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Musician Bradley Sowash, whose sheet music arrangements of hymns and spirituals for jazz piano are published by Augsburg Fortress Press and Morehouse Publishing, has a new jazz piano CD.  On this collection are well-known favorites such as “Down By The Riverside,” “When Saints Go Marching,” and “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need.”

Sowash has a knack for combining songs into a medley that flows from one to the other and back.  Case in point, the fifth selection, “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho” which smoothly segues into “Down By the Riverside.”

The problem with listening to jazz piano is that piece after piece begins to sound the same. . The challenge is to have variation.  Therefore, strategically placing “Joshua” as number five in a collection of ten pieces is a great idea. This medley is the best of the collection.  However, the last five pieces, “Beach Spring,” “He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word,” “Jesu, Jesu,” America” and “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” are similar in arrangement, and this brings down the CD’s appeal 

Bradley Sowash is a talented jazz pianist, but this reviewer would suggest more variety in the type of selection and arrangement.  That said the program notes titled “Improvise On Us, O God” by The Rev. R. Cameron Miller are certainly of interest.  Rev. Miller likens God to a jazz musician improvising on humanity.  A novel concept, but one sentence stands out, “…we can imagine God as an improvisationalist letting her fingers stray upon the keys of history and searching for the rhythm…”  In no other place in the notes, is God referred to as “her.”  Either a misprint or new music idea.
 
Copyright 2004 Marie Asner
Submitted 2/8/04