Ben Tankard music for my soul

Ben Tankard who is known as “The Godfather” of Gospel Jazz
He's been called "the Quincy Jones of Gospel," and besides being one of the best-selling instrumentalists in Christian music, keyboard player Ben Tankard has justified this tag.

              Ben Tankard music for my soul Playlist


From Wikipedia
Ben Tankard (born January 24, 1964) is a 6'6" former professional basketball player and an American gospel, jazz keyboardist producer, author, recording artist, and songwriter with over 200 songs recorded. Tankard and his wife Jewel donate their time as non-salary senior pastors of Destiny Center Church of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Tankard is also a motivational speaker for the National Basketball Association D-League and a Reality TV co-star with the Bravo show - Thicker Than Water: The Tankards.

On August 21, 2013 Tankard was nominated for three Gospel Music Dove Awards. These nominations were for Tankard's most recent CD release, Full Tank, and the categories included: Contemporary Gospel/Urban Song of the Year, Contemporary Gospel/Urban Album of the Year, and Instrumental Album of the Year. His WOW Gospel 2006 Collaboration CD with Shirley Murdock, Kirk Franklin, Marvin Sapp, and others climbed to #1 Gospel and #20 on Billboard Top 200 and is certified Gold.

After a brief stay in the Canadian and U.S. professional basketball arena as a 6'6" shooting guard, Tankard left the league with a knee injury and turned to his new love, music. He discovered his gift to play jazz piano in a church miracle service and immediately changed his life's course from sports to music. He considers his keyboard and producer talents gifts from God and has never taken music lessons.

In 1990 at just twenty five years old, Tankard discovered a third grade school teacher named Yolanda Adams, and signed her to his new independent record label, Tribute Records (Ben-Jamin' Universal Music). He produced several of her earlier works including: Through the Storm, Save the World, More Than A Melody, and Yolanda... Live in Washington. They collaborated on over 40 compositions. Tankard credits Yolanda Adams' voice for helping to bring his production style and keyboard playing to a large audience. Tankard has also recorded a series of well received instrumental solo albums and soundtracks, with music styles ranging from pop to R&B to smooth jazz. Tankard was the first artist to dedicate complete instrumental albums to a mixture of gospel and jazz, thus the term "GospelJazz".

Considered an industry trailblazer, Tankard has owned his own record label/production company for twenty five years . His musical accomplishments have earned him three Grammy nominations, eleven Dove Award nominations, and twelve Stellar Awards including 2010's "Best Instrumental Album" for his Mercy, Mercy, Mercy CD.  This high charting release featured an instrumental remake of the Chris Tomlin Christian hit song, "How Great Is Our God". Though many of Tankard's releases have received heavy rotation on gospel and smooth jazz stations, The Weather Channel, XM Satellite Radio and cable TV's Music Choice, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy was the first CD in the history of Billboard Magazine to chart on the gospel, contemporary jazz, and jazz chart all at the same time.

With his ability to assemble talent for his recordings, Tankard has been also been called the "Quincy Jones of Gospel", and is the bestselling gospel jazz instrumentalist of all-time with 18 solo albums to his credit.  In addition to his extensive work with Yolanda Adams, Tankard has produced and collaborated with several other Grammy Award winning, gold and platinum artists including, Take 6, Fred Hammond, Kelly Price, John P. Kee, Shirley Murdock, Twinkie Clark and Gerald Albright. He has earned 15 Gold and 6 Platinum records in his twenty five years in the music business.