Wynton's Abyssinian Mass

Wynton's Abyssinian Mass by 

It's jazz-beyond-jazz, alright, when Wynton Marsalis composes a work for gospel choir and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. But I must admit that I am neither drawn to hear such work nor qualified to comment on it. Having experienced Marsalis' previous large-scale religiously oriented works All Rise and In This House, On This Morning, I have developed some unshakable expectations and prejudices about such endeavors -- it's just not my cuppa tea. So I sought someone with fresh ears, more affinity for the material and less bias to report on the grand event. Meet Monica Hope seen here singing Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday" at a memorial service for the bassist Walter Booker, Jr. 

A graduating student of creative writing at New York University, Ms. Hope this semester took my NYU course for the School of Continuing and Professional Studies in "Roots of American Music." Besides being an ambitious writer, is the daughter of the late jazz pianist-composer Elmo Hope and the estimable, still-swinging pianist Bertha Hope. She has sung in choirs and is knowledgable about Wynton Marsalis and the LCJO, having written an extensive paper a couple years ago about why the expansive Jazz at Lincoln Center facility was built  in New York, and what that meant to/about jazz. Here's her report about Marsalis's Mass:

The Mass Wynton Marsalis created honoring the 200th anniversary of the Abyssinian Baptist Church proves that jazz is not constrained but rather a flexible thing that can incorporate many musical forms within its frame.  Jazz is no longer shunned as the devil's music.  It is regarded as an art that can, in Marsalis's words, "affirm the best of what our culture has to offer."

With the influence of Ellington showing through as it often does in his work, Marsalis mixed blues and spirituals with aspects of bebop, the avant-garde, swing and Caribbean styles in a lengthy, detailed score for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra under singing that included traditional Baptist, chorale and Gregorian-like chants.  The Abyssinian Baptist Bicentennial Choir, approximately 120 singers wearing cranberry robes with white trimmed gold V‑overlays, fanned across the Church's balcony in a resplendent semi-circle; the LCJO was on a platform below them, facing the congregation.  I expected Wynton to direct, but he sat with the other trumpeters on the same elevation as the band's drummer, playing his horn throughout.  The sound quality was impeccable.

Constructed as a Baptist or Pentecostal church service, the Mass contained lyrics new and familiar.  Segues between choir endings and orchestral breakouts were seamless; even when the Orchestra played music quite unlike that sung within the same piece, Marsalis's score kept them from sounding disjointed.  The call-and-response Devotional matched a male lead and trumpet soloist over a blues background, while the improvisational Call to Worship was inspired by instrumentalists offering praise over a Latin clavé.  Some of the saxophonists clapped out rhythms.  The Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts III led the assembly in the Lord's Prayer atop soft piano chords -- as is typical in a Sunday service during the Prayer -- taken up by baritone sax and a vocalist.

The choir, attendants, ushers and sometimes guest preachers march in to most Baptist churches during the Processional.  Here, the choir was rocking, swaying shoulders, shouting "yeah" and "alright."  Joy swelled as full voices pealed through the vaulted ceilings to the sky, and music modulating from New Orleans' swing-to-blues-to-march pulled the audience to its feet.  Gregorian chant came to life in the Invocation and Chant along with musical images from Brazil -- all ending reverentially.

After a soloist gloriously sang of Christ's resurrection and ascension, Reverend Butts addressed us unscripted:  "People of African descent prayed for justice to roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."  Invoking Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, he reminded us of the pivotal networking role the black church played during the Civil Rights movement.  Reverend Butts further pointed out that Abyssinian was built to improve the relationship between the races, and so its mixed congregation was an answered prayer.

I was most moved when the bassist bowed the Meditation in molasses-slow, quiet reflection.  Only the men sang as military snare rolls accompanied the Invitation,  and being of Barbadian descent, I enjoyed its transformation into a whimsical calypso, reminiscent of Belafonte's "Matilda," that buoyed the tap dancer as his feet slip-slid, flurried and stomped like the Biblical David, in a very tight space.

A uniquely arranged Doxology, using the traditional lyrics, was representative of jazz creativity.  The 'traveling song' Recessional trombones blew "woo woooo - woo woooo," to bring the Ellington-Strayhorn "A Train" theme to mind; as the male vocalists whistled the melody at the tune's end, you could almost see the hem-swaying robes of saints disappearing into the clouds.  The Mass ended as a Sunday service would, with chants of "Amen."  A rapturous soprano and a final call-and-response between the choir and Marsalis's horn blasts brought the "service" to a close.

The Mass was frenzied, plaintive, rejoicing, hushed, mournful and playful. Wynton's expository use of the chorale from the European classical tradition for which he is acclaimed added to the Mass;s many moods, blending with the cultures that feed jazz as well.  As one not easily impressed, I was blown away by this ambitious work that  through music, dance, theater and scripture brought together the secular and the sacred.