What do you suppose an album of top jazz players hooking up with a gospel choir would be? How about Wonderful! Where does one go for inspiration to justify such a setting? Organist Mike LeDonne found it with tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, alto saxophonist Vincent Herring, guitarist Peter Bernstein, drummer Joe Farnsworth and percussionist Daniel Sadownick. With the help of vocalist Carolyn Leonhart, who put together and arranged the 14-piece gospel choir, Mike was getting real close. But to make it wonderfully genuine, he looked inside, close, to his multiply disabled daughter, Mary, who shines a particular bright light around Mike and those around him.
It's a shine we all can revel in with this album.
From Monday, April 29 through Friday, May 3, one cut from Mike LeDonne’s album Wonderful will be featured each morning in the New Day, New Play spotlight on my Daybreak show.
Preview “Put It Back” from Mike LeDonne’s album Wonderful, above.
