Hogan Chorale Bidding Eloquent Farewell

There is something to be said for leaving the arena at the top of your game--ask Michael Jordan--but in the case of the Moses Hogan Chorale, the leadership may be packing it in too soon. Having risen to prominence only in the mid-1990s, the New Orleans-based chorale is billing its 1999 tour as its last, after which Hogan, 41, plans to move on to other unspecified projects.

From the first chord of their appearance in the Los Angeles Master Chorale series at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Sunday, one was mesmerized by the gorgeous, subtly blended sound that these 33 voices made. They have great dynamic control and a natural, unexaggerated sense of swing, able to sail through the most complicated arrangements that their leader served up. They will be missed.

As an arranger of spirituals, Hogan is by turns tricky, eloquent and unpredictable. A chestnut like “Old Time Religion” emerged in straight-forward fashion yet “Wade in the Water” had a choral obbligato behind the tune that was always active and mobile, and “Elijah Rock” became a virtuosic contrapuntal maze. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” with flute interpolations by Kent Jordan, started out conventionally but with a sudden shift in harmonies turned unexpectedly dark and moody.

Hogan also possesses an impish sense of humor. Check the passage in “My God Is So High” where, out of nowhere, the basses swoop down with the line “can’t get under it.” And in the program’s only secular number, “Basin Street Blues,” Germaine Bazzle and Mary Mayo exchanged vocals and a scatted imitation of muted trumpet.

Hogan paced the performance shrewdly, sometimes having the chorale sing a cappella, sometimes accompanying it delicately on the piano, sometimes merely playing behind a vocalist. Soprano Renay Joubert offered an impassioned “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” and guest mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson intoned a range of emotions on several spirituals.