Review & Commentary: Gospel Live! – PBS Documentary – Monday, 12 Feb. 2024, WSKG Binghamton, NY

The documentary Gospel Live! Presented by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was especially interesting. Dr. Gates has been known for his PBS program, Finding Your Roots, which is broadcast on Tuesday evenings at 8 PM. We viewed the first part of Gospel Live! on Monday, 12 Feb. 2024, at 9 PM. 

The history of Black Gospel music was, as told by Dr. Gates, is an adventure into the creation of Gospel music back to its roots. Names such as Mahalia Jackson, Thomas Dorsey, Rev. C.L. Franklin and his daughter, Aretha Franklin, plus many more were presented with their stories in this genre of music. 

There was quite a bit of learning for me, by way of this documentary. For instance, I remember songs of Sam Cooke in the years before his murder in 1964. We enjoyed his singing and were saddened at his premature death at age 33. But the songs we remembered Sam Cooke were all secular. For the first time, I learned about his Black Gospel background, as he was the son of a Black pastor. 

As for Thomas Dorsey’s music, I recall singing in an all-white choir (the “frozen people” – meant as a joke). The conductor of the choir was a retired Potsdam College Crane School of Music choir director named Dr. Calvin Gage (I called Cal “Dr.” one time and he chided me, saying, “don’t ever call him Dr.”). He taught us to sing Thomas Dorsey’s song in 4-party harmony, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” In addition, he taught all of us white folk how to sway and clap to the music. You should have memorized the music to be able to clap, that is for sure! 

So, when I substituted as choir director at Union Congregational / UCC Church in West Palm Beach, FL, I taught this choir, a mixture of black and white folk, to clap and sway to the same music. Sadly, a truly “frozen person,” white from Georgia, refused to sway and clap and said so openly. I simply told the man that I was not going to force him to do it if he did not want to do it. His wife sang in the choir and gave him 1-2 for not cooperating. Still. I never force ANYONE to do ANYTHING. Unlike the bullying white racist 45 with the orange hair, with his bullying friends, wants to force all of us to have same beliefs as the SCOTUS justices and stupid white people in states like Mississippi have regarding abortions and other topics in which they invoke a belief of hatred towards one another, including KKK-like attitudes which once brought us Jim Crow. 

Enough said of that. I mention it out of my disgust that so many people attach themselves to orange 45 out of complete stupidity about how God loves ALL his children. This message comes through in the Black Gospel music, for sure.

The word for white folk, “frozen people,” came from teacher of Black Gospel music at the 2003 Berkshire Choral Festival in Sheffield, Massachusetts. In his class to mostly white folk, he joked around about how well all us “frozen people” did in learning Black Gospel music. Many of us laughed at it, but sadly, there were those in the crowd who got insulted at the joke. To them I say, “GET A LIFE.” As a matter of fact, separately, I told one white man he needed to “get a life” and stop being so obstinate when someone who is from a race of people who have suffered under Jim Crow to be able to joke in that manner. That teacher was John Wesley Wright, also a member of the United Church of Christ, professor of music at a university in Maryland, and one who had a role in Les Miserables. One of the violinists in the orchestra accompanying Les Miz was a former violinist in the Binghamton Philharmonic and was once a pastor of the First Congregational UCC Church in Newark Valley where I grew up. 

So, this documentary added quite a bit to my knowledge about Black Gospel music.

Union Congregational UCC Church is one of the first churches established in West Palm Beach. When it began, it was an all-white church, but over time, it has evolved into a multi-cultural church and has made me a happy person to worship and praise God in such an environment with so much energy, something us “frozen people” never had in the old white churches. 

The other “first church” of West Palm Beach was Bethany Baptist Church, an all-black church. When Union Congregational and Bethany Baptist got together to do a service, with both choirs singing, we did praise the LORD greatly! It was exciting to see that Gospel choir at Bethany sing as they memorized everything they did for God. I truly loved it. I truly learned about how we can let excitement into our worship and praise! 

When I taught Music Appreciation at a college in Palm Beach County, the curriculum touched on jazz figures such as Bessie Smith, John Coltrane, and others. We touched on an African-American classical composer named William Grant Still. But sadly, I have to say we never touched on ANY Gospel music, only the old religious stuff such as Gregorian chant and so forth. 

I had begun writing a textbook for Music Appreciation to be designed on concepts, not historical sequence. I was going to include a part, under sacred and religious music, about Gospel music. I never got far enough with the book, so it never got published. 

