LIZ MC COMB (JAZZ COLLECTION)

Liz McComb, who settled in France over ten years ago, made a name for herself by playing the first sets of concerts for Ray Charles and James Brown. Today, she is the European ambassador of authentic Negro spirituals whilst remaining one of the most creative representatives of the grand tradition of the “Gospel Highway”. Michel Andrieu followed the highway from Charleston, where the first slaves arrived, to Cleveland, where Liz’s mother is a Pentecostal minister, stopping off at such legendary towns as New Orleans and Memphis. In this film we will also encounter some of the greats of Gospel’s history, including the composer Thomas Dorsey and singers Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Mahalia Jackson who symbolize Gospel music’s harmonious passage from ancestral memory to modernity.