Among this week’s readings, we find one of scripture’s most well-known hymns, Psalm 23. One of many psalms attributed to David, it has been set to music by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Franz Schubert, and even referenced in popular songs like the Grateful Dead’s “Alabama Getaway” and Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise.” One musical setting of particular significance is prolific jazz composer Duke Ellington’s groundbreaking, three-movement suite “Black, Brown and Beige,” first performed at Carnegie Hall in 1943 and later released, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, as an album featuring the renowned gospel singer and activist Mahalia Jackson. This 1958 recording featured Jackson singing “Come Sunday,” which would become a jazz standard and an anthem for the Civil Rights Movement, and a powerful rendition of Psalm 23. As it turns out, Ellington’s suggestion that Jackson improvise this famous psalm was crucial to the success of their collaboration and to the creation of these timeless spiritual hymns. So, let’s explore in more detail this important chapter in the long story of a familiar psalm.

In the 1940’s, Carnegie Hall was a premiere venue for classical music where very few jazz musicians had been given the opportunity to perform. Nonetheless, returning to New York after working in California for several years, and struggling to obtain adequate promotion at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Duke Ellington set out to compose a jazz symphony for a Carnegie Hall concert. As Ellington put it, it was to be “a tone parallel to the history of the Negro [sic] in America.” Up until this point, Ellington and his orchestra were known primarily for popular hits like “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” “Take the ‘A’ Train,” and “It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.” While catchy and broadly popular, this type of music was anything but shallow for the bandleader, and it would be a mistake to regard those compositions as less “serious” than his preparations for Carnegie Hall. As Ellington once explained himself, 

“For the music that I wanted to hear, it was a matter of hearing people working; bending over a washtub, humming, or just walking through the street in the dark, whistling; or maybe somebody playing a piano or guitar or something. Or you might hear a cat blowing the blues on a whistle on a train. This is all people’s music. This is the kind of music when you ask them, ‘Say, what was that?’ And they say, ‘Oh, nothing.’”

While “Black, Brown and Beige” would be something very different from Ellington’s usual output, it still possessed that purpose at its core: it was music borne of human suffering, perseverance and love (of God and one another), just as it was music for the people – not only in Carnegie Hall, but in a still segregated New York and in a United States that was still a decade away from Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery bus boycott. When the 45 minute-long symphony premiered on January 23, 1943, the sold-out audience included political figures like Eleanor Roosevelt and leading Black artists like the poet Langston Hughes and the contralto Marian Anderson. While this first performance functioned as a fundraiser for Soviet war relief, later that year Ellington would dedicate the piece “to the 700 Negroes [sic] who came from Haiti to save Savannah during the Revolutionary War,” referring to the Chasseurs-Volontaires de Saint-Domingue who besieged the British occupied city in 1779. Ultimately, although the premiere was applauded enthusiastically by its Carnegie Hall audience, initial reviews were mixed, a reaction that, as jazz bassist and composer Christian McBride suggests, probably didn’t surprise Ellington, given the symphony’s subject matter and the exclusive venue.

That, however, was not the end of the story. In 1958, after fifteen years without a recording, Ellington revised “Black, Brown and Beige” in hopes that gospel singer Mahalia Jackson would collaborate with him and his orchestra. And although Jackson, who worked exclusively within a genre that almost never intersected with secular jazz, initially declined, it was Duke’s suggestion that she improvise Psalm 23 that finally brought their monumental collaboration to fruition.

As you contemplate the artistic and moral work of these brave artists, I invite you to listen to Mahalia Jackson’s renditions of “Psalm 23,” “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” and “Come Sunday.” Listen closely, in particular, to the words of “Come Sunday” and compare them with the message and the simplicity of Psalm 23. Why do you believe these themes of trust and courage have resonated with so many people for such a long time? What have they meant to you, both in times of comfort and times of struggle?

“Come Sunday”

Lord, Dear Lord of love
God almighty, God up above
Please look down and see my people through

God, Dear God of love
God almighty, God above
Please look down and see my people through

I believe the sun and moon
Will shine up in the sky
When the day is gray
I know it’s just clouds passing by
He’ll give peace and comfort
To every troubled mind
Come Sunday, oh come Sunday
That’s the day

Often we’ll feel weary
But he knows our every care
Go to him in secret
Hе will hear your every prayеr

Lilies of the valley
They neither toil nor spin
And flowers bloom in Spring
And birds sing

Up from dawn till sunset
Man work hard all the day
Come Sunday, oh come Sunday
That’s the day

Another singer who was central to the Civil Rights struggle of the mid 20th century was contralto Marian Anderson, the first African American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera. Having been denied admittance to the Philadelphia Musical Academy due to racism, Anderson nonetheless burst into the musical world by winning a New York Philharmonic singing competition. Subsequently departing to study in Europe, she found tremendous success, even forming a close friendship and collaboration with Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, who composed and rewrote songs especially for her voice, one that conductor Arturo Toscanini regarded as “heard once in a hundred years.”

Returning to the United States, however, Anderson was once again confronted with the country’s vicious racism. Despite becoming an internationally famous singer, she was often turned away from hotels and restaurants while touring. In 1937, for example, she was denied lodging while performing at Princeton University, an incident which led to a close friendship with Albert Einstein, who hosted her then and on many other occasions.

Two years later, in 1939, Anderson was refused permission to perform at Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the group in disgust and determined to organize a performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial instead. On Easter Sunday, with 75,000 in attendance and millions listening on the radio, Marion Anderson sang before the National Mall. In 1963, she would return here to sing for the March on Washington and become the very first recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

To view, visit: https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/lord-my-shepherd-11494

Image description: Against a dark background, with a cracked stone and rough floorboard floor, a Black man sits with a book in his lap. He wears a white, loose shirt, dark trousers, and brown shoes.

Painted upon announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Eastman Johnson’s “The Lord Is My Shepherd” depicts an African American soldier sitting on his Union Army jacket and reading Psalm 23 in his Bible. Along with abolishing slavery, President Lincoln’s executive order authorized formation of the United States Colored Troops.