Any concert titled “A Tribute to Mahalia Jackson” carries inherent risks, since Jackson did nothing less than personify the glories of gospel music. To attempt to honor her is to reach for the highest standards in gospel.
Yet the Jackson tribute that unfolded Monday evening in Symphony Center did justice to its subject, and to the Martin Luther King holiday it marked.
No doubt it would have been impossible to find a Jackson surrogate for this occasion, since voices as huge and radiant as hers turn up none too frequently. So the folks at Symphony Center who planned this event did the next best thing, engaging several exceptional singers to take on the Jackson legacy.
The result was a magnificent concert of vocal music that said a great deal about the black musical tradition in America.
Singer Mavis Staples opened the evening, standing front and center as she traversed some of the key selections in Jackson’s immense repertoire. Sharing a stage with a lone accompanist, who alternately played organ and piano, Staples avoided gimmicks of any sort: There were no backup singers, no rhythm section, no horns and strings, no smoke and lights.
Instead, she simply let loose with some of the most deeply felt gospel music that Symphony Center has heard in a long time. Her instrument may not have been as plush and all-encompassing as Jackson’s (whose is?), but the ferocity of Staples’ singing and the authenticity of her style surely evoked the spirit of Jackson’s music.
Staples covered most of the essential bases, producing dramatic tempo changes in “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” irresistibly swaying rhythms in “He’s Got the Whole Wide World In His Hands” and intricately embellished lines in “Wade in the Water.”
But the most searing moment came in her reading of Thomas A. Dorsey’s “Precious Lord,” perhaps the most universally revered song in all of gospel. Here was a “Precious Lord” as personal and emotionally wrenching as any this listener has heard in live performance. The poignant stops and starts, the rasping shouts, the thunderous vocal climaxes made this something more than just a concert performance.
In effect, this was a prayer, dispatched before a listening audience but directed toward a higher source. As such, it underscored the profound role that gospel music has played in black life, transcending art and entertainment and aspiring toward personal redemption.
Through it all, Staples shared the stage with a single instrumentalist, keyboardist Lucky Peterson. The simplicity and transparency of this partnership, with Peterson accompanying Staples precisely as he would have done in church, proved disarming.
The a cappella group Take 6 had the unenviable task of following Staples, yet these gifted singers wasted no time in changing the tone of the evening to suit their pop-tinged performance style. Though their message always has been a sacred one, the sextet approaches gospel with an eye toward show business.
Together, Staples, Peterson and the singers of Take 6 gave Chicago an indelible Martin Luther King Day celebration.
An event of this sort ought to become an annual rite at Symphony Center, and judging by the audience response, it just might.
