[Dixielandjazz] Amazing Grace presto

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

Steve Heist's comment that people don't like AMAZING GRACE swung took my attention.
Blind Willie Johnson gives the tune a chorus at meditative pace, and then goes upbeat and triumphant, singing "let your light shine on me".  

It's an interesting question whether a band avowedly playing "dixieland" could achieve the same edge and fire -- mercifully free of cheapening jollity -- as Johnson with his incredibly raspy voice, which some people who like some tamer dixieland would detest (really as too deep for them).
There is a biblical injunction against lukewarmness. 


I suspect that with tambourines et cetera many impassioned up-tempo renditions of the tune (with the passion of the words) have been delivered to the glory of God in quite a number of churches over the past century --

Hallelujah!

Robert R. Calder