Missa Iubileum Aureum: Golden Jubilee Jazz Mass

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, bringing in liturgical pieces such as "Kyrie", "Gloria" and even the Latin translation of the Apostle's Creed among other pieces of Sunday Worship. It is all richly delivered by the glorious tone of either the bold cantoral tones of Kurt Elling or the reverent candle of Tierney Sutton

along with the St. Dominic's Schola Cantorum directed by organist Simon Berry". There are a few moments of musical recitative, such as the graceful reeds on "Agnus Dei" and the brass of "Great Amen", but for the most part you are listening to musical light going through a stained glass window on the rich "Communion" or the elegiac "Kyrie". How do you review worshipping God? As they used to say about Ellington, simply "Beyond Category", and as CS Lewis once said, "Anything not eternally focused is eternally obsolete". This one is made to last!