Sunday Gospel Set . 44 | The Ishmel Sisters

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Join us every Sunday to give praise with the Sunday Gospel Set on Radio Roofscape. This week we're looking at and listening to the intersection of the spirituals and jazz music. Our featured video is The Ishmel Sisters singing Follow the Drinking Gourd and reciting The Joys of Playing by George L. Davis. Here's the current set list ...

Duke Ellington & Mahalia Jackson - Come Sunday
Reverend J.C. Burnett - The Gospel Train is Leaving
Charlie Haden - Spiritual
Marion Williams - Michael Row the Boat Ashore
Louis Armstrong - Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
The Dixie Hummingbirds - Just a Closer Walk with Thee
Ramsey Lewis Trio - Wade in the Water
The Ishmel Sisters - Follow the Drinking Gourd

THE JOYS OF PLAYING
by George L. Davis, II

JASHANNA - Janel
Play little ones, with the sun on your shoulder. With bright smiles and sepia skin, let the wind breeze through your hair. Your afro puffs glisten with the sheen of the starlight, and your full lips taste the cool waters of rivers flowing from your ancient past.

JANEL - Jarinne
See now the gentle rain fall on the playing sisters, in Sofala, in Soweto, in Savannah, in Santo Domingo. See them jump and play and shout and dance. See her twirl, arms uplifted, in parabolic joy. See her roll and roll and stop with her face to the wide open sky. See her laugh and chuckle and giggle and slap her knees at her sisters, while they share this moment to never come again, but always remembered in times yet born.

JARINNE - JaShanna
Play little ones, with the moon on your ear. With the silence of the half light and the call of the night, melt away into the twilight. Your bantu countenance to illumine the midnight sky, silhouettes of golden memories, to the night prime. A primrose path for your beckoning eye for these joys, we sigh.