Oh Happy Day
Sep. 2nd, 2011 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiCaught a free concert tonight. Ramsey Lewis played at a local black Baptist church. It was a joyous experience.
There's a trend for artists to use resources locally if they don't have the income or infrastructure to bring their own. I like this idea, because it gets local buy-in and everyone participating will have family and friends in the door. Since Mr. Lewis releced an album of gospel inspired jazz recently he used the choir from the church.
I generally dislike american choirs, because you get a lot of mush from them. I'd forgotten that gospel choirs don't have this problem because the members are usually pretty happy to sing, and this keeps the social loafing to a bare minimum. They sounded great, and the audience was also high energy. I always like it when an audience is so engaged in the performance that they clap in time with it.
Of course, this was jazz, too. He played for about two hours, non-stop, and his band was really strong too -- acoustic bass, guitar, kit, and a second keyboardist behind his piano. The sound was great, too -- everything was mic'd but nothing was too loud. He let his band stretch, too. I knew in the first song when I heard him quoting Elenor Rigby that it was gong to be a fun show.
The church did this on their dime because they wanted to provide an evening of family entertainment to the community. Of course we got a bit of sermon in it, too, but it was tastefully done, and it was a lot of fun.
I feel like it cleaned out some of the gunk I've accumulated this year, too. I'm working through a lot of stuff, and to have two hours of time to just enjoy the music, clap, laugh, and relax was a nice thing.
Oh, and of course, he played "The In Crowd."
There's a trend for artists to use resources locally if they don't have the income or infrastructure to bring their own. I like this idea, because it gets local buy-in and everyone participating will have family and friends in the door. Since Mr. Lewis releced an album of gospel inspired jazz recently he used the choir from the church.
I generally dislike american choirs, because you get a lot of mush from them. I'd forgotten that gospel choirs don't have this problem because the members are usually pretty happy to sing, and this keeps the social loafing to a bare minimum. They sounded great, and the audience was also high energy. I always like it when an audience is so engaged in the performance that they clap in time with it.
Of course, this was jazz, too. He played for about two hours, non-stop, and his band was really strong too -- acoustic bass, guitar, kit, and a second keyboardist behind his piano. The sound was great, too -- everything was mic'd but nothing was too loud. He let his band stretch, too. I knew in the first song when I heard him quoting Elenor Rigby that it was gong to be a fun show.
The church did this on their dime because they wanted to provide an evening of family entertainment to the community. Of course we got a bit of sermon in it, too, but it was tastefully done, and it was a lot of fun.
I feel like it cleaned out some of the gunk I've accumulated this year, too. I'm working through a lot of stuff, and to have two hours of time to just enjoy the music, clap, laugh, and relax was a nice thing.
Oh, and of course, he played "The In Crowd."
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Yay!
Date: 2011-09-06 05:52 pm (UTC)