Dos Vatos Palabras

by Andrew Sargent

Assistant Professor of English

West Chester University of Pennsylvania

African-American literature begins with the spirituals.  One of America’s oldest indigenous musical forms, these haunting religious “sorrow songs” are arguably the centerpiece of the black oral tradition.  First created and sung by slaves, they now lead off the discipline-defining Norton Anthology of African-American Literature.  And because they’ve influenced the work of such modern black writers as W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston, they make a perfect starting point for studying black literature as a whole.

  Yet there’s a challenge in introducing the spirituals into an African-American literature classroom: even as students can be emotionally moved by recordings of, say, “Steal Away to Jesus” or “Wade in the Water,” they sometimes struggle to get their heads around the complex history behind the music.  Because the spirituals are an oral, communal form of folk culture shared covertly by an oppressed group of people, they defy conventional ideas of literary creativity and authorship; they also carry hidden meanings that may not be evident to the first-time listener.  And so questions such as “Where did these songs come from?”  “To whom do they belong?” and “What purpose did they serve for the folks who sang them?” take on a heightened urgency.

  Thanks to an inspiring new PBS documentary, The Spirituals (2007), teachers of African-American literature now have a dynamic tool for getting students to dig into these questions.  The work of socially-conscious independent filmmakers Ari Palos and Eren McGinnis, The Spirituals does a beautiful job of showcasing the emotional pull of the songs, but it’s equally adept at illuminating the historical context in which they emerged and evolved.  And with a 26-minute running time that lends itself to screening and discussion in a single class period, The Spirituals is a truly invaluable teaching resource.

  Much of the documentary’s inspirational quality comes from the starring role it gives to the American Spiritual Ensemble, a Kentucky-based, internationally-acclaimed singing group whose performances of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” and others lend the film its soaring soundtrack.  But the filmmakers use several other techniques to root the spirituals in a tangible physical and historical reality.  In addition to archival footage, still images, and impressionistic re-creations of slave life—all gorgeously photographed—the film’s most valuable resource is the informed commentary by musicologists, composers, and the Ensemble members themselves.  These interviewees deliver keen insights into the function of the songs and offer personal testimonials on what the spirituals have meant to the people who’ve sung them.

Students learn, for example, how the spirituals grew out of African rhythms, Christian hymns, and biblical narratives of bondage and freedom; how slaves sang these songs among themselves to cope with the miseries of slavery and assert their faith in God; and how songs such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Steal Away to Jesus” often conveyed covert signals about slaves’ plans for escape.  “One of the reasons it’s such a challenge to really know these songs,” explains one Ensemble member, “is [that] the very nature of them was secret.  One could lose his or her life for communicating the coded messages that these songs had.”

The film also chronicles the spirituals’ importance to African-Americans after emancipation, focusing in particular on the fundraising work of black student troupes like the Fisk Jubilee Singers in the late nineteenth century, and, later, the high-profile role spirituals played in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.  Running throughout the film is a sense that despite their historic significance, the spirituals are a cultural form in danger of being lost or forgotten.  Hence the documentary tracks the American Spiritual Ensemble’s laudable efforts to preserve and promote the rich heritage of these songs and to build on “old” material with innovative new arrangements.

            In the film’s final moments, we see this quest take the Ensemble all the way to Mallorca, Spain, where they deliver a show-stopping rendition of “Steal Away to Jesus” to a rapt audience.  As the music soars, the filmmakers overlay images of archetypal Deep South locations—cotton fields, slave quarters, rivers—that breathe out the history of black enslavement and resistance.  It’s the most moving moment in a film that’s full of them.  And it reminds us why the music that Du Bois once praised as “the articulate message of the slave to the world” continues to speak powerfully to audiences across the globe.

