The Spiritual Odetta/the Brazeal Dennard Chorale At The Music Hall

In the second of a four-concert series titled "Music of the Black Church," produced by Woody Miller and Percy Moore, the Music Hall people bestowed upon a grateful full house a deeply moving and soul-satisfying evening of spirituals, featuring one of the most gorgeous black voices of all time, the incomparable Odetta.

The music, set in the intimate wood, marble, and plush surroundings of the beautiful old hall and furnished with such tasteful perquisites as an informative printed program and interspersed historical commentary by Doug Morison of Channel 62's "Big City News," began with an immaculate performance by Detroit's own Brazeal Dennard Chorale, one of the nation's foremost practicing units.
While the Europeanized a cappella harmonies of groups like the Dennard Chorale take most of the rough edges off the folk form, the singers took full advantage of the added dramatic possibilities of this format without sacrificing the conviction and joy of the music.
Standing out especially well against the highly-polished choral voicings were some intense solo spots by sopranos Charmaine Whitehead

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PALM SUNDAY
The Spiritual

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(on "Mary Was the Queen of Galilee") and Ernestine Nimmons (on the brooding "I Wants to Die Easy").
To the serene spirituality so well conveyed by the Chorale, Odetta added the deep, visceral feeling and the secular-based commitment derived from her command of the entire range of black folk music and her unwavering involvement in the causes of civil rights and black liberation here on earth.

Odetta's spectacular voice is one of the most remarkable instruments to be heard in any field of music today, and the audience was eager for her to pull out the stops and exhibit the full range of her musical and emotional power. Perhaps the Music Hall environment was a little stuffy for her tastes; perhaps she was just tired. But only at a few points during her recital did Odetta really open up that golden throat and give forth those powerful shouts and soaring vocal flights that have sent chills up and down the spines of millions. In her flowing purple sequined robes, she seemed abstracted from the more conservatively turned-out, more sedate audience.

Nevertheless, Odetta at two-thirds power on any given day can put to shame most other singers at full power, and the range of her material, coupled with the intensity of her performance, seemed to condense into an hour the black American experience, from the slave ships to the urban ghettoes.
Highlights included "Were You There?" "No More Auction Block," a medley of "In That Land" and "I'm On My Way," "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" (dedicated to Paul Robeson), "Deep River" (dedicated to Marian Anderson), "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down" (a blues based on a sermon), "Children, Go Where I Send Thee" (a song of the underground railroad), and "Anyway You Can Make It" (a contemporary gospel composition written by Odetta for 1 972 voter registration drives), as well as a couple of delightful children's songs.

Congratulations are due to Project Director Woody Miller, Project Consultant Percy L. Moore, and the entire staff of the non-profit Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts for bringing us these fine gospel artists in a format and environment consistent with the dignity of the music and its central place in the black experience.

- By  Derek VanPelt