According to The BelleReport.com
Centennial of Mahalia Jackson’s birth sparks concerts,
Panels in her hometown
Mahalia Jackson sings an impromptu “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” to the beat of the Eureka Brass Band at the first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on April 23, 1970.
New Orleans bookends Mahalia Jackson’s life. The consensus greatest gospel singer of all time was born in the Black Pearl section of the Carrollton neighborhood on Oct. 26, 1911. She was buried in a handsome marble crypt in Metairie’s Providence Memorial Park following her death on Jan. 27, 1972 at age 60.
Like Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr., she won worldwide acclaim after leaving her hometown. At 16, she moved to Chicago, where she launched her professional career, first in the African-American churches that nurtured her, later on a much wider stage.
In the 1950s, she was the first gospel singer featured at New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. In the 1960s, she sang at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, the landmark civil rights-era March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral.
Even though the performing arts center in Louis Armstrong Park is named for her, many in New Orleans and beyond are unaware of her ties here. Hoping to highlight those ties, next week’s centennial of Jackson’s birth will be celebrated with a variety of concerts, plays, scholarly discussions and services.
On Thursday, Oct. 20, jazz keyboardist and composer Matt Lemmler leads a Jackson tribute during the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s weekly “Ogden After Hours” series. He’ll front an ensemble that includes vocalist Leah Chase, her daughter Chase Kamata, George French, Topsy Chapman & Solid Harmony, clarinetist Evan Christopher, drummer Herlin Riley, Michael Lemmler and Donald Ramsey.
The Dillard University theater program opens its 76th season with six performances of “Mahalia,” a celebration of Jackson and her music, from Oct. 28 through Nov. 6.
Michael White, the noted jazz clarinetist and Keller Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Xavier University, has built a week’s worth of programs at Xavier — all free and open to the public.
The series, presented in the McCaffrey Ballroom on the third floor of Xavier’s University Center, kicks off with a gospel Mass on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 12:30 p.m., followed by a screening of the Jackson documentary “The Power and the Glory” at 4 p.m.
On Monday, White and his Original Liberty Jazz Band are joined by gospel singer and pianist Cynthia Girtley for a concert dedicated to the New Orleans roots of Jackson’s musical style.
A Tuesday panel discussion and performance includes Girtley, Dr. Joyce Jackson, Rev. Lois Dejan and Bertha Reine, a niece and confidant of Jackson’s.
A centennial concert on Oct. 26 features Girtley, Mathilda Jones, Danielle Edinburgh-Wilson and Veronica Downs Dorsey, as well as a Mahalia Jackson sound-alike contest. The Xavier series concludes Oct. 27 with a presentation by Bernice Johnson Reagon, the veteran civil rights activist, educator and co-founder of the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock.
“Mahalia Jackson is one of the most important figures in American music, and probably the most identifiable female to ever come out of New Orleans,” White said. “Not only did she help to turn gospel music into an international, recognizable phenomena, but she also helped bring the spirit of New Orleans around the world.”
Though she refused to sing secular material, Jackson nonetheless attained a level of pop stardom.
“Mahalia helped gospel music move out of black churches to concert arenas,” White said. “She was one of the early people to help bring about the idea of professional gospel singers. She was one of the earliest to perform at jazz festivals and tour Europe. Her impact has been massive.”
That impact is still felt today. White counts Jackson as a major influence on the way he voices his clarinet. As a young musician, he marched with Doc Paulin’s Brass Band during anniversary parades for Jackson’s childhood congregation, Mount Moriah Baptist Church on Millaudon Street.
“You could almost feel the spirit of those things in the neighborhood that she heard, the parades, the funerals, King Oliver performing on advertising wagons,” White said.
With the “New Orleans Roots” concert on Monday, “we want to let people hear the things that went into the mix in her head and came out as her unique style.” Those ingredients include Bessie Smith’s blues, brass bands and the animated “sanctified” choirs found in neighborhood churches.
