A History of the African-American Spiritual

How the African-American Spiritual has maintained its integrity
in the face of major social and musical challenges

[Based on an article by Thomas Lloyd published in the August 2004 issue of the Choral Journal of the American Choral Directors Association; all rights reserved.]

10. Hall Johnson and the Emergence of Larger Mixed Professional Vocal Ensembles

Hall Johnson

Hall Johnson

Meanwhile, new professional vocal ensembles devoted to the spiritual with larger numbers of women’s and men’s voices began to emerge, bringing a more vigorous sound and musicality to the genre. Violinist, violist, and composer Hall Johnson (1888-1970) formed an ensemble of eight singers in 1925 that grew to twenty by the time the choir made its New York City concert and Victor recording debuts in 1928.[1]

 

Johnson was looking for a different kind of compositional style to evoke the sound he heard from the former slaves of his Georgia childhood. In an interview with Eileen Southern, he said that he sought to preserve

The conscious and intentional alterations of pitch often made.…The unconscious, but amazing and bewildering counterpoint produced by so many voices in individual improvisation.…The absolute insistence upon the pulsing, overall rhythm, combining many varying subordinate rhythms.[2]

Johnson sought to bring the palpable sound of the community singing of the slave songs on the plantations to the concert hall by involving a larger number of voices in more complex counterpoint. Ironically, this lead to a more highly-evolved compositional style, where the hand of the composer came more to the fore than in the earlier arrangements, where for one or two voices on a part, improvisation did not need to be written out.

Johnson’s choir and his fresh arrangements were so well received, he was soon engaged for a Broadway musical, The Green Pastures (1930) which then brought him to Hollywood for the movie version in 1936.[3] This hugely successful landmark production offered Johnson the opportunity to reach a large audience with his new choral arrangements, which are heard almost continuously throughout the show. Opinion among black critics at the time was divided. Some critics, such as Langston Hughes, decried the Pulitzer Prize winning play for its reinforcement of many of the typical stereotypes of black religiosity and social customs. Others, most notably James Weldon Johnson, were so moved by the opportunity it created for black actors to display the highest level of artistry, they were willing to overlook limitations they felt the actors transcended.[4] As such, the Broadway show, movie, and subsequent touring shows (many of which were closed to black audiences) represented a return of the kind of broad exposure the spiritual received through the tours of the early Fisk Jubilee Singers and the recordings of the Fisk quartet.

Another important professional choir to emerge in the late 1920s was that of Eva Jessye (1895-1992), who became the first black woman to be internationally recognized as a professional choral conductor.[5] She gained further prominence through her work as chorus director for the operatic premiers of Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.[6] Many of the leading black concert artists of the day passed through Eva essye’s choirs. Professional black choirs continue to play an important role in the preservation and advancement of the spiritual, ranging from longstanding groups such as the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers in Los Angeles (beginning in 1968) and the Brazeal Dennard Chorale in Detroit (from 1972) to newer groups such as the Moses Hogan Chorale in New Orleans and the recently formed Nathaniel Dett Chorale in Toronto.

Musical Example:

13.  "Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho," arranged by Hall Johnson, Hall Johnson Choir, Hall Johnson, director, 1940; re-issued on 1940’s Vocal Groups Volume II – 1940-1945, DocumentRecords: DOCD-5608.

Video exerpt from the move “Green Pastures” featuring the Hall Johnson choir:

 
 

Notes:

[1]For re-issued recordings of the Hall Johnson Choir, see Document-Records DOCD-5566, Negro Choirs – 1926-1931 (tracks 19-24 recorded 1930-31) and Document-Records DOCD-5608, 1940s Vocal Groups Vol. 2 - 1940 – 1945 (tracks 5-15 recorded 1940-41).

[2]Hall Johnson, "Notes on the Negro Spiritual", in Readings in Black American Music, rev. edition ed. Eileen Southern (New York: W.W. Norton, 1983).

[3]The movie version of The Green Pastures (1936) has been transferred to videocassette – MGM/UA Home Video, ISBN: 079281794X.

[4]Allen Woll, Black Musical Theater – From "Coontown" to "Dreamgirls", (Baton Rouge; LSU Press, 1989), pp. 137-141.

[5]Southern 422.

[6]The 1940 original cast recording of Porgy and Bess was re-issued in 1992 by MCA Classics – MCAD 10520.