Damien Sneed Joins Wynton Marsalis on The Abyssinian Mass

Blue Engine Records Releases The Abyssinian Mass Double album + bonus documentary DVD from the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis featuring Damien Sneed and Chorale Le Chateau

Available in stores, online and streaming on March 18

Landmark collaboration of jazz, gospel, instrumentation

and vocals marks Marsalis’s first original recorded composition in six years

New York, NY – February 8, 2016– Raise your voices and lift your hearts as Blue Engine Records releases The Abyssinian Mass by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis featuring Damien Sneed, Chorale Le Chateau and Special Guest Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III on March 18, 2016.

The Abyssinian Mass — a landmark collaboration of jazz, gospel, instrumentation and vocals — marks Marsalis’s first original recorded composition in six years.

In 2008, nine-time GRAMMY® award winner Marsalis was commissioned to write a piece commemorating the 200th anniversary of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church. The result was a sacred celebration: a sweeping composition for big band and 70-piece gospel choir conducted by Damien Sneed. The work’s popularity sustained a 16-city, 19-concert tour that brought the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, award-winning recording artist Damien Sneed and his choir Chorale Le Chateau across the American south and into deep dialogue with the black tradition.

“Many of the greatest jazz musicians today come out of the church. The church is one of the last places that retain the actual feeling of the blues in sound and also the call-and-response rituals that are central to our music,” said Wynton Marsalis. “The principal fact ofThe Abyssinian Mass—the feeling that we want you to come away with—is uplift through the way that we all come together.”
Blue Engine Records releases The Abyssinian Mass as a double album with bonus documentary DVD featuring performances, interviews and insights behind the music.