Daniel Weatherspoon – Official

Official
Daniel Weatherspoon
Longlife Music 2008
www.longlifeentertainment.com

You may not think you know who Daniel Weatherspoon is, but you do.

A veritable Quincy Jones of gospel music, “DW” has served as music director for all the current biggies: Donald Lawrence, the Clark Sisters, the Murrills, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Fred Hammond; and has produced hit-makers such as Shekinah Glory Ministry, Darwin Hobbs, Phil Tarver, and the Tri-City Singers. TBGB reported recently that he played keyboards, back in the day, on Rev. Walter “The Big Man” Butts’ 1991 Get High on Jesus.

Now DW has decided to do something special on his own, something semi-autobiographical, and has gathered some top-shelf talent for his musical “’every man’s story’ – seasons of peaks and valleys in this journey called life.”

The result is Official, a project that aims the spotlight on musicianship as much as vocal prowess. The CD opens with two sacred jazz pieces. “Keep it Movin’” is brassy and punctuated by blurts of organ and vocal exclamations of encouragement, the latter ostensibly by Weatherspoon himself. “Longlife” is more complex, cranial and introspective, with the sensitivity of fusion icons Jan Klemmer and John McLaughlin running through its charts.

Weatherspoon throws everything but the kitchen sink into the remainder of the project. Hip hop (“Take Ova’”) and a stunning deep club mix of the album’s “Sun Come Up” (“Sun Dub Mix” – featuring E-Smoove) share space with a funky RnB arrangement of the spiritual, “Everytime I Feel the Spirit,” and a praise and worship track, “Oh How,” featuring the lovely vocals of Gina Thurston and praise leadership from Shekinah Glory Ministry’s Elder Phil Tarver. In fact, “Oh How,” with its hypnotic extended choral section, could be mistaken easily for an unissued SGM track.

To TBGB’s ears, “Sun Come Up” and “I Choose Joy” are the most universally accessible tracks on the album, and if there are to be singles released from this album, they would be the two. “Sun Come Up” benefits from strong vocals courtesy of San Franklin and Jason Nelson, with an able assist from the awesome and underappreciated Bridgette Cambell-Croft. Campbell-Croft also shares her talent on “Everytime,” alongside the vibrant Denise Clark and Bishop Larry D. Trotter of Chicago’s Sweet Holy Spirit Church. “I Choose Joy” concludes the project, and the musical journey to self-awareness and holiness, with appropriate fanfare.

The musicians – and there’s a whole roster of choice players – include organist Richard Gibbs, the omnipresent session guitarist Joey Woolfalk, and Daniel’s brother Michael Weatherspoon on drums.

Official is a musical exploration that may not appeal to every palate, but if you remove the opus from the mind-numbing labeling that happens in music marketing, it certainly works, especially in its ability to showcase the versatility of one heck of a musician pool. Only Daniel Weatherspoon could pull this off, and pull it off with such imagination and inventiveness.

Three of Four Stars