Grace,
serenity, and rhapsody are on abundant display throughout the 14 songs pianist
Deanna Witkowski performs with her trio on "Makes the Heart to Sing: Jazz
Hymns," set for release November 3 on Tilapia Records. One would expect
this to be the case, given that the source material is not the Great American
Songbook, but the centuries-old trove of hymnody used in churches around the
world.
Witkowski
succeeds in offering a luminously lyrical piano trio session interpreting a
spiritually charged body of music rarely investigated by jazz artists. Some of
the tunes—like “Kings of Orient (We Three Kings)”—will be immediately
recognizable to secular audiences while others will be as familiar to the
choirs and congregations of Protestant churches worldwide as the standards of
Porter or Gershwin. Her arrangement of “Hymn to Joy (Joyful, Joyful, We Adore
Thee),” the popular Beethoven melody from his 9th Symphony, rises with the
grandeur of an Ellingtonian theme.
"Makes
the Heart to Sing" is part of a larger project that includes the
publication of a folio of Witkowski’s arrangements. “It’s an instrumental jazz
trio record, but the mission is to get this music played more widely outside of
church,” she says, “and to bring these jazz interpretations into circulation
inside churches. The album is almost a demo for church music directors, and the
arrangements are meant for congregational singing.”
Witkowski is
passionate about the primal, transporting power of group singing, and her trio
brings a similar collective ethos to the music on the album. She’s played with
drummer Scott Latzky since she settled in New York City two decades ago, having
moved there with a full-time job as a church music director after earning her
degree at Wheaton College in 1993 and working for four years on the Chicago
jazz scene. Bassist Daniel Foose is a more recent collaborator. “Scott’s
playing is so sensitive and responsive to every environment,” she says. “Daniel
is really soulful and interactive with a groove that’s really deep.”
What’s most
striking about the project, aside from the sheer beauty of the trio’s feel and
dynamics, is the seamless way the hymns fit the jazz idiom even as Witkowski
pays close attention to the contours and meaning of the text. Most of the
tracks clock in under four minutes and focus on the group’s irresistibly
swinging interpretations of music rather than using the themes as launching
pads for extended solos. “Kings of Orient” is set as a waltz whose intensity
ebbs and flows and features a Foose bass solo, while “Foundation (How Firm a
Foundation)” unfurls with the rolling cadences of a gospel music hit. The
aforementioned “Hymn to Joy” adds a taste of laidback funk and soul to the set.
The winner
of the 2002 Great American Jazz Piano Competition, Deanna Witkowski has
released six critically hailed albums over the past two decades, with each new
project revealing a steadily evolving sensibility marked by melodic invention
and emotional connection. As an accompanist, she’s toured with soul-steeped
vocalist Lizz Wright and held down the piano chair for ten years in the Jim
McNeely–led BMI/New York Jazz Orchestra. Her projects as a leader feature
fellow heavyweights like bassist John Patitucci and saxophonist Donny McCaslin.
Witkowski’s
thoughtful and deeply felt work setting traditional hymns in a jazz context has
few precedents. In many ways, her creative identity is built on her gift for
gracefully bringing together seemingly disparate elements, though "Makes the
Heart to Sing" flows directly from her longtime work in sacred settings.
“Music in a lot of churches is one
specific thing, traditional hymns done in a traditional way, or contemporary
pop that’s not necessarily written for group singing,” she says. “But there’s
this ‘folk music tradition’—hymns—that everybody knows in most Protestant
churches. I always draw on my jazz background when I arrange service music, and
hymns are an integral part of the repertoire.”
Witkowski
also has a long-standing relationship with Brazil, and her next project
promises to be equally compelling. As a recipient of a prestigious residency
fellowship from the Sacatar Institute in Bahia, Brazil, a nonprofit foundation
that sponsors creative individuals of all disciplines, she will spend April and
May 2018 at Sacatar doing research related to her upcoming composition and
recording, the "Nossa Senhora Suite." Merging elements of
Afro-Brazilian ritual chants and text with new music for her quartet plus four
vocalists, each movement of the suite will explore a different Brazilian
version of the Virgin Mary, including Nossa Senhora Aparecida, patron saint of
Brazil, and Iemanjá, goddess of the seas. •
Deanna
Witkowski Itinerary
As
bandleader:
11/2 Furman
University, Greenville, SC (clinic); 11/4 Erskine College, Greenwood, SC
(solo); 11/5 a.m. First Baptist Church, Greenville, SC (duo/jazz service); 11/5
p.m. First Baptist Church, Mount Holly, NC (solo); 11/7 NC ArtsMarket, Durham,
NC (trio/juried showcase); 11/19 First Presbyterian Church, Rahway, NJ
(solo/jazz vespers); 1/21/18 St. John’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA
(trio/jazz service); 2/6/18 Juilliard Jazz, NYC (pre-concert panel speaking on
Mary Lou Williams’s sacred music); 2/23/18 Chopin in the City festival, Chicago
(solo/venue TBD)
Choral
premieres:
12/3 or
1/17/18 (TBD) ChoralArt, Portland, ME (winning piece in New England Carol
Contest); 3/11/18 The Colorado Chorale, Denver (newly commissioned work)
Residency in
Bahia:
4/9-6/4 of
2018 Sacatar Institute, Itaparica, Bahia, Brazil
No comments:
Post a Comment