other stuff - Blueskalender.de Der Blueskalender 2016

NEW
Good' and the gospel-tinged singing and relentless undertow of The
Valentinos' 'Sweeter Than The Day Before'. A couple of tracks appeal
more to the dancing feet than to the critical ears, but the overall musical
quality is nigh on impeccable.
As well a s the Singles, the box Includes a coupon which enables the
buyer to download every track in MPs format. When I find out what
that means, l'H let you know. Meanwhile, I simply must spin that Dells
Single again...
Mike Atherton
^ OTHER STUFF •
S W E E T HOME C H I C A G O
Calendar By Martin Feldmann, Published by Pixel Bolide
Martin Feldman has produced his blues calendars since 2013 using
his extensive archive of personal photographs taken over the years,
of blues artists, clubs, gigs, festivals etc. For 2016 Martin has focused
on the 1980s and artists and scenes from Chicago's Maxwell Street sadly the area no longer exists.
The calendar includes street scenes of the Maxwell Street area; the
famous elevated railway clubs such a s the V&J Lounge (featuring
Kansas City Red) and of course the famous Maxwell Street musicians
playing the area. These include the wonderfully named 'eccenthc
dancer and singer' the 'Muck Muck Man'; Lefty Dizz and Nate
Applewhite fooling around outside of the tiny blues club Florences; an
unknown family including kids who played blues and gospel music;
Little Rat Rushing playing on a derelict Site in 1986; the crowd at the
Chicago J a z z and Blues Festival in 1986; and portraits of John Henry
Davis, J . B . Hutto, Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis and his son, and Andrew
'Big Voice' Odom.
A fine historical record to adorn your walls! For more Information
contact; www.blueskalender.de
Blues&Rhythm,No.305, Christmas 2015
Tony Burke
A CITY C A L L E D HEAVEN: Chicago And The Birth
of Gospel Music
Robert IM. Marovich
Universlty of Illinois Press, Urbana, 2015; 441 pages;
ISBN: 978-0-252-08069-2; paperback; $29.95
Not many books, thankfully have to start by referring to a fire
destroying a substantial chunk of what would have been Its source
material. However, the fire at Pilgrim Baptist Church In Chicago on 6th
January 2006, which carried off the archives of gospel music pioneer
Thomas A. Dorsey Georgia Tom to blues buffs, had exactiy this effect.
Researchers always look at the notes first when confronted by any
work with serious pretensions and it is clear that the author has left few
other stones unturned In his effort to teil his Störy. He is the founder
and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Gospel Music and has Interviewed
a great number of the participants in the formative years of Chicago
gospel music, as well as Consulting a wide ränge of published sources,
including extensive use of the Chicago press and Ruth A. Smith's 1935
biography of Thomas Dorsey.
However, this is to get ahead of the story. He divides his account Into
two sections, calied 'Roots' and 'Branches'. The first section opens with
consideration of the Chicago religlous scene at the time of the Great
Migration, the 'Old Landmark' churches and their relatively staid musical
aspirations. "Although," he says, "some demonstrative expression was
allowed at the Old Landmarks, newiy arrived migrants were nevertheless perplexed by the formal Services that had more In common with
their white counterparts than with Churches in the rural South." The rest
of the book is essentially about how this clash of sub-cultures played
out and of course the amazing music made along the way.
Southern churches generally allowed a much greater degree of
Improvisation and rhythmic freedom, especially the Church of God in
Christ (COGIC), which "played the most significant role in planting the
seeds of gospel music" In Chicago. C O G I C also provided the artists
on the first recordings he identifies a s 'gospel music' in dlstlnctlon to
earlier religious Idioms, Arizona Dranes, and Rev. Ford Washington
McGee, whose records are analysed in detall, along with those of
Rev. D.C. Rice and Leora R o s s of The Church of The Living God. The
terminology used here is not exactiy that used by record collectors, who
have historically applied the term 'gospel music' to all African-American
religlous music not tied to European rhythmic practice.
