Tapestry of voices

The annual tapestry of music and spoken word will shine with a new filament Sunday. The luminous, six-piece a cappella gospel group Take 6 will shed extra light on the “prayer” part of the proceedings.

Some of Sunday’s speakers and performers are likely to chart a year of troubled waters in American race relations, but Claude McKnight, a founding member of Take 6, takes a longer view.

“What is happening now is not so different than what has always been happening,” McKnight said in a phone interview. “Every now and then, the Band-Aid is stripped  away from wounds that haven’t completely healed.”

Despite forays into jazz and pop, devotional songs like “Oh, Mary, Don’t You Weep” have been at the heart of Take 6’s repertoire for decades.

“Our message is no more pointed or fervent now than it’s been in the past,” McKnight said. “We’ve always said the same thing — underneath it all, people are hurting and they need to find some kind of hope.”

Inclusion has been the MLK tribute’s watchword for its 15-year history, most of them under Jazz Studies director Rodney Whitaker. The music juxtaposes knockyou-over, big-orchestra jazz with pure gospel and the heated protest music of firebrands like Max Roach and Charles Mingus. In past years, the event has paid tribute to Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, and hosted community choral groups young and old. There has been thoughtful commentary on themes of the day, from Hurricane Katrina to the inauguration of Barack Obama, and roof-rattling re-creations of historic civil rights oratory.

The concert welcomes all comers, but the ecumenical spirit is infused with the music and feeling of the black church, without which jazz, blues and the civil right movement itself would be unthinkable.

McKnight said the group feels right at home performing at a university event where the audience is a mix of Christians and non-Christians.

“People generally don’t come to the show to be proselytized or preached to,” he said. “If they just enjoy the chords and what’s going on, it can still do something for you and in you, emotionally.”

The group started in 1980 as a barbershop doo-wop frolic for McKnight and three fellow students at Oakwood University, a small Christian church in Huntsville, Ala. It was fun, but the school already had a rich heritage of a cappella groups. Mc-Knight wondered whether expanding the group might make it stand out from the others.

Providence provided. One day, the quartet was rehearsing in a campus bathroom before a gig when fellow student Mark Kibble, a stranger to all of them, wandered in and started singing along. He ended up on stage with them that night and is still with the group.

After graduation, everyone left the group but McKnight and Kibble, but they replaced those members and eventually added a sixth. (The current roster consists of tenors McKnight and Kibble, second tenors David Thomas and Kibble’s brother, Joey Kibble, baritone Khristian Dentley and bass Alvin Chea.)

The group’s sound blossomed into a supple, prismatic earthshine that earned it a record contract the day after it performed at a talent showcase in 1988. Its first album, “Take 6,” got two Grammys and topped the jazz and Christian charts. A hobbyhorse of a group turned out to be a thoroughbred.

“I was a music major, but I had no clue I would be doing this as my life’s work,” McKnight said. “It was destiny and luck and providence. We truly believe it is a ministry that we were indeed called for.”

McKnight finds it interesting that singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman won a Grammy as best new artist in 1988, the same year Take 6 dropped.

“The music business seemed ready for a more stripped down sound,” McKnight said. “Maybe it was a breath of fresh air.”

A string of recordings and tours large and small, including White House gigs for four different presidents of the United States, have kept the group busy ever since. Gospel has always been the group’s touchstone, but it’s ventured into R&B, pop, classical and folk as well. In a 2008 jazz album, “The Standard,” the group tackled challenging material like trumpeter Miles Davis’ “Seven Steps to Heaven.” (A hypnotic vocal arrangement from the same album, “The Windmills of Your Mind,” is a likely choice for Sunday’s concert.)

Stevie Wonder has a special place among Take 6’s stellar roster of collaborators, which also includes Brian Wilson, Whitney Houston, Ray Charles and k.d. lang.

“We go back to the beginning of our professional career with him,” McKnight said. “He’s our older brother and a great friend.”

Wonder pulled a fast one on McKnight and his colleagues when they performed together on a VH1 special in the 1990s. After rehearsing, the musicians stood behind the curtain as Coretta Scott King introduced them to a nationwide audience. As the curtain went up, Wonder whispered over his shoulder: “We’re going to do it a cappella.”

The newly formed “Take 7” did just fine. The band got a rest.

No lesson in spontaneity is lost on Mc- Knight and his colleagues. Six-part harmony is a discipline, but the group has a lightness and flexibility that’s light years away from barbershop, as audiences will find out Sunday.

“We’ll feel out the vibe,” McKnight said. “We might be in the middle of the show and let the audience dictate what we’re gonna do.”

McKnight varies the repertoire (and repartee between songs) according to the venue and vibe, but the message is a constant.

“We want to help people find hope in the right place,” he said. “And that’s love.”

“Jazz: Spirituals, Prayer and Protest”

MSU Fairchild Theatre 5 p.m. & 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 18 FREE but tickets are required. Tickets available through Friday at MSU College of Music Main Office, 333 W. Circle Drive. No phone or online reservations are available. (517) 353-5340, music. msu.edu