Brubeck: The Gates of Justice

"Dave Brubeck has always maintained that he wrote . . . THE GATES OF JUSTICE (1969) to bring together - and back together - the Jewish people and American blacks." Brubeck writes, "When I began exploring the music, I was thrilled to hear the similarities among Hebraic chant and spirituals and blues." Therefore, a cantor usually sings the tenor role and an African American the baritone role. And it would be hard to find any singers better suited to these roles than Cantor Alberto Mizrahi and bass baritone Kevin Deas on this recording. Being an alumnus of several excellent choral groups, when listening to a new work I usually ask myself whether or not I would want to sing that particular piece of music. In this case the answer was an immediate "yes, definitely yes!" Not only is this an incredibly exciting piece of music, but one that also cries out for justice and an end to hatred and hostility. Mr. Brubeck writes, "The deeper my involvement in the composition, the more apparent it became that I was no longer thinking in terms of social justice, as evidenced in the histories of Jews and American blacks. Rather, through their unquenchable will to survive and to be free, I had been led inevitably to the more basic problem of man (universal and individual), his relationship to other men, and ultimately to God."