{"id":939,"date":"2020-02-11T08:09:46","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T08:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=939"},"modified":"2020-02-11T08:09:47","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T08:09:47","slug":"songs-of-praise-gospel-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/02\/11\/songs-of-praise-gospel-style\/","title":{"rendered":"SONGS OF PRAISE, GOSPEL STYLE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SONGS OF PRAISE\nGOSPEL STYLE !<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lanzarote\nGospel Choir, Teatro Tias, January 2020     review<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My wife and I had spent the previous\nhour in a wonderful new restaurant Arreyate un Millo, just around the corner\nfrom Teatro Tias, extolling the virtues, to our friends Margaret and Iain, of\nThe Lanzarote Gospel Choir we were about to see. That moment had now arrived\nand we were all buzzing with anticipation from our front row seats in the\ntheatre when, led by their musical director, Ezequiel Barrios, twelve female\n\u00b4disciples,\u00b4 all wearing angelic white tops and jeans, took to the stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
leading the choir<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

His seat and keyboard were to the left\nof the line and from the moment he hit the opening note, with the choir poised\nto soar as one voice, we knew were in for a real treat. Instead, Ezequiel\nstopped playing, and told his \u00b4disciples\u00b4 to exit the stage and he would call\nthem back when he had sorted out a few things. He instructed them in Spanish,\nand although I could tell the gist of it from his tone I had no precise idea of\nwhat he was saying. There may have been a hint of chastisement in his voice but\nthere was a twinkle in his eyes that belied that, and when the audience (all\nSpanish, bar a handful) began roaring with laughter, it was obvious that there\nwas some element of teasing here. In what was a great piece of showbiz schtick\nhe reminded us of our obligations to join in with the choir with gusto and to\nfollow his directions for \u2018call and response\u2019 sections. He told us too, and in\nno uncertain terms, that the ladies deserved a much more rapturous applause\nthan that with which we had greeted them. The next hour proved him absolutely\nright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What he had being doing, actually, was\nexercising perfect stage management. In the couple of seconds as he had brought\nhis choir on stage the musical conductor had assessed the size and mood of the\naudience and had noted a slight end-of-the-week lack of energy we needed to\nbring to the frenzy a concert by this enthusiastic choir. He took ownership of\nthe arena, united the crowd into one pulse and won our hearts by showing his\ncare for his choir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He now brought the disciples back to the\nstage, and the response from the audience, even as the choir was settling into\ntheir line-up, was massive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ezequiel paused whilst the audience\napplauded and only at the exact moment that applause might have started to fade\ndid he then start the performance of Freedom all over again. There was then an\namazing outburst of joyous energy from the choir that rendered the audience unable\nto resist. Soon we were all clapping along, swaying, waving our arms and\nhollering and whooping, and harmonies were ringing out not only from the choir,\nbut also between different sections of the audience. Because he had spent a few\nminutes alone with the audience preaching about the clapping techniques and\nrhythm we might like to employ, Ezequiel also suddenly found himself with an\nexcellent percussive line up of, by now about 140 people, with an ability to\nadd a syncopation to the music, (which is a euphemism disguising the fact that\nwe often all seemed to clap at different beats).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a problem when listening to\nSpanish artists talk. They speak Spanish ! And not only that, but they speak it\nvery quickly. So I can\u2019t always be sure of what I\u2019ve heard but at the end of\nthat first number I thought Ezequiel said \u00b4well done\u00b4 to us all, and pointed\nparticularly to we four English people in the front row. He seemed to focus on\nIain, and identify our friend\u00b4s constant thirst for knowledge and\nunderstanding, and for one glorious moment it seemed he might call Iain up on\nstage to join the choir, but sadly that was one miracle that didn\u00b4t happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second song was obviously carefully\nselected to show a slightly more refined tone of the choir and their delivery\nof Open The Eyes of My Heart was perfectly attuned to the mood of this\nprayer-like ballad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included two particular lyrical\nrefrains that were delivered with melodious effect, firstly by a solo member\nsinging \u00b4open the eyes of my heart\u00b4 and the choir and, subsequently the\naudience, singing \u00b4the storm is passing over\u00b4 to tumultuous effect, skilfully\nconducted by Ezequiel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time and again throughout these two\nopening pieces, the musical director had created false endings, stopped and\nstarted again, each time cajoling more from his singers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He aided them with his own\ninterventions, and his gruffer vocals perfectly complemented their own higher\nregister. His keyboard work, too, moved from the thumping to the tinkling and\nthroughout this concert there was constant rise and fade from all concerned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His direction of the classic gospel-soul\nsong Stand By Me brought a fantastic performance from the choir. Written by the\nrock and roll duo, Leiber and Stoller, with soul singer Ben E King, who then\nreleased it as a single in 1961, this was lent a different lease of life by\nLanzarote Gospel Choir. As with most of the performances tonight, a different\nchoir member would take a few solo lines in what was always essentially an\nensemble delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Anne Rees, second left<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Between songs Ezequiel was constantly\nteasing his twelve disciples, but the smile in his eyes and their quite\napparent adoration of him reduced all that to mere mutual affection. His\nrelationship with his audience was very similar. He told us off for not\napplauding a solo singer, sighed at our sensed desire to know more about the\nchoir and at one time threw his hands up in despair when the word hallelujah\nseemed to be a few syllables more than most of us were able to sing.