Mercy Mercy Mercy – Ben Tankard (Verity 2009)

Ben Tankard
Mercy Mercy Mercy
Verity Records 2009 (in stores April 28, 2009)
www.verityrecords.com

“Words put you on a thought path,” says inspirational instrumentalist Ben Tankard. His latest project, Mercy Mercy Mercy, demonstrates the verity of this (pun intended) by featuring several RnB songs with titles that, while secular in origin, take on a spiritual feeling in this context.

Opening with a keyboard-laden live version of Cannonball Adderley’s “Mercy Mercy Mercy” (also recorded by The Buckinghams), Tankard launches into an informal musical conversation with his audience, one reminiscent of Ramsey Lewis’ gleefully live club LPs from the early 1960s. With the exception of a quick reprise of the title track, however, the remainder of the CD is studio-based.

Other RnB songs Tankard covers on the project are Sade’s misty “No Ordinary Love” and the Emotions’ 1977 hit, “Best of My Love.” Interestingly, the Emotions’ Sheila and Wanda Hutchinson started out in gospel, as the “cute-as-a-button” Hutchinson Sunbeams, singing on live broadcasts from Al Abrams Pontiac on Chicago’s South Side.

A Tankard project wouldn’t be the same without at least one song led by a lovely female vocalist. On Mercy Mercy Mercy, that vocalist is Shelley Massey, who does such a marvelous job on the delicate “My Lips Shall Utter Praises” that it is the album’s first single.

The most musically captivating piece on the CD, and the most different, is the final track, “Love Notes from the Piano.” It is a brief but haunting, lonely piano solo that flirts with classical music, and convincingly, too.

Those of you who follow TBGB know that inspirational smooth jazz is an enigma to me, but you have to hand it to Ben Tankard, gospel music’s best-known minstrel. He has staying power and his music always goes down easy like sweet peppermint.

Three of Five Stars