NEGRO SPIRITUAL & GOSPEL SONG
A STORY
OF SLAVERY
A STORY OF RELIGION
PECULIARITIES
OF THE NEGRO SPIRITUAL AND THE GOSPEL
THE GOSPEL TODAY
SOME BIG NAMES OF THE GOSPEL
It is in the pain of the slavery that was born negro spirituals.
In the Egyptian, Greek or Roman antiquity(antique), the slavery was an accepted
institution. It was the condition reserved for the populations and the soldiers
overcome during military campaigns(countries). The slavery of the blacks of
African origin, from 1450 till 1850, is the fact of Christian countries where
the church condemned as a rule the slavery.
It resulted from real manhunts, mainly in the parts of the country of western
Africa. This politics(policy), led at first by the Spaniards and the Portuguese,
then, after the discovery of America, by the Danes, the Dutch people, the
English people and the French people, was an exploitation(operation) of the
Negro by the white, in the name of the right(law) of most hardly. We overloaded
vessels of men(people), women and children, piled up, chained and badly fed
for five in six weeks of crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Those who fell ill
were thrown(cast) to the sea. Arrived in America, families were dismantled,
every member(limb) was sold for the works in plantations.
The total number of Africans so deported is estimated(esteemed) at about two
millions.
Bit by bit, in Europe, the consciousnesses were moved; big writers violently
disputed these practices. So that, one after the other, countries "slave
traders" eventually abolished slaves' draft(milking). And the slavery
was officially forbidden in the United States after the American Civil War
( 1865 ). The black population continued to live in America, in precarious
conditions, mainly in states of the South.
She(It) considerably increased, establishing(constituting) the tenth of the
population of the United States today. The blacks are equal as a rule in right(law)
for the white population, but they are, for the greater part, among coats(layers)
the most discriminated by the population.
The blacks spoke, in Africa, about uncountable different dialects. The dispersal
of tribes and families urged them to adopt the language(tongue) of their bosses,
English, to communicate between them. However, they possessed a common culture
in the domains of the music, the singing(song) and the dance. By picking the
cotton, they hummed in English of work songs (working singings(songs)), directly
inspired by their African culture. These often plaintive melodies, evoking
the hard condition of the slavery, are at the origin of what will become the
negro spiritual then the song gospel.
Originally, the African blacks were of animistic religion. Certain owners
decided to evangelize the slaves. Some people sincerely wished to save souls
by converting them to the Christianity, the others hoped to prevent(warn)
the revolts by teaching them a religion where each has to accept his social
condition and carry out the duty in the obedience. We explained to the blacks
that they would find the reward of their submission after the death, in him(her,it)
beyond.
Towards(As for) the blacks, the adoption of the religion of the bosses followed
that of the language(tongue). On one hand, the survival of the former(ancient)
tribal or clan worship(cult) was made difficult by the dispersal forced by
families and tribes. On the other hand, it seems whether it is necessary in
the African logic to put itself under the protection of the strongest god.
The Africans would so have adopted the Christianity, the religion of the winners(conquerors).
From 1750, a strong religious movement appears in the colonies(summer camps)
of America. This movement gets(touches) whites and blacks. He was called "The
Great Awakening", the big alarm clock.
The minister and the English doctor Isaac Watts spread(diffused) a collection
of hymns and of spiritual songs, which had an enormous success with the blacks.
In their communities, Isaac Watts's spiritual songs got involved in work songs
to give birth to negro spirituals. The blacks read hardly the music. They
sang of ear and memory(report), and often improvised. The leader of singing(song)
threw(launched) the sentences of the stanza, the crowd resumed(took back)
the tune, punctuating him(it) of " amen ", " alléluia
". The naming spirituals distinguished them from psalms and from traditional
hymns.
PECULIARITIES OF THE NEGRO SPIRITUAL AND THE GOSPEL
The negro spiritual is of African melodic and rhythmic inspiration. He(it)
expresses the pain and the hopes of people reduced to the slavery. He(It)
is especially inspired by narratives of the Former(Ancient) Will, and particularly
by those where we see a God freeing(releasing) his people of the slavery (in
Egypt) or from the exile (in Babylon). The blacks became identified easily
with the Israelites, and hoped that God also frees(releases) them from the
condition. Other biblical source(spring) from which the negro spiritual draws
is the apocalypse, where is described heavenly, quoted Jerusalem radiant of
him(her,it) beyond where administration the justice. The negro spiritual is
often an austere singing(song), usually without instrumental accompaniment,
on a rhythm for two or in four time(weather).
The song gospel, that is " singing(song) of the gospel ", is more
recent. He(it) develops after the official abolition of the slavery by the
act of emancipation of 1865. This hope of liberation was quickly disappointed,
the racial segregation remaining under diverse forms. The song gospel appeared
and developed in cities; he(it) is more inspired by the New Testament, from
which the blacks draw from now on their hope. The support, the friendship
and the call(appeal) to the brotherhood of Jesus succeed, sometimes by getting
involved there, the invocation of Moses liberator of his people.
We can say that the song gospel is the modern shape of the negro spiritual.
Of numerous gospel songs is moreover written negro spirituals, harmonized
and sometimes enriched by new words. The most famous melodies of this directory,
" as down Go Moses ", " tell it Go one the mountain ",
" Down by the riverside " or " Nobody knows the disturbs I'
ve seen " quite arises from former(ancient) negro spirituals.
Since near century, he(it) builds up to itself new gospel songs practically
every day. The accompaniment is often important: piano, organ Hammond, electric
guitar, bass, battery(drum kit), percussions … We find this characteristic
force, this enthusiasm, this jubilation of the expression of the faith of
the blacks there. The song gospel went out of churches, meeting an immense
success on the scenes(stages) of cabarets and of theaters, at first in America,
then, after the second world war, in Europe.
At the same time as the religious singing(song), the original music arisen
from the meeting of the African and European musical traditions also developed
in the profane world. She(it) gave the blues, then the soul music and the
jazz, which(who) are at the origin of the rock and roll and of most of the
modern American musics.
In the current European music (variety show(varieties), French song, etc.),
the distant influence of the negro spiritual shows itself by the presence
of a rhythm section similar to that of jazz bands, with a double bass and
a battery(drum kit), a guitar, a banjo or a piano. This type of forming(training)
does not exist either in the classical music, or in the folk music of Europe.
His(her,its) fundamental characteristic, of afro-American origin, is the swing,
a rhythmic and dynamic balance inciting to dance or to type hands.
It is in the churches that those are going to form, from them more soft childhood,
which will become the pillars(props) of the song gospel. Thomas Andrew Dorsey
is considered as the " father of the black gospel ". Son(Sons,Thread)
of a minister of Georgie, he wrote more than 1000 singings(songs), created
a company(society) of edition(publishing) to spread(diffuse) his partitions(scores),
travelled through all the USA to discover talents, teach the music, and established
the first agreement of the singers and the choirs of gospel.
Chicago, with his(her) dense and active black population, is going to become
the capital of the jazz and the gospel from the thirties. Big names are going
to show themselves, as Mahalia Jackson, Marion William and Aretha Franklin
there. We also see appearing groups, notably quartets (being able to count
somewhere else more than four singers!), who(which) the most known in Europe
is Golden Delicious Gate Quartet, based in 1943.
Big names of the jazz also contributed to the popularization of the gospel,
as Ray Charles or Louis Armstrong. Feminine groups also form, as the Stars
of Faith, and of immense mixed choirs, such The Edwin Hawkins Singers who
created, in 1969, a famous title between all: " oh Happy Day! "