Dr. Guy's MusiQologY » Gospel

Dangerous Curves, Big Pipes and Bigger Ideas: Ledisi Live!

MusiQologY — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 17:29:35 +0000

I heard that the singer Ledisi would be performing live a few towns over and took my first plunge. Her recordings and songwriting have always mesmerized me. Indeed, she inspires good will from music lovers, especially those into Neo Soul, the family of popular styles that have been developing since the mid-1990s.

Ledisi is a standout. “I aint’ scared of ya’ll,” she joked and challenged when the crowd didn’t show her enough love. But it wasn’t long before we were under her spell and in the palm of hand. Ledisi is vocally gifted with range, clarity, power, stank-heavy soulfulness, and a diva-full, fearless melodic sense. She packs a virtual arsenal of pyrotechnics: soaring bel canto from her opera training, octave jumping, intervallic slipping and sliding, grunts, pants, field hollers, squalls, spot on intonation—and that’s just the beginning. Plus Lady Dyno-mite represents—she can really put on a show for the people as she camel struts in high heels around the mic or across the stage. The slinky micro mini outfit could barely contain the shimmy-shaking, boogaloo-ing body animating it. Ledisi exudes an attractive charisma, and she knows exactly what to do with all the attention.

Listening to her collected work is an enjoyable experience. I’ve dug her material because it’s ambitious and less formulaic than a lot of stuff that’s out there and popular on the radio. Harmonically rich, her recordings are organized around classic pop song forms void of the repetitive loops of more hip-hop oriented records. She exploits this sonic terrain with big ears and a virtuosity derived from her studies of Western art music, gospel, blues, and jazz.

To really appreciate her work, you must see her live. It was clear to this listener that the radio length songs filling her records only provide a glimpse of the full range of her artistry. On stage and in front of her polished D.C. based band at the Keswick Theater, I realized that a record simply couldn’t contain all the musicality with which she is gifted and that she shares so earnestly. Check her out when she’s singing near you. You won’t be disappointed.

Dr. Guy

From the Studio to the Stage: The Evolution of Jonny Lang and His Signature Song “Lie To Me”

MusiQologY — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:57:30 +0000

Jonny Lang

Jonny Lang has survived in his twenty-eight years what most people don’t experience in five lifetimes. The North Dakota native skyrocketed to fame at the young age of fifteen, bolstered by Lie to Me, his 1997 multi-platinum big-label debut. The skinny white farm boy with the gravelly voice of a black blues veteran was hailed as the rightful heir to the throne of the legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan. The comparisons were near undeniable, as Lang’s skillfully soulful guitar playing and rugged tenor echoed the talents of the Texas blues king. Perhaps even more haunting was the penchant for drugs and alcohol the teenager harbored, a habit that notoriously nearly killed Vaughan before he achieved sobriety in the late eighties.

The title track on Lie to Me is a blues-injected pop tune in the vein of Vaughan, characterized by Lang’s signature Telecaster twang and growling vocals. The song is as wild and restless as its narrator was. Listener reactions to the album were often mixed, colored by a reverence for Lang’s musical prowess and the unnerving feeling that almost inevitably accompanies hearing a boozy scorned lover’s tale told as by a child. Lang aggressively tried to fill the shoes of the prototypical bluesman, believing, like many musicians before him, that in order to truly play the blues, one has to “live” the blues.

Jonny Lang – Lie to Me (Album Version)

Several years and three records later, the prodigy experienced a spiritual rebirth, trading in the bottle for the Bible. His most recent studio album, 2006’s gospel-inspired, Turn Around, unveils a new man, less of a shadow of SRV and more of his own musician. During his recent live shows, Lang displays a virtuosity and restraint not found in his earlier records, and this is best showcased in the newly arranged “Lie to Me.”

The song tends to startle audiences now, as it does not begin with the familiar howl of an electric guitar backed by a full band, but instead with a lonely reverb-drenched acoustic guitar, followed by ethereally mournful vocals. The tune moves from gently plucked single note lines splashed with wide vibrato to deliberate strums of the chord progression. Lang ends the piece with whispery falsetto moans evocative of the late Jeff Buckley. The effect of this new arrangement in a live setting is almost transcendent, a decidedly deep experience that casts audience members as firsthand witnesses to his transformation.

On one level, it serves to paint Lang as a confident artist, unafraid to strip his composition down to its essentials. On another, without the guitar gymnastics of the album track, the story of love and loss is brought to the forefront, and an intimate bond between the storyteller and his audience is forged. The bitterness and pain of “Lie to Me” in a live setting is now made evident and believable: no longer is Lang a boy miscast in the role of a man, but an introspective adult who has traversed the twisted path of addiction and has since achieved a remarkable degree of musical maturity.

Jonny Lang – Lie to Me (Live)

MICHAEL HOWARD

Ring Shout Tropes in A Gospel Setting

MusiQologY — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:34:48 +0000

Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson

What is troping? In my opinion, it is an essential element and a most elusive quality of Afro-American music. When sound events signify on a time-line, against the flow of the music’s pulse, making the pulse itself lilt freely, the sound created is distinct to Afro-American music and prevalent in a variety of musical genres from gospel to jazz, where it is most prevalent. This troping of the time-line by the placement of events against its flow creates the slight resistances that result in the lilt that, while common to all black music, is most pronounced, evident and persistent in jazz where this driving, rhythmic persistence in a relaxed atmosphere is typical[1].

