Music Notes 10-13-24

Jester Hairston was a local treasure. One of the most recognizable names in the world of spirituals, Jester was born the grandson of slaves, who worked the Hairston Plantation in Belews Creek, North Carolina. His parents moved to Homestead, PA (outside Pittsburgh), where he graduated high school. He then studied at, as one of the first black individuals admitted, and graduated from Tufts College outside Boston in 1929. He sang with the Hall Johnson Choir in Harlem for a while but was almost fired because of his Boston accent (Johnson told him “we’re singing ain’t and cain’t, and you’re singing shahn’t and cahn’t – they don’t mix!”). His work on Broadway with that choir took him to Hollywood, where he began working regularly on movies, television and radio. He began writing and arranging, especially spirituals, with Mary’s Little Boy Child composed in 1956. Most of us have seen the movie Lilies of the Field (1963), starring Sidney Poitier, which contains this week’s anthem Amen. Those wonderful scenes where Sidney is singing “Amen, amen, amen”, which he teaches to the nuns – that song was composed and arranged by Jester for the movie, and Sidney’s singing isn’t Sidney – it’s Jester. Jester lived out his life in Los Angeles, traveling all over the world teaching and conducting and spreading the word of spirituals. He also worked as an actor in front of the camera, in such movies as The Alamo, To Kill A Mockingbird and In The Heat Of The Night, to name a few. Many of the singers in town were his protégés, and “Jester stories” abound at local music events. We lost Jester on January 18, 2000, at the age of 98, and most of the musical world in Los Angeles attended the funeral service.

Climb Every Mountain is a showtune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. It is sung at the end of the 1st act and again as an epilogue to the second act by the Mother Abbess. It’s an inspirational piece, encouraging people to take every step to achieving their dreams. It shares inspirational overtones with the song You’ll Never Walk Alone, from the musical Carousel, and is often sung by classically trained singers in professional stage productions. The song has been covered by singers from Tony Bennett and Andy Williams to Tammy Wynette (at the 1984 Olympics), to Barbra Streisand and Christina Aguilera, to a Norwegian version by Sissel Kyrkjebø.

Hailing from the small coastal town of Bangor in Northern Ireland, the Rend Collective is a group of “twenty-somethings” that gathered at Rend, what the band describes as “a ministry for spiritually hungry young adults, desperately seeking an authentic, raw and real expression of church, which was informally pastored by bandleader, Gareth Gilkeson.” Their first album – Homemade Worship by Handmade People – was released in 2012, and was followed by a string of hits in the contemporary Christian music world. Their music is based around older instruments - their native Irish folk instruments, old rock and roll guitars and assorted other whimsical musical toys - and has a raw, uninhibited style that gets the toes tapping and the feet stomping. They don’t call themselves a folk band, but insist rather “We are not actually an indiefolk band - despite all the beards and bow-ties and banjos. We are a celebration band. It’s just a coincidence that folk music and celebration make a great pairing!” Their song My Lighthouse is a classic foot-stomper that never fails to engage the listener and was released in 2014 on the album The Art Of Celebration.

Dan Schutte is one of the most renowned of the contemporary composers in the Catholic world and is one of the founding members of the St. Louis Jesuits, who popularized a contemporary style of church music set to sacred texts sung in English. This was a result of the Second Vatican Council of the early 1960’s (also known as Vatican II), which revamped and reformed the Catholic liturgy in an effort to bring it closer to the people (before that, the mass was sung in Latin and the priest kept his back to the congregation throughout). He is based in San Francisco, has written over 120 popular hymns and mass settings, and continues to be one of the most influential figures in the world of contemporary Catholic liturgical music. His most famous composition is Here I Am, Lord, based on texts from Isaiah and Samuel. Despite its Catholic origins, it is found in most Protestant hymnals and has been translated into over 20 different languages. In 2008, a survey conducted by the United Methodist Church found it to be 2nd favorite after Amazing Grace.