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Contents:
DDD Total Time = 52:33 Recorded: (Tracks 8, 12, 14, 16 & 17) Eric Seltzer, Seltzer Sound, 185 E. Broadway, N.Y.C 10002, USA, 31.01.2001 Recorded: (Tracks 1-7, 9-11, 13 & 15) Traid Studio, 4572 150th Avenue, Redmond,Washington 98050, USA, 02.08.2000 Hymns have always been an intricate part of the African American religious experience but they are for the most part rarely performed as written. The Black singer and the other musicians very often turn the music around adding soulful cadenzas and holding notes longer and giving the music an almost improvisational effect. It is with this soulful tradition that I wrote the Jazz hymns. The music is more than just jazz and hymns. It is also the coming together of all the musical influences of my musical life. One can hear the influence of spirituals, pop, blues, ragtime and boogie, that, with all of these musical influences the music should be approached like German lieder or Italian art songs, a sort of American lieder, if you will, using a classical vocal technique. Some of the Jazz Hymns use the original hymn melodies, while the others have new melodies with each having a fresh approach to chords and rhythms. I’ve tried to approach the music with religious reverence, and with an expression of the love and power of the Great Creator. Michael Raphael The photos on this disc are a miracle, since they were done in a time when race was the only factor! The front cover is especially interesting. Both front and rear covers are my family. These are my grandparents and great--grandparents and great aunts and uncles. They represent what some African American-Families looked like in the late 1800's in the south. They were God fearing people. My great-grandmother (rear photo) started the first black church in Patrick County Virginia. She instructed my grandmother to use her ability to read and write, which was secured in an arrangement from her white superior, Susan Wright, to start the church and teach in the first school in the area for blacks. Grandma read the scriptures of the bible. The first preacher was Bill Abingdon. In the winter they had cottage prayer meeting and in the summer they cut trees to create a bush arbour . They sang hymns like the ones on this disc, and they sang them "Metered" or just "lined" them out. A "Metered" Hymn was call and response basically, with the response done slower and almost performed like a "moan" with slurs and repeated notes acting as a type of ornamentation. "Lining" out was simply singing slowly with great power. Jazz comes from the blues which comes from the spiritual, call, shout and holler songs. Jazz built on blues scales, incorporating improvisation, truly comes from the struggle of slavery and the results of its cruelty. The Jazz Hymns here on this disc are a marriage between the almost inseparable two, in the hands of black Americans. These hymns are given intelligence (organization) at the present because of the times we live in ......An idea I felt necessary because of the roots of African-American early music. This I believe is a natural evolution....Musical evolution inside the black experience....started a long time ago by families like mine...some free, some slaves. Kevin E Maynor It is with enormous pleasure and personal pride, that I endorse this CD of revered and well loved Hymns. Kevin's superbly rich bass voice coupled with his faith and fertile imagination make them live. The strength and spirituality of "Old Time Religion" and Glory to His Name" are particularly well delineated. I have worked with Kevin Maynor at The Harlem School of the Arts since 1983. In these days of uncertainty, lack of values, ideals and faith, they propound ideas and hopes much needed Betty Allen, President Emeritus The Harlem School of the Arts. Page revised 27.06.03 |
