‘Intertwined and continuous’

To experience the Michigan State University College of Music’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative concert is to be swept into a swirling celebration that’s been going on for more than 300 years and shows no sign of letting up.

Led by the Jazz Studies area and its director, Rodney Whitaker, Sunday’s (Jan. 14) “Jazz: Spirituals, Prayer and Protest” concert will follow the golden thread of great Black music through hopeless times, hopeful times and times like these, when it’s impossible to tell.

This year’s concert goes back to basics: the human voice and the hand drum. But basic doesn’t always mean simple.

The African Diaspora Percussion Ensemble, a new addition to the annual celebration, puts some serious skin in the game.

“Contrary to Western belief that the music is primitive, it’s very, very intricate,” ensemble director Kevin Jones said. Jones is a percussion master — not only in jazz, but also in the percussion traditions of Congo, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Venezuela, Cuba and many other cultures.

“You have to be able to articulate and understand the vocabulary of each particular drum culture,” he said. “There’s enough there to study for two lifetimes.”

The 10-member group is a mix of percussion and jazz students.

Jones is also a veteran of many R&B, soul and funk gigs and recordings, having played with the Isley Brothers for 13 years.

His global approach to percussion took root when he was growing up in Englewood, New Jersey, soaking up music at home (his grandmother played with blues legend Bessie Smith) and joining neighborhood drummers who played on the streets.

Later, he played with the fire-breathing jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp and Detroit bop legend Charles McPherson and evolved into a scholar-musician.

To Jones, it’s all one continuous heartbeat.

Vocalist Ashton Moore will lend his voice to a set of spiritual, jazz, R&B, gospel and traditional music at the MLK celebration.

“It’s like a lineage,” he explained. “If you follow the slave trade from Africa to the New World, slaves were taken from Congo in the early 1500s, from Benin, Nigeria, Togo and Ghana, and went to Cuba and eventually to New Orleans, and that’s where jazz started.”

Labels are of little use in a tradition so long, rich and unified, as Sunday’s musical banquet will attest.

“All of these traditions are intertwined and continuous,” Jones said. “Improvisation, syncopation — a lot of the rhythmic nuances of jazz are also in African drumming.”

As recently as the 1970s, hand drums were prominent in R&B, funk and soul, from the Temptations’ “Cloud Nine” and “Message From a Black Man” to the rolling, soothing bongos and congas of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”

“When you got to the ‘80s, that sound did not survive,” Jones said. “The hand drums, the congas and African drums, are part of this music. That’s why it’s important to have this ensemble play as part of this celebration.”

A powerful guest artist, Detroit drummer Gayelynn McKinney, will put a modern accent on Sunday’s percussion theme.

McKinney’s father, pianist and composer Harold McKinney, was a major force in the Detroit jazz scene from the ‘40s to the ‘90s, playing with many of the greats of the 20th century, from John Coltrane to Wes Montgomery.

McKinney will bring some of her father’s ultra-hip post-bop arrangements for the MSU ensembles to play, including a crackling vocal version of Eddie Harris’ classic anthem “Freedom Jazz Dance,” blown up to big-band proportions.

Gospel music is a root ingredient in jazz and an integral part of the MLK celebration. Come Sunday, the orchestras will breathe 21st-century life into gospel classics like “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” and former MSU associate professor of jazz trumpet Etienne Charles’ glowing arrangements of “We Shall Overcome” and “I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to Be Free),” made famous in 1967 by Nina Simone. Coltrane’s “Song of the Underground Railroad” roars like a locomotive of righteousness, while Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” offers a balm for despair.

By now, many of the tunes are familiar, even traditional, at MSU’s MLK concerts, but the orchestras will tackle fresh material, too. Duke Ellington’s simple, drifting hymn “I Like the Sunrise,” from his “Liberian Suite,” expresses hope for a better tomorrow. Vocalist Abbey Lincoln’s “Africa” is a time capsule of 1968-style swing, a proud image of the “land of milk and honey on the river they call the Nile.”

Whitaker loves to dust off nearly forgotten gems like “Heaven,” from Duke Ellington’s “Sacred Concerts,” a reverent idyll that pierces the murk with slowly refracting beams of melody.

Familiar or fresh, the songs will be brought to life by a stellar lineup of singers, including dynamic MSU grad Ashton Moore and versatile vocalist Rockelle Whitaker. Rodney Whitaker is also bringing in one of Detroit’s greatest jazz vocalists, Naima Shamborguer, a mainstay of many concerts and recordings with Detroit legends, from pianist Barry Harris to guitarist Kenny Burrell.

“She’s a great Detroit singer, one of the last of that generation,” Whitaker said.

Despite kaleidoscopic changes in the jazz faculty, student body, choice of music and roster of artists over the years, the mid-January MLK concert is always a sonically spectacular, emotional community celebration without parallel.

“There’s certainly a lot to protest about, but I’m focused on hope this year,” Whitaker said. “With all the stuff that’s happened on campus in recent years, the shooting we had last year, there’s a lot of people that need hope. It’s hard to go on and live your life without it.”

Jones struck a similar note.

“The whole purpose, not just of drumming but of the music in general, is to uplift and heal people,” he said. “If you go to a Baptist church, you can’t have a service without the band.”