By and by is the debut album for the Graham South Quartet, featuring Richard Jones (piano), Seth Bennett (bass) and Johnny Hunter (drums). It is a suite of the five African American spirituals used by Michael Tippett in A Child of Our Time and these arrangements were commissioned by Southwell Music Festival to complement a 2018 performance of Tippett’s piece.
My arrangements of the songs are deliberately sparse, in a way that highlights and aims to show great respect to the melodic beauty and the depth of wisdom inherent in them. Ample space is given for individual and group improvisation, all profoundly influenced by the content of the original spirituals.