*Richard Smallwood, a virtuoso pianist, singer, arranger, and composer who is credited with pioneering and popularizing the classical Black gospel music sound, passed away on December 30. More than a ...

Jefferson's theory, he said, is that classical playing comes more from a visual culture while gospel comes from a more aural culture.<P> Jefferson has developed a curriculum on how to teach gospel ...

Few people know this fact about Handel’s “Messiah,” his quintessential, reverential masterpiece written in 1741: Mozart, himself, did his own arrangement of the work using more horns and far less ...

NEW YORK (AP) — When Grammy-award winner Jon Batiste was a kid, say, 9 or 10 years old, he moved between musical worlds — participating in local, classical piano competitions by day, then “gigging in ...

The prism of Black beauty turned and turned, and my mental vision board of heaven’s angels filled up with Dottie Peoples in the spangled armor of God, Mahalia Jackson’s elegant countenance, the Pace ...

Walk into the First Baptist Church of Bridgehampton as service begins, and the very first sound you’ll hear is music. “We welcome you,” the five women of the Joyful Praise choir sang on a recent rainy ...

NEW YORK (AP) — When Grammy-award winner Jon Batiste was a kid, say, 9 or 10 years old, he moved between musical worlds. He’d participate in local classical piano competitions by day, then was ...