Exulting in Ellington’s spirituality

In 1965, Duke Ellington brought his jazz orchestra into San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, where he premiered his First Sacred Concert. Over the next nine years, Ellington would write two more sacred concerts and perform them in churches and synagogues around the world.

I don’t think anyone doubted Ellington’s sincerity. He explained himself with marvelous eloquence when he said, “The jazz Mass is people talking to God. The sacred concert we perform is people talking to people about God. There is a difference.”

Still, there was controversy. I was a college student in the ‘60s, and I remember nothing but negativity. My music teachers attacked Ellington for naivete. My hip jazz friends considered him spiritually retrogressive compared with the mystically overwhelming John Coltrane, and they angrily accused him of selling out to institutionalized religion. White churchgoers complained, often with an undercurrent of racism, about the inappropriateness of jazz in the chapel, to say nothing of the tap dancers.

Times have changed. No self-respecting music department dares not teach Ellington. And try to find a church that does not welcome jazz. Even so, it was a bold challenge for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, in collaboration with the Luckman Jazz Orchestra, to attempt an Ellington sacred concert of its own in Walt Disney Concert Hall on Sunday night.

There is no way to actually re-create an Ellington sacred concert; the music was written for Ellington’s orchestra, a unique group of virtuosic improvisers who could play with a single spirit as well as individuality. Moreover, the Disney concert was an amalgam of numbers from the three individual sacred concerts, and Ellington’s band changed over the years, especially with the deaths of some veteran players.

Still, the challenge was met. The evening wasn’t Duke, of course, but it was rousing and it was more than history.

Ellington wanted his religious music to speak plainly and in his language. He kept his spiritual ideas basic and nondenominational. And what was once considered divisive music now feels, in our own religiously disjointed era, universal. Whether Ellington’s numbers solemnly sing the blues or raise the rafters, the message is always brotherhood.

For the Disney concert, the Master Chorale was augmented by the Faithful Central Bible Church Heritage Chorale into one vibrant body that, as conducted by Grant Gershon, feared no rhythm. Meanwhile, the Luckman’s James Newton shared the stage at an adjacent podium. Sometimes Gershon and Newton conducting their individual ensembles at the same time, in exhilarating duet.

The First Sacred Service began with a 20-minute tone poem, “In the Beginning God,” for baritone soloist, chorus and orchestra, that is all over the map musically. Nmon Ford, who was more charismatic than I had ever seen him and greatly helped by amplification, paraded around the stage announcing all the things that there weren’t before the creation.

Even more impressive was Darius de Haas, a jazz and Broadway singer who sang “Heaven” simply but with burning fire. Perhaps it will never be possible to get Mahalia Jackson out of one’s mind, but Bobette Jamison-Harrison’s dressing up “Come Sunday” with a breathy soul singer’s inflated adornments was an effort to go in a different, flashier direction.

The Luckman Jazz Orchestra proved more effective Ellingtonians collectively than individually. Newton calls what he does “conduction,” using body language to achieve gripping group improvisation. Some solos disappointed, but not those of baritone saxophonist Bennie Maupin in “In the Beginning God” or Nolan Shaheed delivering his trumpet “sermon” in “The Shepherd Who Watches Over the Night Flock.”

And, yes, there were tap dancers, two of them, for the big finales that ended the first two sacred services, “David Danced Before the Lord With All His Might” and “Praise God and Dance.” Ardie Bryant, who danced with Ellington, is now 75, has still got it and knows it -- to everyone’s delight.

But it was Channing Cook Holmes, a young sensation, who nearly stole the evening. You never knew what he would do next. He had at least 50 steps I had never seen before. He demonstrated, in a way that musicians might learn from, that it is possible to find modern ways to keep Ellington alive.

Amplification reigned, which is always a problem in Disney. It was uneven but, for the first time in my experience, almost acceptable in the second half.

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Los Angeles Master Chorale

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: Today, 7:30 p.m.

Price: $25-$75

Contact: (213) 972-7282