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CKSON COLUMBIA

A HIGH FIDELITY

RECORDING

The World's Greatest

Gospel I •

Singer

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PHOTOGRAPHER: GUY GILETTE

makalia Jackson The World's Greatest Gospel Singer

I’m Going to Live the Life I Sing About in My Song

When I Wake Up in Glory

Jesus Met the Woman at the Well

Exclusive trade mark of Columbia Records

Oh Lord, Is It I?

I Will Move On Up a Little Higher

When the Saints Go Marching In

Jesus

with The Falls-Jones Ensemble

Out of the Depths

Walk Over God’s Heaven

Keep Your Hand on the Ptew

Didn’t It Rain

Exclusive trade mark of Columbia Records

By George Avakian

When it came time to think up a title for this album, it soon became apparent that the best thing was to call it what it was: just Mahalia Jackson, The World's Greatest Gospel Singer.

This is one of the less-extravagant phrases to emerge from this typewriter. One might as well say that Ty Cobb was a fair base runner, that Maurice Richard can handle a hockey stick, or that Adlai Stevenson makes sense. That’s how much more Mahalia Jackson is than just “the world’s greatest gospel singer.”

Now how can anyone live up to a build¬ up like that? You’ll find out what it takes when you put Mahalia Jackson on your phonograph.

Mahalia, born in 1911 in New Orleans, the home of jazz, has been singing the praise of the Lord all her life. She steadfastly re¬ fuses to sing jazz or blues (or even to visit a night club, much less sing in one), although she has received fabulous offers and it is evident that hers is the greatest jazz voice since the incomparable Bessie Smith. Her father was a dock worker and a barber who served as a clergyman on Sundays; Mahalia sang in her father’s church choir from the time she was five. At home, the Jacksons heard nothing but church music, but Ma¬ halia heard early blues and operatic records on a neighbor’s phonograph. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, and Enrico Caruso all helped shape her vocal style, but she continued to sing only songs of the church.

Mahalia had to quit school after the eighth grade. She took jobs as a baby nurse, a maid, a laundress. Her compassionate soul yearned to take training as a nurse, but the opportunity never came. In 1927, following the earlier path cf such other New Orleans notables as King Oliver and Louis Arm¬ strong, Mahalia left New Orleans for the

growing South Side of Chicago. She joined the Greater Salem Baptist Church and promptly became the featured singer in a quintet which was sent out to tour various churches throughout the Baptist Conven¬ tion. The singers were paid out of the offer¬ ings of the congregations, and to supplement this meager income Mahalia took whatever jobs she could. She saved her money, studied beauty culture, and opened a beauty salon and later a floral shop. She bought real estate and began to develop a tidy income, all the time continuing to sing at various churches on Sundays.

Her first records were an instant success, and one of them, I Will Move On Up a Little Higher, a gospel song she wrote herself, sold over two million copies. As Mahalia’s fame grew, so did the scope of her personal ap¬ pearances. She has filled New York's Carne¬ gie Hall at five concerts of her own, and has had similar successes in the great concert halls in Europe. Her radio program brings her to the widest audience she has yet known.

Gospel singing is something off the beaten track for many record buyers. It has its roots deep in the early Negro spirituals, which in turn had their foundation in the sturdy Protestant hymns. The repertoire of a gospel singer includes many spirituals, but the emphasis is on newer songs which are similarin subject matter but somewhat more like good jazz tunes in their musical con¬ struction.

Gospel singing, swings. The freedom in gospel singing, however, is even greater than in jazz, not only in the mechanics of varia¬ tions on melody and rhythm, but in the emotional surge of a performance as well. (Johnnie Ray fans have never recognized the foundation of his singing style; it is essentially an exaggeration of gospel singing.)

There is, of course, a certain overlapping between the gospel and popular fields in repertoire, just as there is a stylistic overlap

between gospel and jazz. Mahalia considers, for example, such inspirational pop tunes as I Believe and You’ll Never Walk Alone to be modern spirituals. She has a moving way of performing Gershwin’s Summertime, in which she interpolates several verses of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child. But the overlap does not extend very far. Mahalia’s opinion of pop tunes with spurious emotion is scathing. She calls them anthems, giving the word a special meaning in its most pompous connotation.

Honesty of emotion is Mahalia’s first concern; communication of emotion is sec¬ ond. When she appears before an audience, she considers her performance a failure if the audience has not been lifted with her and “filled with the joyful spirit.” Few artists can match Mahalia in the infectious way in which she can draw her listeners into her music and give them the sensation of taking part, physically as well as emotionally, as she performs.

Her attitude toward jazz and the blues is still respectful, but she remains firm in her devotion to gospel songs. “When I was a girl I washed dishes, scrubbed floors, bent over a wash-tub, just to help keep my family alive. I knew the blues, but there’s despair in the blues; I sang God’s music because it gave me hope. I still need the hope and happiness God’s music brings. I find it a personal triumph over every handi¬ cap, a solution to every problem, a path to peace.” Mahalia expressed her blues vs. gospel thoughts even more briefly in talking to a reporter for Life magazine. “Anybody that sings the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help,” she said, “and I’m simply not in that kind of position.”

The recordings in this collection were made in the course of two consecutive eve¬ nings at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York. For Mahalia’s debut on the Columbia Label, Mitch Miller had asked

her to prepare some new songs for single record release, and I had hoped to get a start toward making an album of spirituals and gospel songs of her own choice. Mahalia surprised and pleased us mightily. In a few hours, she made half a dozen single sides for Mitch and almost an album and a half for me. The only reason we quit was that there was a limit to the amount of mateiial we could absorb all at once.

The repertoire in this set is representative of the breadth of authentic spiritual and gospel songs. I’m Going to Live the Life I Sing About In My Song, written by Ma¬ halia’s old mentor and close friend, Thomas A. Dorsey, summarizes completely Mahalia’s personal philosophy of her religion and her art. (It is also one of the greatest vocal per¬ formances I have ever heard.) Walk Over God’s Heaven is Professor Dorsey’s setting of a familiar spiritual poem, while When I Wake Up in Glory and Keep Your Hand On the Plow are Mahalia’s own versions of two traditional spirituals; the latter jumps on the order of her swinging interpretation of When the Saints Go Marching In, another spiritual which has been a jazz standard ever since Bunk Johnson’s band started stomping it in the middle forties. Jesus, Out of the Depths and Oh Lord, Is It 1? are typical gospel songs which are timeless in their value.

A gospel song can become a hit in its field when it is sung by all the singers specializing in this repertoire, and occa¬ sionally one will break through and become a hit in the commercial pop-tune sense as well. The spiritual Didn’t It Rain sud¬ denly emerged as a hit parade favorite in 1954. As with many gospel songs, it takes its text directly from the Bible. Jesus Met the Woman at the Well is another example of a Bible story adapted to a gospel song lyric. The accompaniment of the Fall-Jones Ensemble swings throughout this album, but co-leaders Mildred Falls (piano) and Ralph Jones (organ) achieve a particularly unusual rock on this one.

“PERMANENT” NEEDLES MAY

CAUSE PERMANENT DAMAGE

No needles are really permanent. Some last

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Comparative Life Of Needle Stylus

DIAMOND Highest initial cost but cheapest by far in the long run. Will last (0 to 100 time* longer than sapphire needle.

SAPPHIRE Good performance — will last J to 10 time* longer than Osmium.

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