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Come Sunday

This band will have you jumping in your seat.

About Me

The difference between Saturday night and Sunday morning is but a nanosecond, yet the jazz music so often associated with nightclubs and the gospel sounds that emanate from churches are often thought of as being light-years apart. Seldom have the two genres met, with the especially notable exception of jazz giant Duke Ellington’s collaboration with gospel queen Mahalia Jackson on a 1958 recording of Black, Brown, and Beige. “Come Sunday,” originally a feature for the alto saxophone of Johnny Hodges, became the most enduring melody from that groundbreaking extended work after Jackson applied her majestic pipes to a new set of lyrics by Ellington himself. The song title also became the name of a remarkable septet of singers and instrumentalists from Chicago that melds jazz and gospel in musically innovative, emotionally uplifting new ways.

Vocalists Bill Brickey, Sue Demel, Alton Smith, and Lindsay Weinberg, guitarist Mike Allemana, bassist Al Ehrich, and drummer Lenny Marsh comprise Come Sunday. Crosscurrents, the group’s debut CD, features 13 time-honored tunes refreshingly reinterpreted through arrangements by Allemana that are rife with melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic surprise. The disc’s title refers not only to the unique musical fusion the group achieves but also to the recurring water themes that flow through the set of songs that includes “Jesus Gave Me Water,” “Down by the Riverside,” “Wade in the Water,” and “Deep River.” Rounding out the repertoire are “Keep Your Hand on the Plow,” “Trouble of the World,” “I’m on My Way to Canaan’s Land,” “Too Close to Heaven,” “The Christian Testimony,” “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” “My Rock,” Stevie Wonder’s “Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away,” and, of course, “Come Sunday.”

“[T]hey smartly balance gospel sentiment and the jazz impulse to refresh (and sometimes entirely remake) these familiar spirituals,” critic Neil Tesser wrote about Come Sunday in the Chicago Jazz Music Examiner. “You don’t need to love folk music or gospel to appreciate what Allemana has done here, transforming songs from those sources into swinging and memorable renditions; more often than not, they recall the ‘soul jazz’ of the 60s, crossed with the cool, rich harmonies of contemporaneous groups like the Swingle Singers and the Double Six of Paris.”

All seven members of Come Sunday teach at Chicago’s venerable Old Town School of Folk Music, as well as perform with a variety of other groups. The impetus for the group came when bassist Al Ehrich approached Allemana, Brickey, and Demel to record the spiritual “The Welcome Table” (in Allemana’s jazz arrangement) for the 2007 multi- artist CD Old Town School Songbook: Volume 4. “The energy was so electric when we did the recording and the way that they sang on my arrangement,” Allemana says.

In fact, the recording of “The Welcome Table” turned out so well that Brickey suggested they add two other vocalists and a rhythm section to further delve into a jazz-meets-gospel mix. The seven members clicked so perfectly at their first rehearsal, in 2008, that they decided to form a permanent group.

Brickey and Allemana began looking for material for the septet to perform. Brickey brought in Lucie Campbell’s “Jesus Gave Me Water,” popularized in 1951 by the Soul Stirrers featuring Sam Cooke, and Professor Alex Bradford’s 1953 hit “Too Close to Heaven,” among other songs. Allemana had to look no further than the Old School of Folk Music’s extensive record library, where he selected “Keep Your Hand on the Plow,” “Trouble of the World,” and “I’m on My Way to Canaan’s Land” from albums by Mahalia Jackson. He also chose “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” and “Deep River,” songs he’d first heard years earlier on jazz guitarist Grant Green’s 1962 Blue Note album Feelin’ the Spirit.

“I’m struck by how much of our music comes from Chicago,” Brickey notes. Indeed, Jackson, Bradford, and the Soul Stirrers were all based in the Windy City, and Jackson even performed in concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music a half century ago.

