Music Notes 2-25-24

On March 3rd, we welcome back our wonderful band.  This time around, we’re going to celebrate worship with the music of Duke Ellington and Tracy is going to fill the communion time with that wonderful song from Jesus Christ, Superstar, I Don’t Know How To Love Him.  Duke Ellington was a deeply spiritual man who took a crucifix with him everywhere and read the Bible every day.  When he was asked to write a concert of sacred music for the opening of Grace Cathedral in San Fransisco in 1965, he jumped at the chance.  Spread the word – where else would you hear Duke Ellington in a church service?

The Lord Is My Light is a song written by Southern California native Walt Harrah.  Walt, who lives in Irvine, is a singer and a friend and colleague who has written several gospel songs that have become classics, a couple of which are included in The Faith We Sing.  It has a relatively simple message: “The Lord is my light and my salvation, so I will not be afraid.”  This arrangement of the song was written for Maranatha! Music back in the early 1990’s by Texas-based composer/arranger J. Daniel Smith, who specializes in sophisticated contemporary arrangements of songs that are accessible to groups with smaller forces.  This particular arrangement has always been a favorite of mine, as it’s easy to learn and sing, and is especially groovy.  The book that it came from has, sadly, gone out of print, but Eileen and I have a couple of copies in our library, and we’ll be featuring more from this book as time goes on.  On a personal note, those of you that watch CBS might have seen Walt and I singing in a barbershop quartet together in a TV show called Living Biblically a few years back.

Matt Redman is an English Christian worship leader currently based in Brighton.  He has won 10 Dove Awards for everything from Worship Song of the Year 2005 (for Blessed Be Your Name) to Songwriter of the Year 2013.  His album 10,000 Reasons was released in 2012 and the title track went on to be #1 on the Billboard Christian Songs chart, where it remained for 13 weeks.  10,000 Reasons also won Grammy Awards in 2013 for Best Contemporary Christian Music Song and Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance.  One Day (When We All Get To Heaven) is a new song from a new album – Glory Song, released in September of 2017.  Glory Song takes a more “gospel” approach, using lots of background singers that gives the album a choral feel.  Today, Matt and his wife, Beth, are members of St. Peter’s Church in Brighton, England and have 5 children.  One interesting side note – he has a live YouTube video of him singing this song with just a keyboard player and 6 vocalists.  If you look closely, they are performing it on the roof of the Capitol Records building in downtown Hollywood.  For those of you who don’t know, when Capitol Records decided to build a headquarters building in Hollywood in 1955, it is rumored that it was Nat King Cole who suggested the iconic shape to resemble a stack of records (remember those?).  It’s been called the “world’s first circular office building” and “the house that Nat built”, due to the enormous number of recordings and vast amount of merchandise Nat sold for Capitol.  In 2006, it was sold to a New York developer to be turned into condos, but the iconic recordings studios are still there and when you walk into the main studio, there are large black and white photos of the artists who recorded there, including Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr.  Personally, I’ve recorded in there several times and the history of the building always overwhelms me.

Hosanna, Loud Hosanna was written by Jeannette Threlfall, who was born in the Lancashire town of Blackburn in 1821.  Her life was extremely difficult, being orphaned at an early age, and then 2 consecutive accidents left her mutilated and an invalid for life.  But she bore her misfortunes with grace and fortitude and maintained a ministry for others throughout her life.  She wrote devotional verse, that was published anonymously and later collected in 2 volumes, including Sunshine and Shadow, assembled in 1873 and containing the verse we know as Hosanna, Loud Hosanna.  It was subsequently paired with the tune ELLACOMB, which was first published in a chapel hymnal for the Duke of Württemberg in 1784.  The hymn we know has been printed in over 150 hymnals to date.