Following his surprising departure on Night Divides the Day, an album of Doors covers, George Winston returns to the "piano-folk" style that made him a new-age legend on Montana: A Love Story. But don't expect a carbon copy of Autumn or December. Spreading his wings, the pianist takes in a variety of music on the solo album, from Winston originals and arrangements of traditional tunes to an assortment of pieces by Mark Isham, Frank Zappa, Sam Cooke, and others. Still, the whole is unified by its largely reflective, even trancelike mood -- Winston remains the undisputed master of piano chill-out. Ostensibly an album about Montana, where Winston was born, a few pieces bear clear connections to the Treasure State, as garnered from Winston's liner notes. Montanan Philip Aaberg supplies the wistful "Nevertheless, Hello," and his style inspired Winston's own "Sweet Soul (Gobajie)." (Gobajie is the name of Winston's cat, which explains the piece's downward-leaping, pet-on-a-keyboard passages.) Other Montana ties are more tenuous. Winston says Frank Zappa's "The House I Used to Live In" uncannily reminded him of his boyhood home even before he knew the piece's title. It's certainly the most far-out music on the album, reminiscent of the plink-plank of some dense modern-classical composition, and one can see how it might provoke memories of a quirky old house. Still harder to glean are Montana links for many of the remaining numbers, and Winston provides very little explanation in the booklet. Yet the sense of personal reminiscence and quiet rumination runs strong throughout, and the listener's job is predictably easy. Just lie back and think of Montana.
Winston's impressions of the fall season are full of slow chording and sudden melodic runs
on his acoustic piano. He captures the mixed feelings of the season, both its final flaring of life and its gradual retreat.