“A lot of the spirit of what she did came from there, more than Baptist churches at the time,” White said. “She brought a lot of that emotion and spirit to a higher level in Baptist churches. All the moving and shouting and emotionalism of her performance … at first, a lot of the Baptist churches, especially up north, thought that was too much.”
The reflections of Bertha Reine, the niece who moved to Chicago at Jackson’s request, lived with her and often accompanied her on the road, should be a highlight of Tuesday’s session. “She had an inside, personal perspective like none other,” White said.
The Oct. 26 concert features a bevy of local singers influenced by Jackson’s style. “They represent different versions of that influence,” White said. “Some more classically trained, some rougher and hotter, and some in between.”
White first encountered Mathilda Jones when she “tore up” mourners during guitarist Snooks Eaglin’s funeral. White subsequently recruited Jones, who years ago collaborated with Jerry Butler and other R&B stars, for the Jackson tribute he staged at this year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell.
Danielle Edinburgh-Wilson, a Xavier graduate who has studied opera, will star as Jackson in Dillard’s production of “Mahalia.” Veronica Downs Dorsey, another Xavier graduate, is a well-known church choir director, singer and pianist.
Girtley, a cousin of the late blues and gospel singer Marva Wright, first learned Jackson’s songs as a child. She’s performed at the Kennedy Center and the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., where she lived for 15 years.
She returned to her native New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She oversees a total of six choirs at the Asbury United Methodist Church in Lower Coast Algiers and St. Matthew United Methodist Church in Old Algiers, while maintaining a tour schedule that included a trip to Brazil in August. Her latest CD, “A New Orleans Tribute to Mahalia Jackson,” features White’s clarinet.
Girtley can identify with the resistance Jackson’s exuberant vocal style encountered from more traditional congregations and pastors. As a high school pianist and singer in the early 1970s, Girtley often performed during services at a Baptist church. She recalled a music director pulling her aside.
“He said, ‘We need you to tone it down. We’ve had some complaints, that you’re playing too jazzy.’ I will never forget that.
“And this was the 1970s. Imagine what Mahalia went through. She sang with such soul and emotion. At one point, that was not acceptable in a lot of Baptist churches. The Holy Ghost dancing and loud singing was not what they wanted.”
Contemporary forms of gospel music now prevail in New Orleans. But Girtley, White and others believe Jackson’s traditional style should also be sustained.
“I have nothing against contemporary music,” Girtley said. “But we can’t forget the old, traditional gospel singing that made you sing and open yourself up.
Where you didn’t need drums and other instruments — your voice is the music. That is what Mahalia means to me.
“Her voice was the essence of beauty and emotion. Her ability to come out of herself and give of herself .. she opened up and allowed people to see exactly who she was through her singing.”
MAHALIA JACKSON CENTENNIAL EVENTS
Thursday, Oct. 20, 6 p.m.: Tribute concert featuring Matt Lemmler’s New Orleans Jazz Revival Band, Leah Chase, and more, Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Free for Ogden members, $10 for non-members.
Sunday, Oct. 23, 12:30 p.m. Gospel Mass, Xavier University Center. Free.
Sunday, 4 p.m. Screening of “The Power and the Glory,” Xavier University Center. Free.
Monday, Oct. 24, 7 p.m. “The New Orleans Roots of Mahalia Jackson” featuring Michael White and Cynthia Girtley, Xavier University Center. Free.
Tuesday, Oct. 25, 7 p.m. “The Legacy and Significance of Mahalia Jackson” panel discussion and performance, Xavier University Center. Free.
Oct. 26, 7 p.m. Cententennial Concert featuring Cynthia Girtley, Mathilda Jones, Danielle Edinburgh-Wilson and Veronica Downs Dorsey, Xavier University Center. Free.
Oct. 27, 7 p.m. An evening with Bernice Johnson Reagon, Xavier University Center. Free.
Oct. 28-30 and Nov. 4-6: Stagings of the musical “Mahalia,” Cook Theatre on the Dillard University campus. $15, $10 seniors and students; $50 for Nov. 5 dinner theater benefit show. Call 504.816.4857.
