When in doubt, go to the Gospel Tent it’s real
22nd April 2024 · 0 Comments
By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer
It’s very unusual for gospel music to play a leading role at major music festivals.
Occasionally, a special gospel artist might appear – as did Mahalia Jackson, who performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1970 and famously sang “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” paired with another legendary New Orleanian, trumpeter and vocalist Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. The widely beloved Staple Singers also might get an invite.
From the very beginning of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival gospel was not only featured, it was soon bestowed a tent of its own and enjoyed equal stature with blues, jazz, zydeco, Cajun, rhythm and blues and other popular genres.
Some of the gospel groups and choirs that performed at the Fest during the early 1970s remain on the schedule today. They include, to name a few, the Zion Harmonizers, Lois Dejean and the Gospel Inspirations (now known as the Johnson Extension) and the Gospel Soul Children.
“It’s fantastic that it’s still here and still vital,” said Jazz Fest producer Quint Davis, who calls gospel “a natural” understanding of the links that gospel has to all New Orleans music. “I was going to a lot of gospel stuff in the city – tours that came through and in churches,” he continued. “I was aware of the real gospel that was happening in the church, which I knew people hadn’t really heard. I said, ‘I’m going to bring gospel to the front of the bus.’ When we moved to the Fair Grounds, we put the Gospel Tent right in the middle of the festival like a heartbeat.”
Meeting and befriending Sherman Washington of the Zion Harmonizers and Lois Dejean, highly respected core members of this city’s gospel community, was immensely important to Davis’ success in recruiting artists to perform at the Fest. At first, some were hesitant because they believed beer drinking and gospel music didn’t mix. Most came around encouraged by Dejean and the always affable Washington, whom Davis hired as the Gospel Tent’s coordinator. Washington, whose wonderful photo is prominently displayed in the venue, held the position until his passing in 2011.
“Sherman had a magnetism about himself,” said Brazella Briscoe, who joined the Harmonizers as first tenor in 1986 and in 2007 took over the leadership of the famous group. “He walked into a room – I don’t care where it was – and everything stopped. All eyes were laid on him.”
“What we try to bring is professionalism, a gospel aura, a Christian, religious aura,” said Briscoe, who reverently carries on the Harmonizers’ traditions and remembers being a bit overwhelmed during his first time in the Gospel Tent with the group. “We don’t necessarily proclaim ourselves as entertainers, but we try to portray God’s message.”
An amazing five generations of Lois Dejean’s family performed in the Gospel Tent at Jazz Fest 2023 under their banner, The Johnson Extension. The impressive ensemble is named in honor of Dejean’s father, the Rev. Herbert L. Johnson. Though confined to a wheelchair that was placed at the very edge of the stage, Dejean, dressed all in white, was her usual spunky self – singing, smiling and greeting friends and fans.
“We can’t go on the stage without her,” her daughter Pamela Landrum declared. “She is a legend.”
Mother and daughter were side-by-side singing with the Dejean’s group, the Gospel Inspirations at the first Jazz Fest held in Congo Square. The setting was simple: a piano on the grass, just the top of a tent and no sound system.
Landrum was a teenager at the time and a senior at McDonogh 35 High School located just across the street from the festival. Quint commented to her that he had all these musicians but no audience. She went to the school’s principal to ask if the students could come over and attend the festival. “He let the seniors go – a half day,” she vividly remembered.
“Jazz Fest was so new it had blues, second lines,” Dejean recalled. “I told Quint we have a culture that we are very proud of and we want to exhibit that culture – and that is gospel music.” Davis’ inspiration to feature gospel eventually exposed the joy of the music beyond New Orleans that led to bookings of many groups and choirs at events around the world.
“Quint wanted to accommodate the musicians,” said Landrum recalling when the festival initially moved to the New Orleans Fair Grounds and its new Gospel Tent. “Mom went to Quint and said, ‘No, you can’t have an organ without a Leslie [speaker].’ He would make it happen.”
“Like all of the other traditions, gospel is carrying on through the generations,” Davis pointed out. The connections between gospel and its influence on this city and its noted genres are obvious. Think of the New Orleans’ anthem “When the Saints Go Marching In,” an old hymn played regularly by brass bands on the streets and, of course, the theme song and namesake of the Saints football team. Just add a “Who Dat!”
It’s easy to hear the roots of rhythm and blues when the Jackson Travelers and other old school gospel quartets get going. Modern and traditional jazz have also benefited from so many of their great and often nationally recognized musicians such as drummers Brian Blade, Herlin Riley and Joe Dyson and keyboardist PJ Morton, just to name a few, “coming up” in the church. Then again, New Orleans’ legendary vocalists Aaron Neville, who would sit in with the Zion Harmonizers, and Irma Thomas, who regularly performs in the Gospel Tent, are in that number. As Davis said, gospel was “a natural” inclusion at New Orleans Jazz Fest.
Throughout New Orleans’ music community, embracing the youth and passing down knowledge to the next generation is not only vital but expected. Naturally, kids bring their own energy, styles and innovations to the traditions. The Gospel Soul Children performed at Jazz Fest for the first time in 1972 and continually blew people away with their sheer enthusiasm.
“The Gospel Soul Children was the largest community choir in the city at the time,” said Craig Adams, who joined the Soul Children as an organist in 1994 and took over as director in 2014. He is also the director of Craig Adams & Higher Dimensions of Praise. “It was full of over 100 young people and they were fully animated, high energy and they did a lot of moves. They gave a show,” he continued, mentioning their signature tune, “Can’t Stop Praising His Name,” that, on the word “stop,” the entire choir would freeze in place. Talk about dramatic.
“I was more excited than anything to see all those people in the Gospel Tent hollering for the choir and I had something to do with that,” said Adams, who was about 17 at the time he became a member. “It’s something that I’ll always take with me. Every year I get the same kind of goose bumps.”
As they’ve done for the last seven years, the Gospel Soul Children will present its Reunion Choir of some 65 people ages 18 to 68 years old and some of whom are original members. They’ll be donned, as always, casually wearing, often red T-shirts proudly bearing the choir’s name.
If you’ve ever stood looking at your Jazz Fest schedule wondering where to head next, remember this motto: “When in doubt go to the Gospel Tent!” Or as Davis might add, “It’s real – they have church.”
This article originally published in the April 22, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
