Hallelujah! - Clara Ward

 

Oh Glory Hallelujah

Hallelujah!

Clara Ward

Dot DLP 25186

1959

From the back cover: When Clara Ward and her singers first appeared in Britain this past spring, they were greeted by this notice in the New Musical Express, England's largest weekly devoted to popular music: "...if you think rock 'n' roll is exciting, you'll jump for joy when you hear the... group's fiery, dynamic brand of hot gospel singing."

The Melody Maker added: "... the music had a rhythmic drive and tonal expressiveness common to certain kinds of jazz, plus a near-frenzied quality which made it the most exciting vocal sound I have ever heard in a club."

Not all the gospel music in this album is frenzied, however, in that Clara Ward and her unit are heard in some of th more reflective as well as the more joyfully outgoing gospel material. But throughout, as in her previous Dot album, Gospel Concert (Dot DLP 3138), there is a fullness and freedom of emotion that has made gospel music so infectiously attractive to more and more listeners in this country and abroad.

In an interview with Sen Grevatt in the Melody Maker, Clara Ward explained the nature and background of gospel music. "There's  a lot of difference between spirituals and gospels. Spirituals came from the slaves. They were written in bondage by slaves who were entreating the Lord for their salvation. The spirituals gave birth to the blues, which at one time were only sad songs. Gospel songs are often halos and are taken straight from bible stories."

The gospel dong – and its immediate predecessor, the jubilee – are, in short, the music of freedom. While in gospel music there remained ash intense interest in the world to come, this world was no longer entirely without hope. As a result, there was more buoyant celebration of religious beliefs in godpel music, because the focus of faith was not only on the after life but on the enjoyment of being and believing right now. Tips this quality of direct affirmation that makes gospel music so compelling and that has, in fact, been carried over into much of modern jazz by many young musicians who were first shaped musically by the gospel music they heard as children.

Accordingly, here are more and more modern jazz pieces with titles like The Preacher, Sermonette and Right Down Front. By listening to Clara Ward and her Singers you can hear some of the foundation of that music, and you can hear how much alive and growing gospel music itself still is. There was a recent five and a half hour gospel concert at Madison Square Garden in New York, and there are now the trips abroad begun by Clara Ward and her unit. "We want," say Clara Ward, "to spread interest ago gospel singing all over the world."

She's succeeding, and this album will carry the word even wider. – Nat Hentoff

Walk With Me

All God's Chillun Got Shoes

Peace In The Valley

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Goodnight God

When We Get Up There

Silver Wings

Deep River

Oh Glory Hallelujah

The Lord Will Understand

Take My Hand, Precious Lord

I Am So Happy