El McMeen & Ed Maina – Frets and Reeds: Gospel Style!

El McMeen & Ed Maina
Frets and Reeds: Gospel Style!
Piney Ridge Music (release date: March 25, 2022)

By Robert M. Marovich

Sometimes gospel jazz can be so imaginative that the melodies get buried beneath the lengthy solos and complex arrangements. But on Frets and Reeds: Gospel Style!, acclaimed musicians Ellsworth “El” McMeen and Ed Maina jazz the hymns, spirituals, and gospel songs ever so softly and tenderly without sacrificing the timeless beauty and charm of the melodies.

It’s a peaceful, easy album. McMeen picks acoustic guitar and Maina handles woodwinds, mostly saxophone but also clarinet and flute. The two take turns handling the melody and supporting with improvisation. There’s plenty of superb picking from McMeen, while Maina offers dexterous blowing, especially the wailing sax on ‘Power in the Blood,” which is the album’s main dose of Pentecostal power.

Among the thirteen tracks are a sobering but beautiful rendition of the spiritual “Were You There.” Maina offers bluesy reeds on “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” almost in a first-line-style. I wish the two musicians had appended an up-tempo second-line segment to the conclusion of it.

“Once to Every Man and Nation,” a nineteenth-century hymn opening the first of the album’s three medleys, is one you don’t often hear these days. I could have listened to more of it had the duo extended it but instead they transition seamlessly to a rousing “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” There’s also a serene rendition of the southern gospel classic “Drifting Too Far from the Shore,” recorded by the likes of Roy Acuff, the Monroe Brothers, and Hank Williams.

Frets and Reeds: Gospel Style! is mellow, meditative music for a Sunday morning or prior to a weekday prayer service.

Four of Five Stars

Picks: “Were You There,” “Power in the Blood”