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Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: The Sacred Music of the African American Diaspora

Albert McNeil and the choir of People's Independent Church

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The Legacy of the Fisk Jubilee Singers The Fisk Jubilee Singers were instrumental in preserving the unique American musical tradition known today as spirituals. In 1866, Fisk University was founded in Nashville, Tennessee as the first American university to offer a liberal arts education to “young men and women irrespective of color.” By 1871, the five-year-old university was facing serious financial difficulty. To avert bankruptcy and closure, Fisk's treasurer and music director, George L. White gathered a nine-member student chorus, consisting of four black men (Isaac Dickerson, Ben Holmes, Greene Evans, Thomas Rutling) and five black women (Ella Sheppard, Maggie Porter, Minnie Tate, Jennie Jackson, Eliza Walker) to go on tour to earn money for the university.

The Jubilee Singers' performances were a departure from the familiar "black minstrel" genre of white musicians' performing in blackface and early performances were met with confusion and hostility. As the tour continued, audiences came to appreciate the singers' voices, and the group began to be praised. In early 1872 the group performed at the World's Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival in Boston, and for President Ulysses S. Grant at the White House in March of that year.

In a tour of Great Britain and Europe in 1873, the group, by then with 11 members, performed for Queen Victoria. The queen, fascinated by the singers, commissioned a massive portrait of them which still hangs in the university’s Jubilee Hall. They continued to tour and perform and between 1875 and 1878 raised an estimated $150,000 for the university.

The Jubilee Singers are credited with the early popularization of the Negro spiritual tradition among white and northern audiences; many were previously unaware of its existence. They broke racial barriers in the US and abroad in the late 19th century and influenced many other troupes of jubilee singers who would go on to make their own contributions to the genre, such as the Original Nashville Students, Chicago’s Williams Jubilee Singers, and the Los Angeles- based Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers. The Jubilee Singers perform to this day. In 2017, they were inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame.

Hear the Fisk Jubilee Singers perform "I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray" and "Rockin' Jerusalem"
Albert J. McNeil Albert John Joseph McNeil is an American choral conductor, ethnomusicologist, author, and founder of the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers. His career has been dedicated to upholding choral music traditions with the presentation of Negro spirituals and concert music by African American composers. He is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of California, Davis, where he was director of choral activities for 22 years and headed the Music Education Program.

McNeil was born Alfredo Morales Sanchez on February 14, 1920 in Los Angeles. He was adopted by John and Rodia McNeil, former vaudeville and minstrel show performers. He grew up in Watts with his two sisters, Dorothea and Rena. McNeil's adopted parents maintained friendships with a variety of musical and theatrical artists in Los Angeles, including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Lionel Hampton, as well as distinguished names in choral music such as Hall Johnson and Jester Hairston. McNeil was frequently called upon by Central Casting of Hollywood to be the on-set choral assistant whenever they needed black singers or background actors, including Porgy and Bess, Carmen Jones, and The Land of the Pharaohs. McNeil earned his undergraduate University of California, Los Angeles in 1942 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music education and teaching credentials in elementary and secondary education. Soon after, he was awarded his master's degree in choral conducting from UCLA. In 1953, McNeil married Helen Rambo. Their son, Richard "Ricky" John McNeil, was born 1959.

In 1968, McNeil was invited to teach courses in music education and direct the choral ensembles at the University of California at Davis. He was the head of the music education program and director of choral activities for 21 years, and took the UC Davis chorus to England, France, Russia, China, Tahiti, and Australia. While at Davis, spent 10 years as the director for the Sacramento Chorale and co-founded the Sacramento symphony chorus.

In 1968, inspired by the renown Fisk Jubilee Singers, McNeil founded the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers. The Singers have traveled the globe on 18 European tours, 12 tours of the United States and Canada, tours of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and South America, and were selected three times to serve the U.S. State Department and USIS Cultural Exchange Program. They have played a significant role in the development of African American sacred music traditions in the United States and are among the most honored singing ensembles in the world.

In addition to his teaching and work with the Jubilee Singers, McNeil was active in the church choir community. While McNeil was a student at UCLA he directed the church choirs at the First Baptist Church and the People's Independent Church of Christ. He was Minister of Music at the Congregational Church of Christian Fellowship in Los Angeles for over 30 years, as well as the Director of Music at the Founder’s Church of Religious Science.

