[Kathleen
Battle (Credit: Douglas Foulke); Spirit, 2009
CD of Cyrus Chestnut; The Best of Jubilee Volume II, CD of Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers of Los Angeles]
“Frederick
Douglass, the great 19th century orator, writer and former slave,
once wrote of the music he regularly heard emerging from the fields
and houses where he and other slaves toiled, “I have sometimes
thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress
some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading
of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.”
“Those words were
recited Saturday at UCLA during soprano Kathleen Battle’s
'Underground Railroad' program of African American spirituals, in
which she offered convincing proof of Douglass’ theory, with
inspired assistance from pianist Cyrus Chestnut and L.A.’s Albert
McNeil Jubilee Singers.
“It was the kind
of intelligently conceived evening that all too often is restricted
to February for Black History Month, one whose message and music are
relevant any day of the year. The 63-year-old soprano guided the
near-capacity crowd in elegant Royce Hall through nearly two dozen
traditionals, beginning with 'Lord, How Come Me Here?' through the
show-closing reading of 'He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands.'”
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