The Light in the Wilderness

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Label: Decca
Year: 1968
Released on LP: Yes
Released on CD: No

Tracks

1. The Temptations: Chorus and Baritone Solo
2. Forty Days: Chorus
3. Forty Days: Improvisation
4. Forty Days: Brass Chorale and Organ
5. Repent! Follow Me: Baritone Solo
6. The Sermon on the Mount: Baritone Solo With Improvisation
7. The Sermon on the Mount: Chorus With Improvisation
8. Repent! Follow Me: Baritone Solo and Chorus With Improvisation
9. The Kingdom of God: Baritone Solo
10. The Great Commandment: Baritone Solo and Double Chorus With Improvisation
11. Love Your Enemies: Baritone Solo and Chorus
12. Interlude: Organ and Orchestra
13. What Does It Profit a Man?: Baritone Solo
14. Where Is God?: Chorus and Baritone Solo
15. We Seek Him: Choral Interlude With Improvisation
16. Peace I Leave With You: Baritone Solo
17. Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled: Chorus and Baritone Solo
18. Yet a Little While: Baritone Solo and Chorus
19. Praise Ye the Lord: Chorus

Personnel

Dave Brubeck (piano)
Gerre Hancock (organ)
Frank Proto (bass, del rhuba)
William Justus (baritone)
David Frerichs (drums,tablas)
Miami University A Cappella Singers (vocals)
George Barron (director)
Eric Kunzel (conductor)

Notes

1. Recorded March 19th - 20th 1968.

2. Music by Dave Brubeck; text adapted from scriptures by Iola & Dave Brubeck .

3. A CD was released by "The Musical Heritage Society" on mail order only. It is now very difficult to acquire.

Reviews

All Music Guide – Review – copyright

Dave Brubeck broke up his famous quartet in 1967 in order to start fulfilling his ambitions as a composer of religious concert works, and this fascinating, highly eclectic oratorio was the first result. Sprawling over two LPs, it remains Brubeck's longest work to date, and it lays down a general blueprint for much of what was to follow -- uninhibited thrusts into idioms that Brubeck had never explored in a jazz combo format, some interludes for his jazz trio, distinctively Brubeckian polytonal writing, and tricky meters and rhythms for the chorus and orchestra to follow. At one point, Brubeck's piano goes into an Indian raga, with tablas instead of a drum kit for backing (this was, after all, conceived in the flower-power era). At other times, he can be heard in strong, affirmative form with the trio in segments that dovetail neatly in and out of the classical writing. In one memorable stretch in Part I, the jazz rhythm section and classical forces meet, and the fusion is amazingly tight and right.

No doubt it helped to have an open-minded conductor like the young Erich Kunzel (of later "pops" concert fame) who could get the elephantine Cincinnati Symphony to swing and wail like a big band when needed. Above all, there is a guileless sincerity about this piece that communicates even if you don't share Brubeck's religious convictions.

Richard S. Ginell
© Copyright Rovi Corporation

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