McNeil retired from UC Davis in 1990. In retirement, he devoted much of his time to the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers and their tours. In 2003, McNeil was inducted as a "Living Legend" into the California State University Dominguez Hills Georgia and Nolan Payton Archive of African Diaspora Sacred Music and Musicians. Explore the Albert J. McNeil Collection.
Gospel Roots: African American Churches in Los Angeles Hear music from the choirs of Second Baptist, Grant AME, and Holman United Methodist.

The church has been a center of African American life since the earliest congregations were established in the 1700s. Its role has always extended beyond worship to include education, business, and social action. It has also often been the center of the community’s musical traditions. This legacy was brought to California by African Americans who arrived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from states that had strong African-American communities steeped with the musical culture of the African diaspora. They found new outlets in the music of the church; their migration transformed the spiritual, gospel music, blues, and jazz in California.

The first African American church to be established in Los Angeles was First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME) which was organized in 1872 in the home of Biddy Mason, a former slave who won her freedom after her master brought her to California. In the years that followed, more churches were founded, including Second Baptist Church (1885), Grant African Methodist Episcopal (1906), St. Paul Baptist (1907), and People's Independent Church of Christ (1910).

During the first Great Migration the number of churches swelled dramatically as émigrés sought out community and cultural centers in their new home. By 1920 there were over 30 African American churches in Los Angeles. These churches had choirs often led by highly educated musicians who had moved to the area seeking something new. The musicians of these churches, once separated by geography and limited in their exposure to each other, were now able to collaborate, building a flourishing music community and discovering new paths in sacred music. Their churches became concert halls, hosting both local performances and touring ensembles from across the country.

The Azusa Street Revival, hosted by Pastor William Seymour in 1906, was a musical turning point. Many found the music of the traditional church too sedate for revivals and camp meetings, and created new music to match the passion they felt. New genres of African American sacred music were born, most notably “the Holy Blues,” which combined sacred lyrics with secular musical style and was one of the precursors to the gospel movement in Los Angeles.

Gospel music was born out of a unique confluence of African American religion, politics, and culture in the 1930s. The holy blues evolved into gospel through the work of composer Thomas A. Dorsey and rapidly spread across the country, driven by the Second Great Migration. As the population and the demand for gospel music in California grew, the music took on new forms. In cities like Chicago, the expression of gospel focused on soloists, duets, and small groups like the Sallie Martin Singers or Roberta Martin Singers. Los Angeles gospel was rooted in the choir and its conductors and composer-arrangers. Los Angeles churches such as St. Paul Baptist Church, Mount Moriah Baptist Church, Grant AME Church, and Victory Baptist Church attracted and supported many up-and-coming musicians who migrated to Los Angeles, introduced gospel music, and sought to cultivate the talents of local artists.

One such innovator was Reverend James Cleveland. Cleveland moved to Los Angeles from Chicago in 1962. Like other artists before him, Cleveland found that Los Angeles was the perfect place to experiment. He fused gospel with soul, jazz, and pop and developed what is known as “the big choir sound” for mass choirs, including his own Southern California Community Choir. In 1968, Cleveland launched the Gospel Music Workshop of America to teach contemporary gospel, nurture the artistry of gospel musicians, and preserve the music’s legacy. In 1972, he brought Aretha Franklin to the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in South L.A. to record the live album “Amazing Grace,” a Grammy winner that captured the voices and experience of South Central coming together to create a new gospel sound.

Inevitably, as the popularity of African American sacred music grew, Hollywood came to call. In 1936, Jester Hairston came to Los Angeles with the Hall Johnson Choir to perform in the movie “Green Pastures,” and decided to make L.A. his home. His prolific work, both in Hollywood and the church. had a major impact on many talented African American musicians. Andraé Crouch, already an influential choir director and composer, arranged and performed music in the pop culture arena. When singers like Michael Jackson and Madonna and movies such as “The Lion King” recorded songs that required a choir, they turned to Crouch. Musicians like Hairston and Crouch helped bridge the gap between sacred and secular and increase exposure to gospel music.