Huge thanks to Mike for posting that clip of Mahalia Jackson (hereinafter: Mahalia) singing “I’ve Been ‘Buked and I’ve Been Scorned” at the March on Washington in 1963. I set out to post a video of her singing “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”, and ended up with much more than I expected:

It’s been said that the tropics are the locus for religions based on spirit possession, and New Orleans, Mahalia’s home town (and my own), is certainly tropical – indeed, often called the northernmost city of the Caribbean.  So it’s hardly surprising that her improvisatory riffing and expansions based on this ancient spiritual at least approach a state of possession – they are certainly inspired.

(And in fact, the one time I was lucky enough to see and hear Mahalia in a full concert setting, several of the African-American Holy Women there that night became possessed by the Spirit and had to be fanned and generally tended to, but that’s another story…)

But all this was actually part of a larger tribute to Louis Armstrong (hereinafter: Pops), who soon joins Mahalia onstage, and, trickster as always, introduces a certain jocularity into what has up ’til then been a rather solemn performance.

The music then segues with utter smoothness into a rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In” (hereinafter: “The Saints”), an African-American Spiritual about the end of the World, and something of a national anthem for us New Orleanians.  Enter also the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and George Wein to take over the piano bench.  The mood is thoroughly upbeat, rejoicing.

Now, in New Orleans, the playing of “The Saints” generally signifies the end of something, but then the music, led by Pops in an even more tricksterish move, segues again: this time into an uptempo swinging rendition of “Mack the Knife”, a charming little ditty about a cold-blooded killer, pulled in turn from The Threepenny Opera, by the German-Jewish composer Kurt Weil with lyrics by Berthold Brecht , in which the killer/gangster Mackie Messer ends up being “elevated” into the Nobility.

So we go from a prayer for closeness with the Divine, to a celebration of the fact that this world is less than permanent, to a rather blunt reminder of exactly how corrupt this world really is.