\nNevertheless he told us of the nationalities in the choir, and I thought I\ndeduced that one of them was from Argentina (though I have since been told by a\nlady who should be my editor, that the lady is concerned is German) and one was\nEnglish. I know for certain that she is English because, much to Anne\u00b4s embarrassment,\nhe singled her out for our special attention from the front row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not once, though, did he lose the pace\nof the evening or the patience of the audience and he had us eating out of his\nhands all the way through the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hallelujah in question here was\nLeonard Cohen\u00b4s famously \u00b4broken\u00b4 hallelujah and it was delivered in a\nbeautifully wrapped package with Let It Be, in perfect Beatle-esque sincerity,\nAmen and a gospel number I had never previously heard called Help Me To Hold\nOut.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gospel music has long been a genre of\nChristian music.  Nevertheless the\nwriting and performance style of its songs and in fact even the significance\nand perhaps, too, the definition of Gospel music is determined by its social\nand cultural context. Composed and performed for many religious or ceremonial\npurposes as well as purely for aesthetic pleasure, Gospel music has also become\nentertainment product aimed at a large niche marketplace. Tonight\u00b4s performance\nwas scoring on all points, and the songs from Cohen, Leiber and Stoller and\nLennon and McCartney shared the same sentiments as the more predominantly\nChristian lyrics we heard in other songs on the \u00b4track-list\u00b4. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authentic gospel music has its roots in\nblack oral traditions and began to really emerge in the seventeenth century.\nIts hymns and sacred songs were often repeated in call and response sessions\nwith church congregations. The hand clapping and foot stomping from the\ncongregation became a hymn\u00b4s rhythmic accompaniment to the a capella vocals.\nThe first published use of the term \u00b4gospel song\u00b4 appeared in the mid eighteen\nseventies and gospel-music publishing houses emerged soon afterwards. The\nadvent of radio fifty or so years later actually increased the awareness of,\nand audience for, gospel music. It was only after World War 2, though, that\ngospel music stepped into the mainstream, filling major auditoriums with quite\nelaborate and intricate performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distinguishing features of gospel\nmusic include a simplistic delight in its lyrics and sounds, and the fervour,\naffection and adoration with which its prime performers deliver the songs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gospel music includes prayers to God,\ncelebrations of God, stoicism and a readiness to help a fellow human. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a more cynical world, these days,\ngospel music is sometimes, noticeably diluted when performed by those who have\nno belief in what they are singing to or about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love of life, though, shone in the eyes\nof every choir member tonight, and too, a gratitude for the lifestyle that has\nbeen bestowed upon them, even on this water-less land. Lanzarote Gospel Choir\nconvinces me they are the real thing. To borrow a title from a Neil Diamond\nsong (recorded by The Monkees), that with a slight tweak to its lyrics could\nhave been an archetypal gospel song, I\u00b4m A Believer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the final offerings the musical\ndirector, in a pink baseball cap, worn the right way round, and blue jeans and\nwhite t, and with the swagger of the streets rather than the aisle of any\nchurch, led the choir through Until I Die, and finally the iconic Oh Happy Day.\nThis featured yet another excellent soloist, brought out of the choir to centre\nstage, and then left hanging whilst Ezequiel engaged in a lengthy comedy\nmonologue with the audience. By the time he returned to his instrument, though,\nwhatever nerves she might have had were gone and she delivered an ecstatic\nversion, supported by an ensemble that was sending its sounds to roll around\nthe heavens. The audience roar at the end of the show was deafening, and as\nother choir members stepped down into the auditorium to greet friends and\nfamily, Anne (the English singer) even came and had a word with us. She\napparently reads our pages at Lanzarote Information on-line and she gracefully\nagreed to grant Sidetracks and Detours an exclusive interview and we will post\nthat, too, on Friday 14th<\/sup> February. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SONGS OF PRAISE GOSPEL STYLE ! Lanzarote Gospel Choir, Teatro Tias, January 2020     review My wife and I had spent the previous hour in a wonderful new restaurant Arreyate un Millo, just around the corner from Teatro Tias, extolling the virtues, to our friends Margaret and Iain, of The Lanzarote Gospel Choir we were about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-directing-singing-affirming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}