TO ORDER DVDs of THE SPIRITUALS please visit:

www.dosvatos.com 

by Cary Stemle

LEO Magazine

In the post-WWII years, blues music entered the mainstream. Less is known about Negro spirituals, a form wholly created by African-American slaves who melded European music, African traditions and biblical texts into something unique and powerful. The spiritual functioned on many levels, including as code for impending actions and as a way to ward off insanity while working the fields under duress. Later, during the Civil Rights movement, it was a natural unifying factor.

“The Spirituals” is a new PBS documentary featuring the American Spiritual Ensemble, a troupe of high-level singers founded by University of Kentucky professor Everett McCorvey. The ensemble travels widely, performing and discussing the spiritual, which, frankly, is in peril because younger generations don’t seem to dig it. The ensemble folks are doing good work, and the documentary provides hope that their efforts will help preserve an important facet of American culture.

—Cary Stemle

TO ORDER DVDS of THE SPIRITUALS please visit:

www.dosvatos.com

By Ron Wynn

Nashville City Paper 

The spirituals are among the earliest music forms developed in this nation, and a genre that’s been an inspirational source for millions of people around the world.

    Yet there’s also less attention being paid to this great art form, something that filmmaker and producer Eren McGinnis and others such as Dr. Everett McCorvey and Dr. Hope Koehler want to correct. McGinnis’ new documentary work The Spirituals, which debuts tonight at 9:30 on NPT, Channel 8, includes riveting performances by the American Spiritual Ensemble, which was founded and is now directed by Dr. McCorvey.

    Its stars include Dr. Koehler, a Lipscomb graduate and former resident of Nashville who is particularly excited about the documentary.

    “In many ways you can trace the history of almost every popular musical style to the spirituals,” Koehler said. “There’s the blues and jazz, which both have a direct link, and of course rock ‘n’ roll and R&B in large part are also very closely related. But unfortunately what’s happened in recent years has been there’s so much emphasis on and exposure for gospel that we’ve lost sight in some ways of just how revolutionary and important the spirituals have been in our history. Here’s a music developed by people who were wrenched from their homeland and prevented from using their own language or celebrating their native culture. Yet they were able to create something great by learning another language and also using it as both a way to make inspiring, reverent music and also create a code to enable others to escape. It’s an incredible story, and I hope that this documentary makes more people aware of it.”

    The Spirituals blends great footage of the American Spiritual Ensemble and historic performances from others with interview segments featuring musicologists at such black colleges and universities as Morehouse and Fisk (there were plenty of scenes and sequences shot locally that are included in the film). There are also excellent performances from choirs in such places as Gastonia, N.C. as well as moments from a stirring American Spiritual Ensemble concert in Spain.

    Dr. Koehler, now on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Superior and a longtime member of the Ensemble as well as a close friend of Dr. McCorvey, adds that while she’s a great admirer of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, she never saw them perform while a student in Nashville.

    “The Fisk Jubilee Singers deserve enormous credit for helping popularize the spiritual around the world,” Koehler said. “Somehow I never got a chance to hear them when I was a student, but I certainly know their music through recordings and they are a strong influence as well as a very important part of what’s made the spirituals so important in our heritage and history.” 

DVD copies of The Spirituals are also available online at www.dosvatos.com

By Karen W. Hubbard

Associate Professor Dance and Theatre Department

UNC Charlotte 

The Spirituals is an engaging audio-visual journey into the form and function of Negro spirituals. Comprised of historical reenactments, news file footage and personal reflection; the program unfolds seamlessly like a multi-textured quilt embroidered with rich, heartfelt vocals sung by the American Spiritual Ensemble. Noteworthy, are references to the secret meaning of Negro spirituals; the role played by Fisk Jubilee Singers, Hampton Singers and Tuskegee Singers in garnering public recognition of what is referred to as “music of the cotton fields”; and commentary on how black spirituals influenced renowned European composers.  When the landscape shifts away from the southern plantation a clear distinction is made between spirituals and gospel music; “We Shall Overcome” based on a Negro spiritual is acknowledged as the modern day Civil Rights Movement anthem.

