Missa Iubileum Aureum: Golden Jubilee Jazz Mass

Chris Walden and his great band breathe vibrant new life into our beloved Big Band tradition. Bravo, Chris... and keep the fires burning!
JOHN WILLIAMS

From his own Big Band albums, to his Grammy-nominated Symphony No. 1, or his hundreds of credits in film, TV, and writing for some of the world's biggest artists, composer/arranger Chris Walden has never shied away from monumental musical challenges. With Missa Iubileum Aurem, Walden was commissioned by trombonist & Napa Valley entrepreneur Ted Hall, in celebration of his 50th Wedding Anniversary, to find an original approach to melding jazz with the awe-inspiring tradition of the liturgical Mass. Recruiting "cantors" Kurt Elling and Tierney Sutton, along with the Los Angeles and Bay Area artists of the LMR Jazz Orchestra, and organist Simon Berry with St. Dominic's Schola Cantorum choir, Walden has created a soaring masterpiece.

The work is unique as a jazz composition as it employs the five-part foundational structure of the classical liturgy (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) found in the works of Bach, Mozart, and Handel, among other classical composers. As an integrated single composition, this effort is differentiated from the jazz works of others (e.g., Ellington's Sacred Works) which are collections of individually composed songs.

Ted Hall's 55-year dedication to connecting 2000 years of liturgical music with jazz began as trombonist with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Band at The Village Vanguard. Performing on the 1969 national PBS broadcast of The Requiem Mass for Robert Kennedy led to Hall's first uncompleted work in 1970, followed by a Dmitri Matheny-penned New Millennium Mass, Spiritu Sancto - performed at San Francisco's St. Dominic's Catholic Church, midnight, December 31, 1999 - and ultimately, this Missa Iubileum Aurem, celebrating love and the promise of eternal spiritual life, as a singular, joyous Golden Jubilee experience.

Production Info:

Produced by Ted Hall, Niel Levonius, Chris Walden
Executive producer: Ted Hall
Recorded by Leslie Ann Jones at Skywalker Sound,
a Lucasfilm Ltd. company, Marin County, CA
Assistant Engineers: Dann Thompson and Sean Royce Martin
Recorded January 8-9, 2022
Organ and Choir recorded by Dann Thompson
at St. Dominic's Church, San Francisco CA
Assistant Engineer: Sean Royce Martin
Recorded January 10-11, 2022
Solo vocals recorded by Steve Genewick
at Capitol Studios, Hollywood CA
Recorded February 7 and March 13, 2022
Mixed by Steve Genewick
Mastered by Eric Boulanger
at Bakery Mastering, Culver City, CA
Photography by Ben Torres
Album Coordination by Niel Levonius
Cover Design & layout by John Bishop

Reviews of Missa Iubileum Aureum: Golden Jubilee Jazz Mass

Jazz Weekly (George W Harris)
Not since Duke Ellington's famed Sacred Concerts has jazz so successfully melded Christian faith with modern music, and not since Bach has it been done with such reverent orthodoxy. Leader and conductor Chris Waldon comes up with the brilliantly inspired (in the true sense of the word) concept of delivering a true jazz mass for the faithful, bri ...

Midwest Record (Chris Spector)
A cat that once played with Thad Jones & Mel Lewis commissions a renowned studio rat to do a real rave up on liturgical music to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary. Roping in Tierney Sutton and Kurt Elling to help him take it to church, this is a jazz mass like no other. Bold, brassy and contemporary, this work is too encompassing for him not ...

Amazon (Dr. Debra Jan Bibel)
The Christian mass has been performed by jazz musicians before, such as Vince Guaraldi's The Grace Cathedral Concert, Dimitri Matheny's jazz/classical hybrid Spiritu Sancto/the New Millennium Mass, and Wynton Marsalis's The Abyssinian Mass, but a fully jazz big band treatment with soloists, chorus, and organ for the Catholic Latin mass is new. Miss ...

All About Jazz (Jack Bowers)
4-STARS First things first: there is no doubt that Chris Walden's reverential Missa Iubileum Aureum ("Golden Jubilee Jazz Mass") is beautifully written and wonderfully performed by the LMR Jazz Orchestra, St. Dominick's Schola Cantorum and cantors Kurt Elling and Tierney Sutton. Is it jazz? That is another question, one not so easily answered. Whi ...

Bulgarian National Radio (Margarita Zaberska)
The album was released in August 2022 featuring the LMR Jazz Orchestra, lead vocalists Kurt Elling and Tierney Sutton, the St. Dominic Catholic Church Choir and organist Simon Berry. The Jazz Mass was commissioned and the brainchild of California's Napa Valley trombonist and entrepreneur Ted Hall, (in honor of his 50th wedding anniversary), who dr ...