Trio Unearths the Nature of World Music

There was a remarkable moment Sunday night during a concert by Paul Winter, Oscar Castro-Neves and Arto Tuncboyaciyan at the Skirball Cultural Center.

Winter, whose singular musical journey has taken him through performances employing sounds from the world of nature, played a work titled “Wolf Eyes,” in which his soprano saxophone was blended with the recorded sound of wolf calls. At the close of the piece, he asked the audience to join in a collective response via their own howls and cries (described by Winter as a “Howl-e-lujah Chorus”).

After a bit of initial embarrassment and giggles, the mood shifted and, as the lights were gradually dimmed, the sounds blended into a torrent of collective expression--perhaps, in its own way, similar to what takes place in the communal soundings of the wolf pack.

At that instant, one could sense something that seemed directly in touch with the primal urge for music. Something like the manner in which the human species found ways to organize sound--for its expressiveness, its communication and its sheer magic--by emulating the aural eloquence of creatures that had already achieved similar goals.

Given the range of music present in the concert--from Brazilian rhythms to jazz improvisation to Middle Eastern scales to Tuncboyaciyan’s indefinable vocals and percussion--it was a kind of metaphoric indication of the fundamental commonality of the roots that nourish and invigorate all forms of world music.

The performance itself further underscored that connection.

Castro-Neves was present in Rio at the birth of bossa nova in the ‘50s, and he is one of the most proficient players of the deceptively complex guitar rhythms that are the music’s heartbeat. His instrumental rendering of “Manha de Carnaval” (from the film “Black Orpheus”), was an exquisite updating of the familiar theme; and his vocal/guitar interpretation of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Waters of March,” one of the most remarkable songs of the 20th century, brilliantly displayed its gripping, stream-of-consciousness qualities.

Winter’s soprano saxophone playing, determinedly melodic in an era of profligate virtuosity, soared above the rhythms on wings of lyricism, especially compelling in his version of the Bach “Aire for the G String.”

And Tuncboyaciyan, a Turkish Armenian whose resume reaches from traditional music to performances with, among others, Philip Glass, Joe Zawinul and Spanish guitarist Gerardo Nunez, added his wild collection of sounds; at one point, he walked through the audience extracting vocal rhythms from a bottle.

Humorous, as well, he countered his whimsical passages with beautifully sung Turkish traditional songs, accompanied by his own playing on the lute-like sazabo .

Together, the trio’s compatible blending affirmed the universality of music, whatever its source, in a performance that was one of the finest world music presentations of the year.