning Sun: Adventures with Oboe--Paul McCandless with the Paul Winter Consort: A Retrospective. It covers sixteen recordings made by oboist McCandless spanning a forty-year period (1970-2010), all save three with the Winter Consort. Needless to say, a large number of musicians were involved; their names are listed in the CD booklet, accompanying each selection. McCandless plays oboe most of the way, English horn on “The Steppes of Central Asia," ...

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Extended Analysis

Eberhard Weber: Hommage à Eberhard Weber

Read "Eberhard Weber: Hommage à Eberhard Weber" reviewed by John Kelman


Despite being waylaid from playing the instrument that defined his approach to both performance and composition by a severe 2007 stroke, Eberhard Weber has managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of continuing to make recordings that revolve around his instantly recognizable, custom-made electro-acoustic instrument: 2013's Resumé and 2015's appropriately titled Encore, both on ECM Records, the label that's been home to the bassist, composer and occasional bandleader since Colours of Chloë (1974), his award-winning leader debut. Now, it's true ...

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Rediscovery

Piacentini-Bonati-McCandless-Moreno: Circles

Read "Piacentini-Bonati-McCandless-Moreno: Circles" reviewed by John Kelman


Piacentini-Bonati-McCandless-Moreno CirclesNueva1991 Today's Rediscovery will be a challenge for most; few will have heard of the record, and of those that have, even fewer will actually own it. Circles' biggest draw may be Paul McCandless--the reed and woodwind multi-instrumentalist who has, with Ralph Towner and Glen Moore, performed with the genre-busting Oregon since its inception 45 years ago. But the balance of the album's quartet--a trio of Italian musicians including keyboardist Mario Piacentini, bassist Roberto ...

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Rediscovery

Paul McCandless: All the Mornings Bring

Read "Paul McCandless: All the Mornings Bring" reviewed by John Kelman


Paul McCandlessAll the Mornings BringElektra1979 Today's Rediscovery comes from Oregon's reed and woodwind multi-instrumentalist, Paul McCandless: All the Mornings Bring, his 1979 leader debut. When Oregon was signed to Elektra in 1978 for Out of the Woods, it afforded the two members of the group who did not already have recording arrangements with Germany's ECM Records to release solo albums. And so, while guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner and percussionist/sitarist Collin Walcott released albums like ...

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Matt Snyder
clarinet

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

1974

Moosicus Gmbh
2021

buy

Desert

L & H Production
2018

buy

Morning Sun

Self Produced
2017

buy

Eberhard Weber:...

ECM Records
2015

buy

Family Tree

CAM Jazz
2013

buy

Exodus

From: Trinity
By Paul McCandless

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Oregon
band / ensemble / orchestra

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