What makes this more than an above-average recording by an above-average small metropolitan choir is its status as a tribute to an important musician.
Moses Hogan, who died suddenly in 2003 at age 46, was a composer and arranger of African-American spirituals and other choral music. His arrangements successfully extend the tradition of complex harmonizations of the spirituals by
William Dawson and the other giants of the African-American concert music tradition.
Hogan's arrangements are dense, sinuous, and profound, making heavy use of extended harmonies (stacks of thirds) from jazz and exploiting the possibilities of the blue note in more elaborate ways than did traditional arrangements. The cover of this album promises "spirituals by
Moses Hogan," which is a little inaccurate -- the
Hogan pieces here are all arrangements of existing spirituals, most of them traditional. They are placed at the end of the program, with a variety of other contemporary takes on the music and texts of the spirituals opening the program (there are a couple of arrangements by
Robert Shaw, which make for a nice comparison). The sequence of events is thus a variant on the old glee club program in which restrained polyphony gives way to a big African-American spiritual finale. The all-white
Atlanta Singers do not bring the virtuoso passion to the spirituals that one can hear in the traditions of Southern black collegiate singing, but they are intonationally secure, and the album was nicely recorded in a suburban Atlanta church. Those tracing the impact of
Hogan's beautiful arrangements should check out this version along with the chilling renderings by countertenor
Derek Lee Ragin.