Major talent comes to the BAC Saturday

The Brewery Arts Center presents an intimate performance by legendary pianist George Winston in Carson City on Saturday, Sept. 13 at 7:30 p.m. in the Performance Hall, 511 W. King St.

That's a rather ho-hum notice about the biggest musical star yet to come to the Brewery. Winston usually plays the major circuits, bringing his often introspective, quiet sounds to crowds in the thousands, much like rock stars on tour. He's low key and high style, playing what he likes to describe as "rural folk piano."

His concerts offer a variety of piano styles, including his melodic folk piano, stride, R&B, Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts pieces and many more styles.

Winston has been described as the "Father of New Age Music," but he avoids the term.

Winston was 16 when Charles Schulz' "Christmas" premiered. Like thousands of kids, he ran out and bought the soundtrack the next day. And like thousands of kids, he eagerly awaited each new "Peanuts" special " not to catch up on the exploits of Snoopy and the gang, but to hear Guaraldi's music. In 1996, Winston released "Linus and Lucy " the Music of Vince Guaraldti."Most of the album is devoted to the theme music Guaraldi wrote for the animated Peanuts cartoons " 15 TV specials and a film from 1965 until Guaraldi's death in 1976. "I love his melodies and his chord progressions," Winston said of Guaraldi. "He has a really personal way of doing voicings."

Winston's 2002 album"The Music of the Doors" takes the music of the 1960s band and creates it on solo piano. Winston tries to adapt the music to a more peaceful medium, without losing any of its creative ingenuity.

Winston dresses unassumingly for his shows, playing in stocking feet, saying that this way he gets better feel and control of the pedals. For years, the balding, bearded Winston would walk out on stage in a shirt and jean and the audience would mistake him for a technician, tuning the 9-foot Steinways that are his choice.

As the Boston Globe reported in 1996,"Much of his playing is introspective, mood-setting and, frequently, tranquilizing. Winston is not a self-indulgent performer who protracts his renditions to the point where he dangerously tiptoes between a yawn and a snore. Instead, he keeps his presentations pithy and free of excess and his audience awake."

Winston often plays blues harmonica and slack-key guitar in concert and not on CDs, both his harmonica and guitar playing can be heard on his album

"Remembrance " A Memorial Benefit," which was released shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. He produces recordings of Hawaiian slack-key guitarists for his own record label, DancingCats Records.

Winston's newest album, "Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions-A Hurricane Relief Benefit," was Winston's desire to support the Gulf Coast after the recent hurricane related devastation.

"George Winston likes a variety of venues," says John Procaccini, director of the Brewery Arts Center. "I think he'll appreciate our performance hall for its amazing acoustics."

Tickets are $32 reserved seating. A $3 discount is available for BAC members, students and seniors. For tickets or information, call 883-1976 or visit www.breweryarts.com.

Winston was born in 1949 and grew up in Montana and he also spent formative years in Mississippi and Florida. His favorite music was instrumental rock and R&B artists like Floyd Cramer, The Ventures, Booker T & The MGs, the late jazz organist Jimmy Smith, and many more.

"I was always an avid listener, especially to instrumental music and especially organists," Winston says. "In 1967, when I heard The Doors, I started playing organ. I studied chord structures, music theory, and recordings of organists, especially the great jazz organist Jimmy Smith. In 1971 when I heard the 1920s and 1930s recordings of the great stride pianist Thomas 'Fats' Waller, I switched to solo piano."

"I play three styles: New Orleans R&B piano, and the majority of songs I play are in this style; stride piano, which was the main way of playing that I worked on after hearing Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; and third, folk piano, the style that I came up with in 1971 which is influenced and inspired by instrumental R&B and rock, North American folk music, and even more by the sounds of the piano itself.

"Many of the songs on my albums are in this melodic folk style, and it has a rural sensibility, the opposite of the urban sensibility of the R&B piano and the stride piano.

"My approach is North American and I basically treat the piano as an AfroAmerican tuned drum, as well as using the natural overtones that the piano has."

In 1972 Winston recorded his first solo piano album "Ballads and Blues" 1972 for the late guitarist John Fahey's Takoma Records. "I would not be doing anything that I am doing now " solo piano albums, solo instrumental concerts, and recording the great solo Hawaiian Slack Key guitarists on my own label without John's influence and inspiration," Winston states.

In 1984 George also recorded the solo piano soundtrack for the children's story "The Velveteen Rabbit" with narration by Meryl Streep. In 1988 he recorded the solo piano soundtrack for the "Peanuts" animation "This is America Charlie Brown: The Birth of the Constitution," playing mainly Guaraldi's pieces. In 1995 he worked with George Levenson of Informed Democracy on three projects: a solo guitar soundtrack for "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" with narration by Liv Ullmann; and two soundtracks with piano, guitar, and harmonica solos for "Pumpkin Circle" with narration by Danny Glover, and "Bread Comes to Life" with narration by Lily Tomlin.

In 1983 Winston founded Dancing Cat Records to capture the "Masters of the Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar," the finger style guitar tradition unique to the Islands. As of 2006, 36 titles have been issued in the series.

Much of what I have written here is from Winston's agent and the Internet with some personal observation. As quoting source for each remark would have made the story too long, I'll just plead guilty to whatever plagarism charges are brought; nothing was copyrighted. Mea culpa!