Countertenor
Reginald Mobley has focused mostly on Baroque works and contemporary art song, but with 2023's
Because album, he tries something completely different and probably unique: he performs African American spirituals. This may be the first such performance by a countertenor, African American or otherwise, and one may be forgiven for wondering whether the novelty is the main attraction. However, sometimes a novelty can be muted a bit if other ideas of high originality are present. That is what happens here, and the whole production holds together in quite a haunting way. For one thing,
Mobley is accompanied in an entirely new manner by a jazz pianist,
Baptiste Trotignon, who did the arrangments of the spirituals. This casts the melodic and textual material of the spirituals in a fresh light. For another,
Mobley mixes spirituals with other types of music: art songs by
Florence Beatrice Price and others, a jazz solo by
Trotignon, and even
I Heard It Through the Grapevine, which perhaps doesn't fit the overall concept terribly well. The mixture has various fascinating effects, including bringing out African American inflections in
Price's language that are sometimes a bit submerged. There is more, including a wonderful choice of material (
Bright Sparkles in the Churchyard is not a very common spiritual) and the sheer beauty of
Mobley's voice, but that is all for the listener to discover on a real sleeper of an album. ~ James Manheim
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