Music: Freedom's Soul
On every track there is truth, purity, clarity in the message and simple genius within each composition. Inspired by the coded field songs of enslaved Africans, this body of work is a descendent of the Negro Spiritual, sang through endless agony and relentless hope of better days. Freedom's Soul takes you there on every track fusing Spirituals, Folk, Jazz, Funk, Soul, Gospel, Spoken Word, and Hip Hop.
Review:
In 2005, classically-trained bass vocalist Jonathan Blanchard recorded And the Spirit Moved, a live recital of spirituals rendered with all of the pomp and gravity of a William Warfield or Paul Robeson program. The young man has even portrayed Robeson in a one-man show.
Turn the clock ahead four years, and the Memphian’s new CD, Freedom’s Soul, is nothing like And the Spirit Moved. In many respects, it is his personal What’s Going On.
Much like the late Marvin Gaye’s bold musical experiment in 1971, Freedom’s Soul delivers its sharp two-minute warning to humankind by wrapping its message in a variety of attractive and digestible styles. Here, it is delivered by energetic vocalists, poets, rappers and musicians, Blanchard among them. Thumping R&B, hip hop, jazz and classical music become musical bedfellows in the movement. A reggae-propelled “Go Down Moses” interpolates Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” with fascinating effectiveness. Blanchard’s Moses doesn’t just go down, he smacks down.
A sprinkling of sorrow spirituals and an appearance by “Old Man River” offer an historical perspective for the project’s head-shaking, finger-shaking and ultimate hope for a world wrenched out of orbit by wars, injustice and regular people not taking responsibility for their own actions. Blanchard’s majestic bass voice is in full flower on “Motherless Child” and “Deep River,” the latter a quintessential spiritual for those gifted with a low register.
On Freedom’s Soul, Jonathan Blanchard makes us wanna holler, throw up both our hands, but in the end helps us get by with a little help from his friends.
by Bob Marovich