RELEASES
A whole chapter is devoted to a fascinating analysis of one of the
most Important transitional ensembles, the Pace Jubilee Singers and
their big-voiced lead singer Hattle Parker. Their work, a s collectors
know, Covers the whole ränge from staid anthems to riotously swinging
portents of the future, as Marovich regards them. Having this breadth of
repertoire and treatment put into context is very valuable. Henry Pace
himself had led a dance band in Benton Harber, Michigan, and this,
like Tom Dorsey's background in Jazz and blues, helps to encapsulate
the extent to which this story is one of wearing down the resistance
of the traditional denominations to the use in church of practices they
associated with secular music.
There is no point in retelling the subsequent history in a review.
The author does It quite well enough, alternating between very dense
historical accounts of the participants' activities, analyses of crucial
recordings, and accounts of how the gospel business developed,
especially the crucial role of music Publishing and sheet music
distribution. Consideration is also glven to the various organisations
and Conventions which helped new songs and practices to spread a s
fast a s a popular-music trend. He gives accounts of 'song battles' with
presentation and content resembling jam sessions and cutting contests
in the secular World.
In both the 'Roots' and 'Branches' sections significant space is
devoted to the role of radio in providing an outlet for the burgeoning
music scene, and one can but wish that llsteners to these many radIo
broadcasts had belonged to a demographic that could afford recording
apparatus. A later chapter considers gospel television and goes in detall
into the role of the long-running 'Jubilee Showcase', most of which does
survive. He glves cast lists of the first thirteen erased episodes!
Inevitably there are sections of the book which contaln more
biographlcal material than any reader will be able to take In In one
reading, and which might have been better relegated to some kind of
reference appendix. This applles especially to the changing personnels
of groups and choruses. T h e author has been able to make use of
official records now available for consultatlon on the Internet and has
wisely relegated to the notes consideration of the variant Information
sometimes uncovered by this means. Note 63 to Chapter 6 concerning
Roberta Martin's birth date(s) is a good example of his sure grasp of the
mechanics of research. Fortunately the book is well-indexed. It need
hardly be reiterated that all the expected players get füll coverage, a s
well as many names known only to specialists.
I suspect that most of those whose interest in gospel music is
primarily or wholly musical have little awareness of the relationshlp of
the music to the various denominations to which the performers owed
alleglance. A chapter is devoted to the growth of inter-denominational
Community choirs because membership in a church choir was reserved
for members of that church.
The story is brought to an end, a ragged one, in the years after
1959. "A tsunami of change was charging westward from Detroit" in
the person of J a m e s Cleveland, who brought his 125-voice choir to
Chicago in July "Before Detroit", explains Charles Clency "the sound
of gospel w a s the groups." "But when Detroit came, everything became
choirs." From the early '60s gospel groups increasingly made use of not
only the techniques but also the aesthetic of soul and pop music, while
at the same time artists began, Initially in some cases as a contribution
to the Civil Rights Movement, to incorporate songs of social rather then
religious significance into their repertoire creating an Idiom actually
referred to at the time a s 'gos-pop'. "Gos-pop teaches a way of life,"
sald Ralph Bass, a soundbite which could not better encapsulate the
Invasion of commerclal priorlties which diminished the music at this
time.
Appendices list African-American sacred recordings made in the
1920s and 1930s, and what looks like a very comprehensive bibliography. Curiously there is no list of any post-1941 recordings and
the reader looking to actually hear any of the music is left without
the slightest compass, an odd decision. Roberta Martin died in 1969,
Mahalla Jackson In 1972, and their deaths introduce the author's brief
final chapter on the continuing tradition of traditional gospel music in
Chicago. He gives a Short list of younger recruits for whom some kind
of recordings list would have been particularly welcome but perhaps not
to the author's purposes.
I could not posslbly recommend this book as strongly as it deserves
without ludicrous hyperbole, a truly major contribution to the history of
African-American music.
Howard Rye
B L U E S , HOW DO Y O U D O ? : Paul Oliver and the
Transatlantic Story of the Blues
Christian O'Connell
University Of Michigan Press; 251 pages; illustrated;
ISBN978 0 472 05267 7; £36.50
In my very early days of buying blues records, I tended to be suspicious
of any name that I couldn't find in the Index of Paul Oliver's 'The Story Of
The Blues'. How could they be worthy of attentlon? Who is this Frankie
Lee Sims, anyway? Naive, of course, but It's one small example of
43 » B&R » 305