(Twenty-fifth of a series)
After weeks of debating the best way to (re)introduce Winston Raval, Filipino jazz pianist, arranger, and composer, to 21st-century readers and jazz fans, I settled on this fun bit of history from writer and music critic Eric Caruncho in a piece he wrote for the Inquirer in February 2019.
Eric rightly describes Winston as “old school”—the GOAT with “war stories” from a time when serious musicians “cut their teeth playing jazz in nightclubs on Roxas Boulevard,” the happening place then for live music.
“‘I was playing keyboards for Boy Camara and the Afterbirth at Rino’s on Roxas Boulevard when martial law was declared,’ [Winston] recalls… ‘We were playing rock: Yes, Led Zeppelin, Elton John. Because of the curfew, people stayed in the club [until curfew was lifted at 5 a.m.].
“‘It became a drug market,’ he adds. ‘There were Constabulary Anti-Narcotics Unit agents disguised as hippies, wearing longhair wigs. We were targeted. I went up to the band room upstairs to get some sleep when there came a knock on the door. I opened the door and they shoved a gun in my face. They told me to point to someone who they had planted drugs on. I pointed. A picture was taken. Then we were brought to [Camp] Crame. We were there for a week.
“‘Every morning we had to sing Lupang Hinirang and shout Mabuhay ang Pilipino! One of our fellow inmates was Chinese. When he shouted Mabuhay ang Pilipino, the guard gave him a rap on the head and said, “You’re not Filipino!” It was Lim Seng [the Chinese drug lord later executed by firing squad in the early days of martial law].’”
Relational exercise
The road to jazz quite often starts elsewhere—with classical or rock—but staying the course and enriching the jazz vocabulary requires a bravehearted dedication. Winston has remained faithful to the genre for close to half a century. Besides being an important figure in Philippine music as a brilliant jazz pianist, he is also a pioneering film composer. Scoring classic films for legendary directors like Ishmael Bernal (Himala, City After Dark, Ikaw ay Akin) and Lino Brocka (Jaguar), Winston revolutionized local cinema by introducing jazz and indigenous Filipino rhythms to the silver screen.
In a historic milestone, the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in film music in 2018—the first time the critics’ group bestowed the honor in over four decades. The award recognized his scores for more than 21 films, praising him for “raising the standard of film music unmatched by his peers” and “inspiring the next generation of film scorers.” It came full circle from his early career, when the same body gave him and his band, The Vanishing Tribe, the Best Film Music award for the 1978 classic Ikaw ay Akin.
Winston looks back on those remarkable creative collaborations with the crisp clarity of a summer spritzer, in contrast to the gritty and midnight-oil-burning world of 1970s Philippine cinema. On working with Bernal, for example, he says matter-of-factly: “After I have read the script and have consulted with Ishma, I would then start writing the theme music, the incidentals, and the closing music. He always gave me a free hand in translating the scenes into music.”
His score for Ikaw ay Akin won the Best Film Music award specifically for introducing a jazz idiom to the score, which the industry described as a “new dimension.” At the time the music of most Filipino movies were in the classical/pop idiom, he notes, “and I wanted to put my own style in the music I make. I got my confidence from Ishma and our friends who encouraged me [to take a different route].”
Ultimately, film scoring is a deeply relational exercise. The music is never an isolated, self-contained composition, but a dynamic network of connections intricately woven into the film’s narrative, characters, and emotional terrain. Winston says that Nunal sa Tubig (1976), for example, depicts life on a remote island: “[For this] I envisioned a surreal kind of music,” he says. “Maybe something like Ennio Morricone’s music for a Pasolini film. In contrast, Manila by Night (1980) surges with high-energy, polyrhythmic rhythms and textures. In Ishma’s words—’amoy tambutso ng jeep.’”
