The sound of glory

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: Beyond the lyrics.

There’s a corner of Christian music that rarely makes it to radio—music meant less to be sung along with than listened to closely.

But for decades, that instrumental tradition, shaped by jazz and grounded in worship, has been developing largely out of view.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: One of its most accomplished practitioners is a German worship musician Lothar Kosse.

Since 1988, Kosse has released more than a dozen albums and his latest is titled, Shekinah.

WORLD’s music critic Arsenio Orteza thinks it’s high time that listeners outside Germany found out what they’ve been missing.

ARSENIO ORTEZA: In contemporary Christian music, instrumental fusion jazz goes back a long way—over 40 years, in fact, to the debut album by Koinonia in 1983.

MUSIC: [“Cuando” by Koinonia]

But CCM is primarily defined by its lyrics, and Christian fusion jazz is instrumental, a fact that’s kept it niche. But its second-class status hasn’t deterred the German electric guitarist Lothar Kosse from becoming one of its primary exemplars.

MUSIC: [“First” by Lothar Kosse]

This is “First,” a track from Kosse’s latest release, Shekinah. Like his numerous other albums, it’s on YouTube in its entirety, so you can check it out before buying it. Two of music’s most in-demand players accompany Kosse: the drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and the bassist Abraham Laboriel, Sr., who also happens to be a founding member of Koinonia. They have hundreds, and by some estimates thousands, of credits to their names. Also, like Kosse, they’re believers.

Kosse said he first met Laboriel in 1988, the year that Kosse recorded his first solo album, One for All.

KOSSE: I asked him whether he would like to join me on this recording. And he said yes, and it was a dream for me because I always was admiring him and Koinonia and his music and this friendship has lasted very long. And Vinnie I met in ’99 through a friend of mine, Matthias Heimlicher, also a great producer who lives in Switzerland, and Vinnie was working with him. And then I was going to Switzerland to record Rainmaker with him, which also was a great dream for me.

Rainmaker was Kosse’s third fusion-jazz album. It followed his 1994 release Rockland. Between Rockland and Rainmaker, Kosse released Die Flut—or The Flood in English. It was his first solo album of worship songs, a medium in which he has gone on to excel. In 2006, he even recorded an album in English, All That Sound.

MUSIC: [“Lion of Judah” by Lothar Kosse]

Kosse learned English as a teenager from a friend of his who, interestingly enough, came from Kenya. But Kosse’s German heritage is important to him. It’s one reason, for instance, that Shekinah includes this well-known melody.

MUSIC: [ “O Sacred Head Now Wounded” by Lothar Kosse]

Although “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” is a 13th-century hymn with an originally Latin text, its best-known lyrics have come down to us via the German hymnist Paul Gerhardt.

KOSSE: He was living in the 17th century, and his lyrics are still state of the art in Christian music. It's so wonderful. But they only work really in German. So I took ‘O Sacred Heart Now Wounded.’ I wanted to have another hymn on an album because I want to point to my German heritage and say, ‘Look, I'm coming from this country. We have not invented jazz and blues, but we have some music that is also very, very meaningful and very deep.’ And I try to bring it over to the other—to the other side of music.

“Bringing it over to the other side of music” isn’t easy. But Kosse, who began studying guitar when he was 13, has had impressive role models. Like many a budding boomer, he first wanted to figure out the instrument for himself after hearing Jimi Hendrix. He also admires Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, and Toto’s Steve Lukather. But it’s when I asked him what he found most challenging about making Shekinah that he mentioned the guitarist he admires most.

KOSSE: When I started to plan this album, I had a big sign over my brain. It was ‘Melody. Stick with a melody.’ And to play a melody on electric guitar so that it really captures the essence of the melody is not so easy. It's easier with a voice.… But with the guitar, it easily can get boring.… So I said to myself, ‘You have to pay attention to the melody and really shape the melody.’ The master of it was, for me, was always Jeff Beck. He was a master of melody.

MUSIC: [“Over the Rainbow” by Jeff Beck]

Because Vinnie Colaiuta was a member of Beck’s band, Kosse had the privilege of seeing Beck perform “Over the Rainbow” live. “It took your shoes off,” he told me.

And speaking of taking off one’s shoes, I asked him why he called his new album Shekinah, a Hebrew term referring to God’s glory.

KOSSE: The spirit of the session was actually worship from the beginning. It's about, it's about Shekinah. It's about—it’s about the glory. And that was the meaning of the whole album. I don't care about being famous. Being well known, at my age now, I think doesn't make really sense. Why should I do it? I like if people like it and enjoy it, but I like it more if they are blessed.

And just in case being blessed also means having your shoes taken off, you might want to bring a second pair.

MUSIC: [“Shekinah” by Lothar Kosse]

I’m Arsenio Orteza.

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