Music Mondays: Come Sunday

A young Duke Ellington looking over a score

Next time you get the chance, open the United Methodist Hymnal to number 728. The composer and lyricist of Come Sunday is one of America’s great musical giants: Duke Ellington.

Come Sunday became famous for a couple of reasons:

It was part of a monumental work by Ellington, the Black, Brown, and Beige suite. Composed in the 1940s, Ellington wanted the piece to convey the African-American story through music. It was panned by many critics of the day, who did not believe that jazz would ever approach classical music in terms of character and complexity.

Paul Bowles of the New York Herald Tribune wrote this criticism after the 1943 Carnegie Hall premier: “Ellington is the only jazz musician whose programs have enough musical interest to be judged by the same standards one applies to art music…The whole attempt to fuse jazz as a form with art music should be discouraged,” he said.

65 years later, Bowle’s sentiment has been laid to rest. We can look back with history on our side and say that racism was the reason this piece wasn’t initially recognized for what it was. Jazz was viewed at the time as inferior to classical music simply because its roots were in the African American tradition.

So this piece of music that is in our hymnal has an important American history component to it.

The other reason this ‘hymn’ became famous?

Her name is Mahalia Jackson.

I always get goosebumps when I hear her sing the chorus:

O, Dear Lord above

God Almighty, God of Love

Please look down and see my people through.

If you have never heard this piece sung by Mahalia, look for it on iTunes (I just downloaded it myself), or look for it online – just google ‘Black and Brown, and Beige’ or ‘Come Sunday Mahalia Jackson’ and you will find it.