February is traditionally Black History Month, and since Lent , when Julian Sheffield and Deirdre Good will conduct their series on an important new translation/interpretation of the Book of Job, doesn’t begin until March, we have a full month to explore the rich musical trove of the Black Church.
As you may know, the USPS just issued a commemorative stamp honoring the late Gwen Ifill, television journalist and commentator on PBS.  She did a televised interview a few years ago with Aretha Franklin — who had deep roots in gospel music — and not long before the singer’s own death.  That interview has been archived, and we should be able to access it during our session this Sunday, followed by selections from Aretha’s ‘Amazing Grace’ album back-to-back recordings from January 1972.
In coming weeks, our ‘text’ will be from the Smithsonian Folkways collection ‘Wade in the Water’ – sacred songs from days of slavery, but sung in concerts since the 1870’s.  Choirs in the collection are from ‘HBCs’ (historically black colleges), annotated by Bernice Johnson Reagon (Sweet Honey in the Rock).  Some selections were used by WEB DuBois as musical epigraphs to essays in his 1903 sociological study ‘The Souls of Black Folk’.
At month’s end – the ‘Abyssinian Mass’ of Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra – an amazing piece (> 2 hours long) that could take up two Sundays… just like jazz musicians, we can improvise as the month moves along.