Barnes & Noble
Renaissance motets, Native American chants, mystical invocations by contemporary composers, and much more -- who else besides the 12 vocalists of Chanticleer could pull off an eclectic program like this with such eloquence and grace? Time and again, Chanticleer has proven its mastery of vocal styles from the Middle Ages up to the most challenging contemporary idioms, so Sound in Spirit is less a departure from the ensemble's usual work than a culmination. The program's combination of old and new allows the singers to exhibit all of their strengths and to produce some sounds that are new to them, like the overtone harmonies of "Past Life Melodies." Also innovative is the conception of the album as a continuous listening experience. The tracks are connected by ambient sounds -- voices of nature to complement those of the singers -- fusing the program into a whole rather than allowing gaps of silence amid the music. Some of these effects (and a few of the performances) may feel a trifle too New Age for some listeners. But while individual tracks -- from Alfonso X's 13th-century cantiga "Como Pod' a Groriosa" to the "Night Spirit Song" arranged from Cherokee sources by Chanticleer music director Joseph Jennings, and from Giacinto Scelsi's sublimely disorienting "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" to the reassuring plainchant of "Beata" -- are rewarding enough on their own, it's the seamless flow among them that transforms the project into a unified and unique encounter with these varied expressions of musical spirituality. Scott Paulin
All Music Guide
There's a certain new age aspect to Sound in Spirit, an unusual release from the highly successful a cappella male chorus Chanticleer. But there's plenty here for steely-eyed rationalists, too. The disc marks a departure for this durable group, founded in 1978. "This is the first Chanticleer recording totally conceived for recording and remixing in a studio environment," writes producer Steve Barnett in the liner notes. There are ambient sounds, birds chirping, rainsticks, and thunder tubes. And other passages in the notes seem aimed at the readers of Spirituality & Health magazine. "Chanting releases harmonic energy, triggering a spontaneous identification with the sacred," it says here.
Yet anyone who thinks Chanticleer is suddenly going after the relaxation CD market is completely off base. The 14 tracks on Sound in Spirit have no pauses between them -- disconcerting, perhaps, to those who need frames around their classical works, but essential to Chanticleer's amibitious aim here. The group seeks to fuse materials from diverse sources into a coherent program exploring and evoking the links between the sacred and the expressive possibilities of the human voice. To this end they use mostly contemporary compositions, some of them, like Jackson Hill's "In Winter's Keeping," drawing on non-Western traditions. Joseph Jennings, Chanticleer's leader, contributes a Native American "Night Spirit Song" that, he writes, "is especially dedicated to the memory of my great-grandfather, Will Jennings, the last full-blooded Native American (Cherokee) in our family." This piece especially calls forth sounds you may never have thought you'd hear from a chorus in the classical sphere, but it's not the only one here that does so. Other composers represented are Giacinto Scelsi and the Tibetan-influenced Carlos Rafael Rivera. In the middle of the disc, Chanticleer goes back in time to revisit more traditional repertory, with a Victoria motet, a piece of chant with vocal pedal points added, and one of the "Cantigas de Santa María" collected by King Alfonso X of Spain. The effect of the whole is kaleidoscopic as the music goes from chant to diatonic harmony to dissonance, from pure intonation to intentional vocal distortion, all with the sequence of textures very precisely controlled. It's a remarkable hour of virtuoso choral singing, and credit is due to Jennings -- one of African America's least-heralded but most innovative and deep-thinking musicians -- for a fascinating concept flawlessly executed. Integral to the execution is superb sound from the engineers at filmmaker George Lucas' Skywalker Studios in Marin County, CA. James Manheim
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