雷金纳德·L·莫布利 Reginald Mobley – Because 2023 [24Bit/96kHz] [Hi-Res Flac 986MB]

DESCRIPTIF DE L’ALBUM
Countertenor Reginald Mobley has focused mostly on Baroque works and contemporary art song, but with 2023‘s Because album, he tries something completely different and probably unique: he performs African American spirituals. This may be the first such performance by a countertenor, African American or otherwise, and one may be forgiven for wondering whether the novelty is the main attraction. However, sometimes a novelty can be muted a bit if other ideas of high originality are present. That is what happens here, and the whole production holds together in quite a haunting way. For one thing, Mobley is accompanied in an entirely new manner by a jazz pianist, Baptiste Trotignon, who did the arrangments of the spirituals. This casts the melodic and textual material of the spirituals in a fresh light. For another, Mobley mixes spirituals with other types of music: art songs by Florence Beatrice Price and others, a jazz solo by Trotignon, and even I Heard It Through the Grapevine, which perhaps doesn’t fit the overall concept terribly well. The mixture has various fascinating effects, including bringing out African American inflections in Price’s language that are sometimes a bit submerged. There is more, including a wonderful choice of material (Bright Sparkles in the Churchyard is not a very common spiritual) and the sheer beauty of Mobley’s voice, but that is all for the listener to discover on a real sleeper of an album.
© James Manheim /TiVo

01. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon)
02. Were You There? (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon)
03. I Got a Robe (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon)
04. Why
05. Because
06. Steal Away (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Patrick Dupré Quigley)
07. Save Me Lord, Save Me (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon)
08. Bright Sparkles in the Churchyard (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon)
09. Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon)
10. Resignation
11. A Great Campmeetin’ (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon)
12. Sunset
13. My Lord, What a Morning (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon)
14. Jean
15. By an’ by / There is a Balm in Gilead (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon and Harry Burleigh)
16. I Heard It Through the Grapevine
17. Deep River (Arr. for Countertenor and Piano by Baptiste Trotignon)