Medicine – Live at the Black Academy of Arts and Letters

Various Artists
Medicine – Live at the Black Academy of Arts and Letters
MCG Records (release date: August 16, 2011)
http://www.mcgrecords.com/

In October 2010, artists a-plenty participated in a concert to raise operating support for Dallas’s Black Academy of Arts and Letters, a nonprofit organization founded by Curtis King in 1977 that is now the largest multi-discipline black cultural institution in the United States.

In the process of delivering some much-needed financial medicine, the collection of singers, actors and musicians provided no small amount of spiritual medicine in the live program, captured for posterity on Medicine.

The CD’s finest moments are the first moments, when American Idol’s Ruben Studdard delivers an extraordinary performance of album producer Sam “Shake” Anderson’s inspirational “Medicine for Someone Else.” The song – about taking time to be a blessing to others – can stand on its own, but Studdard’s velvety tenor makes it top-grade.

Also taking it higher are the dynamic Yarbrough & Peoples. I wore out my copy of their The Two of Us LP in the early 1980s. Their “Jump Til’ You Feel Something” on Medicine evokes some of the hypnotic funkiness of “Don’t Stop the Music” while pulling on the secular sanctification of Sly Stone and House of Pain’s party-starting “Jump.” This selection could make the R&B charts and also find its way onto roots radio show playlists.

Other high points are when Ann Nesby of Sounds of Blackness sings from the loneliness of the prayer closet on the haunting “What Would You Have Me Do?” The neo-traditional rafter raising “Won’t Have to Worry” is led by the effervescent shouter Tommye Young-West and supported by the Academy Choir, which sings with polish and pizzazz throughout the CD.

All of the songs on the album were written or co-written by Anderson, and represent a impressive body of inspirational work.

Medicine concludes with a poignant and thought-provoking poem called “My Language.” Curtis King wrote this ode to the enduring spirit of African Americans as expressed through the fine arts for the Academy’s 30th anniversary season in 2007. Actress Jasmine Guy (A Different World) recites the poem with appropriate emotional power over an ever-shifting jazz soundtrack. When she recites a litany of significant writers, actors, artists and musicians, it is a confirmation, if one is needed, of the enormously rich and immeasurable contributions African Americans have made to the world’s cultural treasure chest.

Gospel fans in particular will enjoy Medicine for its soul-stirring performances and messages, but enthusiasts of any kind of music will find the collection appealing. It’s worth it just to hear Studdard sing sacred music, which this collection suggests he ought to do more often.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “Medicine for Someone Else,” “Won’t Have to Worry.”