The ring-shout trope commonly used in jazz has early roots in 19^th century gospel spirituals. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson witnessed and recorded “the ring-shout” during a trip to South Carolina. He described returning to the camp many nights and coming upon a circle of people moving in “the rhythmical barbaric dance the negroes call a ‘shout’,” singing the music of their ceremony with the measured clapping of hands. As night wore on and the singing and dancing continued in deepening intensity, Higginson noted that eventually everyone present, of all ages, was “drawn into the vortex” of the music. “Such a response,” he wrote, “from the oldest to the youngest, could not easily have been evoked by an appropriation from another culture; rather the magical pull was an expression of traditional values of a people, those that moved the oldest to engage in sacred dance and the young to join them in the circle.”[2]

New Spirit of Penn Gospel Choir

In this way then, ring shout tropes in both jazz and very early African-American gospel music function in exactly the same capacity. They are used as a direct line of communication between audience and performer that creates a distinctly unique culture for all involved. It’s almost like a secret language that only those who know and are in the tribe can interpret and be involved with. It is something very unique to African-American music, and since the tradition has endured for so long, a very key element.

For examples of ring shout tropes check out New Spirit of Penn Gospel Choir – Souled Out .

Mak Kemenosh

[1] Ring shout! Literary studies, historical studies, and black music inquiry. Black Music Journal; Samuel A. Floyd Jr., Spring 2002.

[2] The Story of the Spirituals, http://ctl.du.edu/spirituals/Religion/development.cfm.

Lost In Translation – Call & Response and Ring Shout Tropes

MusiQologY — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:05:13 +0000

Evanescence - Bring Me to Life

In today’s music styles, simple beats dominate the billboard top songs. These songs have become background noises to life, a soundtrack for those whose minds are already occupied with more daunting tasks. And these listeners seemingly enjoy mindlessly allowing these predictable rhythms to pass in one ear and out the other. There is no emotion in these performances, and the music is played as it is read off of a sheet, and not as it is felt in the body. Ring shout tropes, on the other hand, thrive on the concept of feeling the music, not reading it.

These musical attributes are purely exclamations of what the performer feels RIGHT NOW, and not when he was composing the music. If a composer attempted to write these tropes into the predictable music of today, they would convey no meaning. The tropes would lose the emotion and spontaneity. No longer would they be heart-felt expressions of deep passion through music at the very moment they are performed, but rather terrible impersonators that appear simply as increases in volume, or as thought the singer missed a beat.

Just as crying is most effective when you can see the tears, tropes are most effective when you can see the music being felt through the performer as he religiously expresses himself. It is the conviction put into each expression that makes these tropes not only successful, but genuine. It is impossible to duplicate such articulations. While the live performance of Evanescence “Bring Me to Life” doesn’t depict ring shouting in its truest form, it does exhibit some call and response starting at around 1:00. While this is supposed to be inspiring and full of emotion, like in the Clark Sisters “Hallelujah” (1:45), the trope in Evanescence is empty, for the performance has no passion, visual or vocal.

The Clark Sisters – Hallelujah

Jake Guterman

“From Faith to Faith” New Spirit of Penn Gospel Choir Concert, Nov 7th 2009 5PM @ Irvine Auditorium

MusiQologY — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:02:29 +0000

New Spirit of Penn Gospel Choir, otherwise known as NSP, is UPenn’s only gospel choir and was founded by Ashon Crawley in the fall 1998, his freshmen year. Crawley saw the need for students of faith to commune in a musical setting for the sake of fellowship, ministry, and a place that felt like home. Starting with just 15 members, NSP has grown to about 70 people and draws more and more students every semester. Described as having, “a tradition of anointed, energetic ministry through music,” NSP seeks to uplift the Penn community while providing a cultural resource to those interested.

As a group focused on ministry, the New Spirit of Penn Gospel Choir’s purpose is to spread the word of the Lord through song and help to serve as a catalyst for change in the spiritual lives of those affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, as well as in the surrounding communities. It is an event whose main purpose is to lead others into worship and bless the community through song and dance.

This fall, NSP will be hosting their first concert of the year entitled, “From Faith to Faith.” The title was taken from Romans 1:17 that says, “The righteous will live by faith…by faith from first to last.” This simply means that we are not sure what the future holds, but we will go forward day to day, faith to faith. Our set will feature songs from gospel legends like Kirk Franklin, Donnie McClurkin, and Fred Hammond. We will also be singing a selection from Tyler Perry’s, Diary of a Mad Black Woman. We are very excited about this upcoming concert and as our mission statement says, “we will serve as a catalyst for change in the spiritual lives of those affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, as well as in the surrounding communities.”

The concert will take place on Saturday, November 7th, 2009, at 5:00PM in Irvine Auditorium on Penn’s campus. The auditorium is located on the corner of 34th Street and Spruce Street. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. For more information or to reserve tickets email marcos@wharton.upenn.edu or call (917) 604-0490.

To hear music selections from past New Spirit of Penn Gospel Choir concerts, please click here.

Oluwatosin Bosede