HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
http://www.troyrecord.com/
Gospel choir to make a joyful noise
By Don Wilcock, The Record February 19, 2003
There are two disparate views of Harlem. If you're white, you tend of think of anything above 110th St. in Manhattan as crime ridden, drug infested and definitely not a place you want to walk at night.
If you're black, and particularly if you're in the arts, Harlem is the seat of black culture, which is currently enjoying its second renaissance, the first having been in the '20s, when the term black culture was first proven not to be an oxymoron.
I asked Allen Bailey, executive director of the Harlem Gospel Choir, what the biggest advantage and biggest disadvantage of having Harlem as the first word in the group's name.
"Well, there's no disadvantage at all," said the leader of this prestigious African American choir that plays Hudson Valley Community College Saturday afternoon at 2.
"Harlem is the black entertainment capital of the world. Some of the great black entertainers have come out of Harlem, who also had their beginnings in the black church, like Sammy Davis, Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway. These great black entertainers all had their beginnings in the black church."
Bailey has gone in the opposite direction, moving from secular entertainment to gospel music. He brought this choir to international prominence only after working as the promotional director for such high-profile black personalities as Michael Jackson, Prince, Isaac Hayes and Lionel Richie.
"The most important part I learned from that is that these are giving people, and they really care, and they have a passion for what they do. They have a real passion for what they do, and that's why they're so successful."
They also have incredible egos. "It makes their heads swell, because with people surrounded with people always telling them how great they are day and night, they all have these entourages.
"'Hey, you're great. You're great.' It allows you to get a big head right away. When you work with the Lord, you don't have that problem because as a minister, you're here to give, not to take."
Don King appointed Bailey entertainment coordinator for the Mohammed Ali and George Foreman fight in Zaire, called Rumble in the Jungle. This was a true test of Bailey's Christian beliefs.
"I don't have a problem if someone says, 'Do this! Do that! Do this!' I'll just do it. Not a problem. Those things never affected me at all, trying to help, because I know in the end the final result is what you give is going to come back to you."
In 15 years he's turned a group of individuals from many different Harlem churches into one of the most famous gospel choirs in the world.
They were in the U2 "Rattle and Hum" movie performing "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." They sang for Nelson Mandela upon his release from a South African prison in 1990 and for the pope in Central Park in '95. They've rubbed shoulders with Paul McCartney, Diana Ross and Jimmy Cliff.
Their hearts are dedicated to God, but their mentality sometimes seems more that of rock stars. For instance, Bailey credits the Irish with being very spiritual people, but when he talks about touring with the premiere Irish band, The Chieftains, he quips, "Traveling with them, we found out the most important word in the Irish vocabulary is Guinness. Everything is, 'Where is the Guinness?' Those guys are so much fun touring with, you know?"
Make no mistake. Music is their ministry, but Bailey has learned through his years with big-name entertainers, that the way to people's hearts is not through jamming religion down their throats.
"We wanted to encourage a larger audience, because people don't want to be proselytized to. They can get that in church, but we get our message across regardless, and we use the songs like 'Oh, Happy Day' and 'When The Saints Go Marching In,' songs like that."
The group was first inspired by a Martin Luther King celebration at Harlem's famous Cotton Club. "We would get together in the evening time and do a lot of songs, cover tunes, but we made every tune into a gospel tune. The elders in our church won't allow us to sing all that crazy stuff.
"So we got together ourselves at the Cotton Club. The owner would allow us to rehearse over there. Some of the things we wanted to do, especially like the Kirk Franklin-type things or the types of nontraditional gospel tunes, we made that into a gospel-type song."
It may be difficult for pop music fans to make the leap of faith (pun intended) from rock to gospel, but just as blues is often misinterpreted as sad music by those who haven't experienced it, gospel has the double prejudice of assumed somber sadness mellowed by laborious moral overtones. Far from it. Gospel is a joyous catharsis and the basis for all blues that, in turn, inspired rock.
"Keep in mind," says Bailey, "the blues all came out of the black church. All the blues artists have their beginnings in the black church. It all started right there. What do they say? The blues is nothing but the truth."
If you're African American, I don't need to tell you that this opportunity Saturday to hear a choir of such renown is not to be missed. If you're white, I urge you to experience this event, which will take you deep within Harlem's second renaissance and lift your spirits into a place most of us rarely attain.
"When you come into Harlem, every Sunday there are Harlem Spirituals where all the Harlem churches open up their doors to visitors from all over the world who come, and they listen to inspirational music. This is the mass choirs. I'm talking 150 voices and up. It's a wonderful experience for Sunday afternoon for anybody coming to Harlem."
Bailey has been able to package that experience and offer it to people around the world. "(Our ministry) allows us to touch a lot of people all over the world. Although they may not speak our language, they feel our music, and that brought tears (during our God Bless America Tour). Every concert we did brought tears in the eyes of people in Japan and France and Germany and you name it, the different parts of the world. That's a wonderful experience."
At a time when much of the world has labeled America as an aggressive bully, such evangelism takes on new importance. "I'm not a politician. I'm a pastor. So I have a different outlook on that," says Bailey.
"Many people ask us because we did a lot of work for the USO. We would go and entertain the USO and several of the armed forces around the world. And people would say, 'How can you do that when you're ministry?' And I say, 'That's what ministry is. It's to give. That's why you minister.' I come across people from all religious backgrounds and pastors and bishops and rabbis doing the same thing we did. We were there ministering to the flock. That's what ministry is all about."
The Harlem Gospel Choir performs at 2 p.m. Saturday at The Maureen Stapleton Theatre on the Hudson Valley College campus. Tickets are $12 to the general public. Each adult is allowed to bring one child free. Each additional child is $6. Tickets are available at the door.
