Even across the few singles that she has released since I became aware of her, Jennifer Harper’s music has left a deep impression on me. Most artists can be at least labelled as making music in this genre or that style, but with Jennifer, just the name conjures up much more than such broad descriptive strokes.
And her latest single, Mary Magdalene, certainly sums up everything that is unique and beguiling about her music, everything that has made me warm to her music. It is a song made as much of space as it is music, where vocals are more than just a way of conveying the lyrical intent but which are also used as an instrument in their own right. Often the main instrument filling the gaps as one piano note fades and another is about to be ushered in. Music that drifts rather than drives, floats rather than grooves, which can genuinely be described as ethereal, a word often thrown around too readily, but not here. And it is music with a message.
The message here is of a woman, or perhaps more appropriately, women, being allowed to come out of hiding and being seen for who they really are, just as it is only now, after 2000 years of being painted with an image dictated by male church leaders, writers and academics, we are are starting to understand Mary Magdalene’s role in the Christian story.
As always a song of beauty and understatement, poise and poignancy. But then again, would you expect anything else from Jennifer Harper?
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