Joseph Joubert – Total Praise: Classic Hymns for Piano

Joseph Joubert
Total Praise: Classic Hymns for Piano
GIA Publications 2009
www.giamusic.com

A rumbling of Rachmaninoff in Richard Smallwood? A sampling of Satie in Andrae Crouch? I’ll bet you have never heard gospel songs and hymns played this way before.

I certainly hadn’t until I heard prodigious arranger-orchestrator-director-pianist Joseph Joubert. On Total Praise: Classic Hymns for Piano, Joubert uses his well-honed classical piano technique to interpret some of the African American church’s most beloved gospel songs and hymns. Like a jazz performer in classical clothing, Joubert renders the motives and melodies at once familiar and also romantically exotic, like little sacred concertos.

Joubert wrote all of the arrangements featured on Total Praise over a period of nearly a quarter-century, during which he orchestrated, arranged and conducted major musical projects for Broadway, film, recordings and the concert stage. He has worked with everyone of significance in the pop and classical worlds: from Fantasia to the Three Mo’ Tenors to opera star Kathleen Battle. While Joubert’s background is Baptist – he practiced on the piano in the basement of Community Baptist Church – he makes the piano sing like a seasoned COGIC soloist.

While Joubert leans heavily on his classical training, he tosses blue notes and jazz runs playfully into such hymns as “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine” and “Amazing Grace.” In fact, his performance of “Amazing Grace” for President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1994 left the Russian leader clamoring for a copy of the sheet music. No doubt Yeltsin heard in Joubert’s arrangement the artistic genius of the great Russian composers and pianists.

At the same time, Joubert does not rely on improvisation. All of his arrangements are meticulously written down. Every. Last. Note. His liberal use of arpeggios, trills and descending chromatic thirds floats the melody on a rapidly-changing and powerful river of sound. During quieter moments, the notes tinkle like raindrops on the melody. On his arrangement of Andrae Crouch’s “My Tribute,” Joubert plays with such dynamic intensity that his instrument sounds like a player piano gone delightfully mad.

Joseph Joubert’s Total Praise is an amazing work, a wonderment of technical skill, a masterpiece of hymnody that will leave the listener wondering whether he’s just had church at the symphony.

Five of Five Stars