Songs that Sing You to Silence

Songs That Sing You to Silence
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By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog.

Songs That Sing You to Silence may well be the prettiest and most relaxing CD you hear all year.

Designed as a meditative means to bring one to an inner place of worship, the album is the product of a South African quintet that blends jazz, classical and even Portugese-influenced musicianship. Vocalists Carrol Hall and Danellia Daniels grew up as pals in Apartheid-plagued South Africa. They combine their voices with guitar, double bass, piano and drums to do the conjuring.

Hall is a church musician and educator; bassist Andreas Kappen is a member of South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic; Pianist Melvin Peters has been featured on several jazz and gospel recordings, the most recent being with the jazz group, Quattro Fusion. He is also music director at St. Pauls Church, Durban, and an active member of the Royal Schools of Church Music. The drummer, Shaun Herbert, is a well-known sound engineer working out of the Playhouse Theatre in Durban, South Africa. Daniels is chaplain and manager of the YMCA in KwaZulu Natal.

The musicians combined their talents in the studio for two days last October. The result is Songs that Sing You to Silence.

“The idea of jazz as meditative music, as singing you to silence,” Hall says, “I heard first from Melvin as he played for one of the combined Good Friday services in Durban that hosts tens of thousands of pilgrims, each Easter.”

The album evokes the hypnotic and contemplative music of Jacques Berthier and Taize’ – the group covers three of Berthier’s compositions – but it is the Portugese-flavored pieces that garner the most attention. Carrol Hall’s “God is With Us” and “All Shall Be Well” channels famed fado singers Cesaria Evora and Amalia Rodrigues in their smoky, brooding beauty. Pianist Peters is brilliant throughout the album and provides an especially exquisite solo on “I Am Because You Are.”

Listening to the quintet’s instrumental version of the Zulu Kyrie stirs up some of the same moving emotions that accompany listening to a concert spiritual. Daniels’ version of “Ukuthula – Peace, Perfect Peace” is mesmerizing.

Hall and Daniels duet on the mantra-like “Jesus Remember Me,” from the Taize’ tradition, but only at the song’s conclusion. This piece would have been even stronger had they started with solo voice, moved to duet and concluded with a mixed quartet or choral voicing, as Berthier’s piece is most penetrating when lavished with four-part harmony.

Songs That Sing You to Silence does what it set out to do: put you in such a state of tranquil reflection that when the CD stops spinning, you feel as if you’ve been transported to a quiet, sacred space where all that is present is divine relationship with the Most High. It is peppermint candy for the soul.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “God is With Us,” “All Shall Be Well.”

Listen to the group’s version of a Taize’ piece here: