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Rating: Black. Like the night of the whites. Like the day of the blacks. Black, like the music of the blacks. Black like the blacks. Black. The night in her voice. The voice of a great woman with an eternally skyward gaze, as blacks know so well. They seek God, a Lord who shields himself with the sky and clouds, who remains hidden behind an immensity that sumptuous voices like Mahalia's can only sing, not understand. God is not to be understood, but implored, desperately called to descend from the stairway of stars and give a different color to the day of the blacks, especially in those distant times when they were forced by the burden of the master to chase after tufts of cotton during those long days when sunset was always damnably late. To those cultivators of slavery, whose arms couldn't withstand and whose legs wobbled in a yielding movement of defeat, only their voice remained, which during the day they were accustomed to imprison in their throats. One day they decided to release it, to sing, to make that damn Lord hear them, whom they were tired of praying to in thought, as their culture taught. The Gospel singing rose to the sky like lightning, and God, perhaps, was amazed to see it coming from Earth. How much we owe to these blacks, how much subsequent music was born from their pain. How many artists that we now extol owe the skeleton of their art to that pain, to that alienation, to that blues. How many whites inherited its nuances, thereby unintentionally creating a great and underrated paradox. The doubts and naiveté of those people later transformed into the rock'n'roll revolution. From the anger kept inside to the generational anger spat out, by necessity, by the duty of being a rocker.
Mahalia Jackson is one of the greatest and most important Gospel singers the music world has ever seen. A perfect bearer of black pain, an ancient, historical, consolidated pain. The congenital blues with which every black man was born, at least a long time ago. A true black "mama," one who had the gift of making her voice perform, of making it rejoice, sadden, die, live again. Her Gospel was hers, but it was for all those who were like her and did not have the opportunity and ability to live it beyond a plantation. I bought this CD with Repubblica, so frankly, I don't even know if it's an official CD or a compilation or what, and honestly, I don't claim to have a vast knowledge of this performer, whom I love viscerally. What I know and can listen to and feel on my goosebump-covered skin is that in these 18 tracks, there's all of Mahalia Jackson, all the Gospel, all the black tradition. There's sadness, blues, the references to a culture that perhaps today has almost completely lost itself, or perhaps it has evolved in its original characteristics. There's music that now is resigned, now is cheerful and jumping, often accompanying a totally opposite text. The pain sung on joyful notes. She did it really well. In this album, there's both the presence and absence of God, there's singing against war, against racism, the joy of small things, love in all its forms, not necessarily black, the acceptance of one's destiny, of one's condition. There's a powerful and sumptuous voice that hurts because it's so beautiful, that knows how to soften and how to roar, but without being frightening; she was known for her contagious smile, for her hilarious cheerfulness, for her strength. A true Gospel singer who knew how to extol joy without forgetting the fundamental discomfort of people like her.
TRACKS
1 . It don't cost very much
2 . To me it's so wonderful
3 . When I wake up in glory
4 . I want my crown
5 . Speak lord Jesus
6 . He calmed the oceans
7 . I couldn't keep it to myself
8 . Then the answer came
9 . The Love of God
10 . He's right on time
11 . Have you anytime for Jesus
12 . Sign of the judgment
13 . No other help I know
14 . Summertime/Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
15 . When the saints go marching in
16 . My desire
17 . I'm on my own way
18 . The lord's prayer
Tracklist
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