Product Review

"I got into Memphis." So begins Dr. King's "Excerpt from Speech the Day Before His Death" at the start of In Search of Freedom. His arresting, mellifluous voice, heard eerily removed, as if coming through a bullhorn, retains all the splendid vibrancy of timbre and his singular gift for oration. His message is urgent: the stalwart journey into civil rights, civil disobedience, and the path of nonviolence has taken him all the way to "the mountaintop." On this disc these spiritual ideals are perhaps best understood in the lengthy yet clearly flowing "Address to American Jewish Committee," wherein King provides the reasons and constitution of nonviolent protest and the fruits achieved from its labors. Decades after his precious life was taken, King's language dances, resonating the very sanctity of living along with his Atlanta congregation, who affirm and encourage with "yes, sirs" and "amens." --Paige La Grone