Brickey, who has an avid interest in the history of the Civil Rights Movement, also was struck by how some of the songs on Crosscurrents—“Keep Your Hand on the Plow” and “I’m on My Way to Canaan Land,” in particular—had been adapted during the freedom struggles of the 1960s to lift spirits during demonstrations and the mass jailings that often followed. “The singing was powerful, and it gave unity to the people,” he says. Likewise, “The Welcome Table,” from his earlier recording for the Old Town School Songbook: Volume 4, also had been an anthem of the movement.

Allemana, while searching for material for Come Sunday to perform, noticed similarities between jazz and gospel music. “There’s a connection to jazz improvisation in the sense there would be a theme— the theme, of course, being something from the Bible—that they would sing about,” he explains. “The other singers might keep a groove, and the main singer would just riff off the theme on top of it.”

Brickey, Demel, Smith, and Weinberg take turns leading throughout Crosscurrents, and Allemana plays guitar solos on almost every track. Several members sing leads simultaneously during the vamps of “Keep Your Hand on the Plow” and “Too Close to Heaven,” their layered voices capturing the type of emotional intensity so often associated with traditional gospel music.

Allemana’s arrangements of spirituals and traditional gospel songs are, however, decidedly untraditional. He makes frequent use of dominant suspended chords and cites Gene Puerling’s intricate arrangements for the Singers Unlimited as an influence. The guitarist’s reharmonization of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” for instance, uses all minor ninth chords. “I was able to structure it in a way that the melody is exactly the same,” he says, “but all these other chords create this new tonal sound.”

Mike Allemana was born and raised in Elmhurst, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. He took up guitar at 10 in order to play Beatles songs. At age 12, his guitar teacher introduced him to the music of George Benson, and his mother bought him his first jazz album, The George Benson Cookbook. The LP featured organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, with whom Allemana would perform years later. The guitarist also worked and recorded with organ great Charles Earland. Allemana has been playing with Von Freeman every Tuesday night since 1997 at the New Apartment Lounge on Chicago’s South Side and has recorded two albums with the legendary tenor saxophonist. In addition to three albums under his own name—The Mike Allemana Organ Trio (2000) and Inner Rhythm (2006) and Lin's Holiday (2010)—he has recorded an album of duets with vocalist Gingi Lahera and two three with Brian O’Hern and the Model Citizens Big Band, an ensemble with which he honed his arranging skills.

Born in Dewitt, Arkansas, Bill Brickey traveled around the world as a boy with his military dad, whose eclectic collection of records by the Beatles, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, and the Impressions were early influences. Brickey has extensive experience in musical theater and with a variety of rock and soul bands, including the Chicago groups Steam Shovel and BLT. “Bill has a vibe for soul music that I’ve never come across before,” Allemana says.

Alton Smith grew up singing and playing piano at his father’s church in Fitzgerald, Georgia. “He’s got a real background in old-school Southern gospel,” Allemana says. Smith also is a member of Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel and the rock and soul band Mystery Train.

Besides singing with Come Sunday, Sue Demel is a singer-songwriter, prolific studio backup vocalist, and member of the folk trio Sons of the Never Wrong. Lindsay Weinberg’s eclectic credits include work with Baba Manouche, It’s a Girl, and Lindsay and the Shimmies and performing and teaching children’s music. Bassist Al Ehrich’s rich resume includes having backed Von Freeman, Ira Sullivan, Mel Torme, Dionne Warwick, and many others; he also currently performs with the Weavermania! Drummer Lenny Marsh, who toured nationally and recorded for Rounder Records with the Chicago band Big Shoulders, brings a strong background in jazz, African, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms to Come Sunday.

With Crosscurrents, the four singers and three instrumentalists who make up Come Sunday offer a unique blend of gospel music and jazz that is both artistically challenging and emotionally rewarding.

“This band has taught me about what I call emotional integrity,” Brickey states. “The thing that brings all these musics together is the earnestness of the performers. It’s like acting and bringing up real emotion and sharing that emotion and choosing emotions that are common and easily recognizable to people. That makes this music stick out and makes it transcend the boundaries of spirituality.” ▪