Gospel Meets Jazz, With Unpredictable Results

Don Byron released Love, Peace, and Soul with his New Gospel Quintet on Feb.?

Part I ?

Part II?

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: We're listening to some music you might hear in church, but not in the style you'd expect. Two new jazz albums reinterpret gospel songs, but in very different ways.

Tom Moon has this review of both albums - one from Don Byron, the other from Hank Jones and Charlie Haden.

TOM MOON, BYLINE: Jazz musicians, even non-religious ones, have a soft spot for gospel. It's part of the foundation of American music, an essential language, like the blues. That doesn't mean they treat gospel tunes gingerly.

From Louis Armstrong on down, jazz performers have seized on hymns and spirituals as a starting point for improvisation.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MOON: That's bassist Charles Mingus with his classic group in 1959. His approach to gospel has inspired generations of jazz musicians, including Don Byron, the talented woodwind player heard here on clarinet.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MOON: Byron and his group chase gospel's exuberant side, those toe-tapping, jubilee-style rave-ups. Many of their arrangements open with a vocal chorus followed by solo turns that travel far from what's printed in the hymn book.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MOON: The solos on Byron's new work are certainly high spirited, almost Saturday night boisterous. Sometimes, though, we turn to gospel for calm reflection, and this is where the new album from Hank Jones and Charlie Haden shines.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COME SUNDAY")

MOON: "Come Sunday" is the second gospel collaboration between Jones and Haden. It was recorded a few months before Jones died and it's transfixingly?effortless music, a conversation between masters, built around these solid reassuring melodies they've heard and likely played for decades.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COME SUNDAY")

MOON: Sometimes, jazz improvisation has a muscle flexing, look-what-I-can-do?aspect. Not this music. Jones and Haden are long past the point of trying to impress anybody. As they shut out the chatter of the modern world, the two go searching for a higher truth, a moment's peace. In these sturdy old songs of faith, they find it.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BLOCK: The latest album from Hank Jones and Charlie Haden is called "Come Sunday" and the new album from Don Byron is called "Love, Peace and Soul." Our reviewer is Tom Moon and you can hear more examples of gospel-inspired jazz at .?

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