Spring Break
Gospel choir shouts it out for God
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"There is nothing too hard . . . "
The altos have begun now, steady but rising up like a wave ready to break. Enter the soprano section, higher but velvety.
The singers sway a little, some close their eyes, some look upwards, some straight ahead. Tenors, baritones and basses fill in the mix for the resounding bottom notes. It's time for the next line, but the first still echoes in the room.
Choir director J.T. McMillan grins and lifts his arms, as much a command to his singers as a signal to the subject of their song.
"for my God . . ."
McMillan joins now, exuberant and high-pitched. The first thing you notice is the lack of self-consciousness in the room. Wiggles, dances, laughter and bright and overwhelming sound all issue forth from a group of roughly forty people.
There are a select few singers in the room, those who have been trained or molded by lessons, but the listener would never know. The sound is at its richest when all the voices are combined. The songs produced are smooth, synchronized, slinky.
They sound simply too cool to be performing church music.
There is never any doubt, however, that God is an integral part of the goings-on at the Johns Hopkins Gospel Choir. Every rehearsal, which take place in the Second Decade Society Room at the Mattin Center, begins and closes with a prayer.
The choir began in 1988 with a small group of students. The group now edges fifty people, and remains open to all comers. No auditions are required, and much of the music is learned by listening, not by sight reading.
The laid-back atmosphere does not mean that the singers are any less talented. The choir has been invited to attend the PraiseFest in April, a convention of college gospel choirs hosted by Marshall University in West Virginia, and one of the choir members was recently accepted into a competitive voice program at Julliard. Yet McMillan remains modest about the choir.
"We take anyone who wants to come," he says, "and we come together and sing."
For the members of the choir, the opportunity to end the week on a high note becomes almost therapeutic. "It's the perfect way to end the week," says June Tibaleka a freshman. "You feel so free when you are singing, it really lifts my spirit."
Not to mention, it sounds good. Aretha Franklin famously said before she cut one of her swanky, brassy albums, "I'm going to make a gospel record." Since its creation, gospel has influenced popular music.
The term "rock" may have, in fact, come from gospel. In the Depression-era South, when you were overcome by a gospel song, completely wrapped up in the music, you were "rocking."
The music gave more than a name to rock n' roll, it gave the genre some of its best artists. Elvis Presley got his start singing gospel at the First Assembly of God Church on McLemore Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. He never lost his gospel roots, either, eventually putting out a Grammy-winning gospel album. Ray Charles was criticized from all corners for sexing up gospel to create his trademark sound.
Soul music was a direct offshoot of gospel, with performers testifying about their lovers with the same rapture they used to sing about God.
Jimmy Smith and Booker T took the Hammond organ of church service fame and turned it on its head, composing jazzy riffs and rocking licks and paving the way for artists from Stevie Wonder to Alicia Keys.
Most recently, hip-hop and rap artists, known for sampling from all genres for their backbeats, have turned to gospel, one of the results being the Kanye West hit "Jesus Walks."
A performance by the choir, even in one of their afternoon rehearsals, fills the room with sound, words, emotion. For singers and listeners, it is a truly transcendent experience.
