Gene McLELLAN: Put your Hand in the Hand – Traditional: Just a Closer Walk with Thee – O Freedom! – Steal Away to Jesus – By and by – Amazing Grace – We Shall Overcome – Swing Low, Sweet Chariot – Standing in the Need of Pray – Lord, I Want to Be a Christian – He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands – Michael Row the Boat a-shore – O Mary, What you Goin’to Name

Les Compagnons du Jourdain, Olivier Nusslé & Jerome van Jones, Conductors.

“I believe that one day all humanity will bow before the power of God.
I believe that saving and peaceful goodness will one day become the law.
The wolf and the lamb will be able to rest together, every man will sit under his fig tree, in his vineyard, and no one will have any reason to be afraid.

I firmly believe that we will overcome.”

Martin Luther King Jr

Moved by this faith, Les Compagnons du Jourdain from Lausanne have chosen, for almost thirty years now, to sing Negro Spirituals and Gospel Songs. They have become the true “soulbrothers” of those who, every Sunday in the black communities of the United States, sing these songs, while deepening their technical work and seeking the real meaning of these hymns.

Even though Negro Spirituals, like “Steal away to Jesus,” no longer carry the secret meaning known only to fugitive slaves, these songs have retained their message of hope—the hope that allowed an entire people to continue living despite suffering and fear. Following them, the Gospel Songs composed today, such as “Put your hand,” express the living faith of contemporary black churches.

It is therefore a great privilege for Les Compagnons du Jourdain to have made this record with Jerome van Jones, a pianist from a black community in Baltimore where his father is a pastor. At the age of 18, this excellent musician, also a singer and composer, began performing with various jazz and gospel artists. It was while regularly accompanying the Stars of Faith of Black Nativity, the famous group from Philadelphia, that he met the Companions of the Jordan and a friendship was born.

“Together, black and white, we shall overcome…” sang, with Pastor Martin Luther King, 250,000 people on August 28, 1963, during the famous March on Washington. Today, this collaboration between Jerome van Jones and the Les Compagnons du Jourdain is yet another sign of this certain victory.

We shall overcome. We do believe it in our heart!