Bearer of the Pinoy sound
Winston’s musical journey kicked off in Laoag, Ilocos Norte, as a 5-year-old piano prodigy; when he was 13, one of the older musicians who jammed at his house invited him to play piano with his band. After a brief stint studying composition at the University of the Philippines College of Music, Winston landed his first international gig in Hong Kong. By 1971, he was deeply in the heart of the Pinoy rock and theater circuit, playing keyboards for the landmark production of Jesus Christ Superstar alongside rock icons like Boy Camara and Edmond Fortuno.
“The ’70s was my awakening,” says Winston. “[The decade] opened my eyes to the world. I was playing rock and jazz in the clubs seven days a week. It was fun playing with Boy, Mary Russell, Jun Lucas, Caloy Rufo, Edmond, Nic Boogie, the Baria brothers Claude and Rudy, and the Concepcions Ben, Fred, and Omeng. These are the same musicians who performed in my movie scores.”
In 1978, before leaving for the United States in the ’80s, he composed the ethnic rock-opera Isang Munting Alamat for the grand reopening of the Manila Metropolitan Theater. He recalls:
“For the live gala at the MET, we used a basic jazz ensemble (keyboards, bass, drums, guitar) with sitar, kulintang, gongs, and other percussion instruments to accompany the children performers on the stage. When we recorded the CD in the studio, I included an orchestra to make the music richer.”
For as long as he can remember, Winston has been an avid collector of ethnic instruments. “In the late ’60s, I was part of a group called Six-Halves, and we were already experimenting with the kulintang and kubing,” he recalls. “To this day, I still use ethnic instruments in my compositions.”
Fly high
Winston and I recently fell into an excited discussion about why Randy Weston’s “Hi-Fly” is such a rich playground for musicians and listeners. At the heart of our brief chat was the celebrated “two-piano summit” between Randy and Jamaican American pianist Monty Alexander, a mainstay of European jazz festivals in the late ’80s. More than just a celebration of the tune’s sophisticated structure and infectious groove, their performance beautifully juxtaposes Monty’s island-tinged stylings against Randy’s hefty, African-rooted rhythms. It is exactly this vibrant interplay of ethnic elements that Winston loves, and which he also celebrates in the prodigious Bobby Enriquez’s deeply Latinized version.
Until recently, Winston has been returning almost yearly to the Philippines to perform for Manila and Laoag audiences. Shortly before and right after the pandemic, he did a series of shows with our very own jazz artists Colby de la Calzada, Jorge San Jose, Lynn Sherman, Skarlet, Dave Harder, and Rey Vinoya, and separate performances with the late jazz guitarist Noli Aurillo.
He shows no signs of slowing down, viewing retirement not as an option but as a reason to keep creating. His lifelong devotion to music has garnered major accolades in California, including lifetime achievement awards from the San Francisco Filipino-American Jazz Festival (2011), JazzPhil-USA in Los Angeles (2013), and the LA-Philippine International Film Festival (2019). The San Francisco group, in particular, recognized him as a foundational architect of jazz fusion, celebrating his early work introducing indigenous musical traditions to the global stage in what has come to be known thereabouts as “Pinoy jazz.”
The fierce cultural spirit that originally fueled Isang Munting Alamat remains fully intact, finding a modern canvas in his Broadway-style musical Warrior (2018). After all these years, Winston’s deep connection to his ethnic roots and cultural identity has never wavered.
For him, too, music has never been a choice between the head and the heart; it is an inseparable fusion of both. Spontaneous improvisation, he notes, isn’t magic, it is the fruit of labor: “Understanding music theory coupled with constant listening is the key to have the ability to improvise.” But if theory is the bones, human connection is the soul. His arranging philosophy reveals the deep humility behind his virtuosity: “When I compose or arrange a song, I already have the singer in mind. The voice guides the arrangement.”
It is this rare synthesis of technical mastery and ego-free collaboration that marks Winston’s place in jazz history. For the musicians who follow in his footsteps, he leaves behind a simple and relentlessly clear roadmap: “Master music theory first—then set yourself free. And never stop listening!” CS
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