Search - Spiritual Traditional, Anonymous, Hall Johnson :: Spirituals

Wonderful

09/01/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is no easy listening or spectacular commercial gospel. But this music is so warm and heartfelt it really touches you deep inside. Astonishing work by one of the best choirs in the world."

Spirituals Masterpiece

Rickey W. Clark | Liberty, SC United States | 01/22/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a northern European choir doing southern negro spirituals. Sounds odd but it is one of the best that I have heard. The best single is "Ain't Got Time To Die"."

A winner from start to finish

Bob Zeidler | Charlton, MA United States | 11/22/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A cyberfriend from the N. Y. Times Classical Music Forum, an American ex-patriot living in Sweden, knowing my liking for the music of Paul Winter, particularly his sax/organ duets with Paul Halley, recommended this Anders Paulsson album. His reasoning was straightforward: This unique and totally fresh album includes three such duets: Lullaby for Joe Rubin, Anthem for the Homeless, and Toccata in D, all written by Paulsson.They are brilliant, and brilliantly performed, in a style that is quite unlike the "Cathedral blues" style of Winter and Halley, now celebrating the 20th year of their collaboration.



Paulsson is an instrumentalist on this horn the likes of which I don't believe I've ever heard. I consider myself a "student" of Paulsson's instrument, thanks to Winter, and am therefore familiar with other European soprano saxophonists such as Jan Garbarek and John Harle. But I was totally unprepared for Paulsson's technique, which is, in a word, staggering. While I continue to prefer Paul Winter's way with phrasing and improvisation, and, most particularly, embrochure and tone quality, I cheerfully concede that Anders Paulsson may well be the most proficient technician of this often-misplayed instrument. (Think "Kenny G" to get my point.) Pride of place in these three duets clearly goes to Toccata in D, Paulsson's Op. 20, a tour de force for him and Andrew Canning on organ.



But the album title is about singing, and singing of some well-known and not-so-well-known spirituals is the main focus of the album. And the singing is simply drop-dead gorgeous, by the St. Jacob's Chamber Choir of Stockholm. Led for more than fifteen years by Gary Graden, another American ex-patriot, their voices, and their clear English diction, might well have come from a gospel choir in these United States. The opening track, Deep River, is worth the cost of the album by itself.



Approximately in the middle of the album is a cantata in seven parts entitled Feet of Jesus, based on texts by Langston Hughes, the great African-American "blues poet" of the Harlem Renaissance. Written by Judith Cloud, a composer from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, this cantata is the centerpiece and the true highlight of the album, notwithstanding all the good points already mentioned about both the spirituals and Paulsson's own compositions and duets. Very moving; beautifully done.



In preparing this review, I of course had the opportunity to read Professor Cloud's comments about her composition and its inspiration, written elsewhere on this album page. It's a small world indeed when one reads that a large part of her inspiration came from a performance by Anders Paulsson that she had earlier heard in the marvelous acoustic space of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, where Paul Winter is the principal artist in residence.



I thank my American friend living in Sweden for bringing this terrific album to my attention. Otherwise, I might well have missed it completely. Here's hoping that my thoughts on it will work the same wonders on you that the music has on me.



Bob Zeidler"