?The Record 2003
Gospel choir to make a joyful noise
By Don Wilcock, The Record February 19, 2003
There are two disparate views of Harlem. If you're white, you tend of think of anything above 110th St. in Manhattan as crime ridden, drug infested and definitely not a place you want to walk at night.
If you're black, and particularly if you're in the arts, Harlem is the seat of black culture, which is currently enjoying its second renaissance, the first having been in the '20s, when the term black culture was first proven not to be an oxymoron.
I asked Allen Bailey, executive director of the Harlem Gospel Choir, what the biggest advantage and biggest disadvantage of having Harlem as the first word in the group's name.
"Well, there's no disadvantage at all," said the leader of this prestigious African American choir that plays Hudson Valley Community College Saturday afternoon at 2.
"Harlem is the black entertainment capital of the world. Some of the great black entertainers have come out of Harlem, who also had their beginnings in the black church, like Sammy Davis, Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway. These great black entertainers all had their beginnings in the black church."
Bailey has gone in the opposite direction, moving from secular entertainment to gospel music. He brought this choir to international prominence only after working as the promotional director for such high-profile black personalities as Michael Jackson, Prince, Isaac Hayes and Lionel Richie.
"The most important part I learned from that is that these are giving people, and they really care, and they have a passion for what they do. They have a real passion for what they do, and that's why they're so successful."
They also have incredible egos. "It makes their heads swell, because with people surrounded with people always telling them how great they are day and night, they all have these entourages.
"'Hey, you're great. You're great.' It allows you to get a big head right away. When you work with the Lord, you don't have that problem because as a minister, you're here to give, not to take."
Don King appointed Bailey entertainment coordinator for the Mohammed Ali and George Foreman fight in Zaire, called Rumble in the Jungle. This was a true test of Bailey's Christian beliefs.
"I don't have a problem if someone says, 'Do this! Do that! Do this!' I'll just do it. Not a problem. Those things never affected me at all, trying to help, because I know in the end the final result is what you give is going to come back to you."
In 15 years he's turned a group of individuals from many different Harlem churches into one of the most famous gospel choirs in the world.
They were in the U2 "Rattle and Hum" movie performing "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." They sang for Nelson Mandela upon his release from a South African prison in 1990 and for the pope in Central Park in '95. They've rubbed shoulders with Paul McCartney, Diana Ross and Jimmy Cliff.
Their hearts are dedicated to God, but their mentality sometimes seems more that of rock stars. For instance, Bailey credits the Irish with being very spiritual people, but when he talks about touring with the premiere Irish band, The Chieftains, he quips, "Traveling with them, we found out the most important word in the Irish vocabulary is Guinness. Everything is, 'Where is the Guinness?' Those guys are so much fun touring with, you know?"
Make no mistake. Music is their ministry, but Bailey has learned through his years with big-name entertainers, that the way to people's hearts is not through jamming religion down their throats.
"We wanted to encourage a larger audience, because people don't want to be proselytized to. They can get that in church, but we get our message across regardless, and we use the songs like 'Oh, Happy Day' and 'When The Saints Go Marching In,' songs like that."
The group was first inspired by a Martin Luther King celebration at Harlem's famous Cotton Club. "We would get together in the evening time and do a lot of songs, cover tunes, but we made every tune into a gospel tune. The elders in our church won't allow us to sing all that crazy stuff.
"So we got together ourselves at the Cotton Club. The owner would allow us to rehearse over there. Some of the things we wanted to do, especially like the Kirk Franklin-type things or the types of nontraditional gospel tunes, we made that into a gospel-type song."
It may be difficult for pop music fans to make the leap of faith (pun intended) from rock to gospel, but just as blues is often misinterpreted as sad music by those who haven't experienced it, gospel has the double prejudice of assumed somber sadness mellowed by laborious moral overtones. Far from it. Gospel is a joyous catharsis and the basis for all blues that, in turn, inspired rock.
"Keep in mind," says Bailey, "the blues all came out of the black church. All the blues artists have their beginnings in the black church. It all started right there. What do they say? The blues is nothing but the truth."
If you're African American, I don't need to tell you that this opportunity Saturday to hear a choir of such renown is not to be missed. If you're white, I urge you to experience this event, which will take you deep within Harlem's second renaissance and lift your spirits into a place most of us rarely attain.
"When you come into Harlem, every Sunday there are Harlem Spirituals where all the Harlem churches open up their doors to visitors from all over the world who come, and they listen to inspirational music. This is the mass choirs. I'm talking 150 voices and up. It's a wonderful experience for Sunday afternoon for anybody coming to Harlem."
Bailey has been able to package that experience and offer it to people around the world. "(Our ministry) allows us to touch a lot of people all over the world. Although they may not speak our language, they feel our music, and that brought tears (during our God Bless America Tour). Every concert we did brought tears in the eyes of people in Japan and France and Germany and you name it, the different parts of the world. That's a wonderful experience."
At a time when much of the world has labeled America as an aggressive bully, such evangelism takes on new importance. "I'm not a politician. I'm a pastor. So I have a different outlook on that," says Bailey.
"Many people ask us because we did a lot of work for the USO. We would go and entertain the USO and several of the armed forces around the world. And people would say, 'How can you do that when you're ministry?' And I say, 'That's what ministry is. It's to give. That's why you minister.' I come across people from all religious backgrounds and pastors and bishops and rabbis doing the same thing we did. We were there ministering to the flock. That's what ministry is all about."
The Harlem Gospel Choir performs at 2 p.m. Saturday at The Maureen Stapleton Theatre on the Hudson Valley College campus. Tickets are $12 to the general public. Each adult is allowed to bring one child free. Each additional child is $6. Tickets are available at the door.
?The Record 2003
