Countertenors are rare, and on his Australian tour, African-American countertenor Reginald Mobley is introducing audiences to his unique brand of music. He has already given concert with Bach Akademie Australia in Sydney and Brisbane, but this program was something entirely different, featuring mainly African-American Spirituals arranged in a jazz style.

In this concert Mobley performed songs from his 2023 album Because, comprising mainly Spiritual songs, which he recorded with French jazz pianist, composer and arranger Baptiste Trotignon.

For this concert, renowned Australian jazz pianist, composer and arranger Paul Grabowsky accompanied Mobley. In Trotignon’s arrangements, the piano is an equal partner with the voice and Grabowsky was at his sparkling best.

African-American Spirituals collectively form an immense body of cultural material. In 1925, brothers John and James Johnson compiled and published two volumes of Spirituals, many anonymous, and much of Mobley’s repertoire is drawn from them.

Mobley’s webpage states:

“Firmly founded in the Black American experience, Jazz is the ultimate musical syncretism, a living magnet, drawing people together through its infectious swing, changing and growing with everything it touches. It is a tree with deep roots in the fields and slave cabins of American South, with vibrant, flourishing branches that stretch across...