As The Spirituals comes to an end and the credits are rolling; baritone/ASE Rehearsal Director Ricky Little walks (some times projected in slow motion) through fields, along country roads, across a bridge and on city streets as his voice is heard singing “I Want Jesus To Walk With Me.” Perhaps Little’s trek is a metaphor for the path traveled by Evertt McCovey whose inspiration it was to found the American Spiritual Ensemble in 1995.

The Spirituals is formatted into a twenty-six minutes program. This makes it perfect for use in the traditional classroom; there is time for discussion both before and after viewing the documentary. For dance creative process courses The Spirituals offers valuable possibilities for the exploration, invention and composition of movement. As well, documentary visuals and narrative provide deeper understanding of the cultural context in which the form evolved.When the documentary ends; it doesn’t let go and viewers will be delighted to discover additional material set in three parts: Additional Scenes, Photo Gallery and American Spiritual Ensemble Background.

As in the documentary, the sound of Negro spirituals sung by ASE is ever present.The Spirituals is a testament to McCovey’s vision to preserve Negro spirituals. Individuals newly introduced to Negro spirituals will find the program feels like a “new best friend”. Those who are already familiar with the subject will welcome The Spirituals like an old and dear family relation.

TO ORDER A DVD OF THE SPIRITUALS PLEASE VISIT:

www.dosvatos.com

by Dr. Audley C. Chambers

PhD Chairperson, Music Department

Associate Professor of Music History and Literature

Oakwood College

    The Spirituals—documentary, featuring the truly musically passionate group, The American Spiritual Ensemble, takes one on a 26-minute musical journey in time through plantation scenes shot in various locations of the old south depicting life from the colonial and antebellum period. The connection of the spirituals to the activities of the civil rights and the ensemble’s presentation of spirituals in churches and opera houses of the present day reveals the continuation and reception of this musical heritage.  Through the Spiritual Ensemble’s dynamic musical presentation of various types of spirituals, through their informal interviews with various members of the ensemble who personally informs the viewer about his or her ancestry’s relationship to this American art form, and through historical narrative grounded in scholarship and lithographs taken from historical archives, they develop and trace the significance of what the spirituals are truly about—messages of hope, encouragement, conviction during hard times, and aspirations of a better life to come. An additional benefit to The Spirituals—documentary is the bonus material separated from the main menu, which is divided into three programs: 1) Additional Scenes 2) Photo Gallery and 3) Information about The American Spiritual Ensemble.

Program one (Additional Scenes) lasting 20 minutes features the distinguished composer, conductor, and pianist, Roland Carter who is most especially noted as an authority on the performance and preservation of African American music. Along with Carter’s insight into the role and function of the spirituals, additional behind-the-scene footage of the ensemble during their tour of the American South and various cities in Spain develop a rare view of the impact of the spirituals on people’s lives near and far away from the shores of the United States. Rare pictures of the inside of the 16th Street Baptist church shown along with the singing of the spiritual “Give Me Jesus” sung by one of the ensemble members gives one a sense of the spirituals’ poignancy and reception then and now.

Program two (Photo Gallery) lasting just over five minutes presents a photo gallery of many members of the ensemble in various musical locale in and outside of the United States of America against the singing of an old spiritual “Guide my feet while I run this race.”

Program three (About the American Spiritual Ensemble) presents information on the founder of the American Spiritual Ensemble—Dr. Everett McCorvey—its members including the diva Angela Brown, and how they can be reached.

Although this documentary on the spirituals presents a comprehensive overview about their significance and the impact that this American Art form has on a culture past and present, the various spiritual renditions presented by this diverse group of professional “opera singers” is worthy of being in one’s collection. In addition to the DVD, its companion CD of the same name features 15 classic renditions, including some which are not on the DVD. This musical presentation through oral history, documents and sound will certainly be a documentary that can be used for discussions in any classroom setting dealing with the subject of spirituals and their impact on generations past and present.

TO ORDER A DVD OF THE SPIRITUALS PLEASE VISIT:  www.dosvatos.com