Ben Tankard’s Got Mercy

Gospel/contemporary jazz keyboardist Ben Tankard seems to have struck a musical chord with audiences with his latest release, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, which entered three Billboard charts—Top Contemporary Jazz#11, Top Jazz #22 and Top Gospel #38— after just one week.


Highlights from the CD include the single, “My Lips Shall Utter Praises,” the classic “How Great Is Our God,” Tankard’s take on The Emotions’ “Best of My Love,” Sade’s “No Ordinary Love” and the Cannonball Adderly classic that is the title track.


“‘Mercy, Mercy, Mercy’ was the first song that I ever played in a band,” says Tankard. “This was the perfect time to record the song because it has an underlying message of surviving through adversity and knowing that God will give you strength to make it through anything.”

With some of the CD’s biggest highlights being Tankard’s reprisal of R&B and jazz classics comes the question of just what distinguishes his music from that of secular ‘smooth jazz’ artists.

The answer for Tankard is simple. “I believe there is a spirit God breathes onto my music that gives people a different feeling than the music from someone who is not of inspirational origin…”

SOURCE: Written by Lisa Collins, GospelMusicChannel.com