In those classes, we utilized DVDs produced by modern-day British composer and music teacher, Howard Goodall. In his video of 20th Century jazz, he discussed how the public would not have come to know jazz and other forms of African-American music had it not been for the recording industry and radio in the 20th Century. Up to that point, everyone stuck to their own culture and remained in a traditionalist “box,” refusing to go outside the box. I believe what we see today is a “counter-revolution” within our cultures and inspires the “culture wars” and systemic racism which is pushing orange 45 to brainwashing so many people who are white and feel as if they have been “victimized.” 

Baloney. I never felt victimized, even when I was in a mixed race group of kids (n the 7th grade) in a UCC church camp south of Buffalo, NY, just after the race riots in the cities of upstate NY. But there were lousy white bullies my age at that camp who really did throw the first stone against some really nice black kids who were not looking for trouble. Curse on the white bullies because they know not what they do. Oh, that’s right. Jesus said, “forgive them Father for they know not what to do!” I forgot. Easy to do when dealing with bullies. And believe me. As a young gay kid, I had to deal with plenty of bullies in the white community. I guess we gay kids “victimized” the bullies. Gee. I don’t recall victimizing them, but if anyone was “victimized,” it was me as I was sometimes called a sissy because I never played sports the way A MAN should play them. 

Let me move on. 

In Music Appreciation classes we taught about the melisma and melismatic forms in Anglo music from Britain, namely Handel (but others). So when I heard one of the interviewees mention Mahalia Jackson and others using melismas in their Gospel music, it was the first time I gave that genre of music consideration as being melismatic! The only comment about this is that the word was just put out there for the audience to hear and there was never any definition of what the melismatic style is. And this was a white man using the term melismatic. For me, I understood. For most in the TV audience, I doubt they would know, unless trained in music. Melismas used to do “word painting” in Messiah are those such as “the refiner’s fire” or “hills and valleys” where the melisma goes up for a hill and down for a valley. The voice might sound as if it is “trembling,” as one author put it. 

My own experiences with West Palm Beach’s Union Congregational and Bethany Baptist involve one woman and her mother who were from Bethany, but attended Union Congregational The woman was a soprano soloist in the Union Congregational. When her mother died, there were several of us from Union Congregational, all white, who attended the funeral at Bethany Baptist. We witnessed the extemporaneous singing by the deceased person’s daughter, near her mother’s casket. What I saw exemplified what I have now learned in this documentary about message and song being together. Sermon and song together. So I could relate to what Dr. Gates was presenting in this documentary. In fact, when I did the eulogy at my mom’s funeral at First Congregational UCC Church of Newark Valley, NY, I felt the urge to sing extemporaneously at the end of the eulogy. I went to my mother’s casket and began to sing Josh Groban’s “To Where You Are.” I had learned that Groban had composed that song when his grandmother died. I had been practicing a number of songs by Groban and that one really tugged at me that day in Newark Valley. So I sang it. I was doing as this black friend had done in a black church and the funeral of her mother, at Bethany Baptist. I was not singing a Gospel song. But I was singing something which was in my mind at that time with regard to where my mother was at that time. the concept was the same, but the music was slightly different. ”

I feel blessed at having those experiences with black music and the ones, both black and white, who taught us “frozen people” about what the African-American experience with Gospel music is all about. It explains why, as a child, I was really enamored with Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, and others. Add to that, jazz artists like Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Dizzie Gillespie, and Sam Cooke, plus many others. Or rock legends such as Stevie Wonder (“Songs in the Key of Life”), Lionel Richie (“We are the World”), Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones (“Thriller”), Dionne Warwick, Roberta Flack, etc.

I am blessed because I had all these experiences in my life and will always be grateful and appreciative for the path in life which brought me to many such experiences. Every day, I try to begin my day singing several songs such as “Good Morning to You,” “This is the Day the Lord has Made,” and a Gospel song I heard on this episode that we learned at Union Congregational UCC in West Palm Beach: “I woke up this morning with my mind, set on Jesus… set on love of neighbor… Hallelu – Hallelu — Halleluuuu- jah.”

Listening to the two women, one with a guitar, singing Gospel, at the very end of Monday’s episode, I really got a sensation that God IS by my side. That it is more than just memorizing the verse in Psalm 23 about “… for thou art with me.” I am saddened about the number of people who never learn about this nor even want to be bothered by it. All of this and the excitement there is in worshiping and praising God Almighty!