Albert Jamison Presents The New York State Mass Choir – Show Yourself Mighty (tbgb review)

Albert Jamison Presents The New York State Choir
Show Yourself Mighty
Light Records 2007
www.lightrecords.com

It seems appropriate that during midweek of the 41st Gospel Music Workshop of America we review the latest project by GMWA’s Chairman, Bishop Albert L. Jamison, Sr. Many of you will remember Bishop Jamison’s earlier work with the Triboro Mass Choir on Savoy Records. In addition to the mountainous responsibilities he encounters as GMWA Chairman and also pastoring his own church, Pleasant Grove Tabernacle, Bishop Jamison still has time to keep the choir tradition alive and well.

On Show Yourself Mighty, Jamison and the New York State Mass Choir shuffle back and forth between contemporary and traditional arrangements. While the choir is energetic and polished on contemporary numbers such as “Just Your Name Alone,” “I Owe You All the Praise,” and the radio single “Show Yourself Mighty,” it really dazzles on the traditional-flavored songs such as “Nothing Shall Separate Me” (featuring an old-school solo by Mother Rubenstein McClure) and “My Witness,” on which Bishop Jamison and Ronald Banks channel the O’Neal Twins with their muscular harmonies. Evangelist Doreen Figueroa’s solo on the choir workout “Lily of the Valley” is among the album’s highlights, as is Jamison’s touching story of personal tragedy preceding “Not My Will.”

“I got everybody I could to help me out tonight,” exhorts Jamison at the outset of “Like a Shepherd,” and he is not kidding. The list of guest artists reads like an industry who’s who: Bishop Paul S. Morton, Pastor Hezekiah Walker, Pastor John P. Kee, Pastor Jeff White, Elder Timothy Wright, and Lucinda Moore, to name some of them. The finale, Rev. Milton Biggham’s “He Won’t Fail,” brings together Jamison, Wright, White and Figueroa with Kervy Brown on a song with a simple yet fitting closing message.

Albums such as Show Yourself Mighty indicate that while the winds of gospel music popularity have shifted from choirs to small groups, there will always be a demand for good old choir singing. That’s where it began, after all.