Cultured Media

If you knew me in college, then you knew that I listened to Over The Rhine. A quote from “Changes Come” has resided in my Facebook profile since I enrolled. My roommate, Ryan, and I listened to Ohio constantly during our senior year and to Drunkard’s Prayer near the end of college. I don’t know much about it, but Over The Rhine’s new album The Trumpet Child arrives on August 21st.

So it’s fitting that the first sound the listener hears on The Trumpet Child is that of a brass-and-woodwind ensemble, arranged by Detweiler like some lost Southern hymn. “We had been stunned by the whole Katrina debacle in New Orleans, and that was a big part of why we wanted horns and clarinets to be blowing through this music,” notes Detweiler.

And what of the title track? Who is this “trumpet child,” anyway? Detweiler explains: “Both Karin and I grew up around a lot of old church music. I think some of the old hymns taught us that words could be beautiful, with their titles like ‘Softly and Tenderly,’ ‘When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder,’ and ‘Let the Lower Lights Be Burning.’ A theme that recurred in a lot of the old hymns was the idea that the world would be reborn with the sound of a trumpet. We’ve all heard many of the great American trumpet (and horn) players—Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Stan Getz—and we’ve been wondering about the sound of that trumpet. Is it real? Is it a metaphor? What, exactly, is on God’s iPod?”

from overtherhine.com

The spiritual is celebrated in American culture and beyond. It is the source from which gospel, jazz, blues, and hip-hop evolved. It was born in the American South, created by slaves, bards whose names history never recorded. The organizing concept of this music is not the melody of Europe, but the rhythm of Africa. And the theology conveyed in these songs is a potent mix of African spirituality, Hebrew narrative, Christian doctrine, and an extreme experience of human suffering.

We celebrate the life of Joe Carter, who explored the meaning of the Negro spiritual in word and song through its hidden meanings, as well as its beauty, lament, and hope.

Speaking of Faith Interview with Joe Carter