The Gospelers

Nothing in Washington's International Jazz Festival was quite so impressive as the sight and sound of an ample woman swathed in yellow chiffon walking down the aisle, borrowing hats, a mink cape and a couple of purses, while singing Packin' Up (for a trip to the "Great Beyond"). Singer Marion Williams was remarkable not only for her display of a gold tooth embellished with a star, but also for her voice--supple, easy-ranging and capable of lyric flights and hallelujah shouts of shattering force. Singer Williams and the other members of her Stars of Faith group are riding comfortably on a trend that could change the face of U.S. pop music: the commercialization of the gospel song.

Lavender Limousines. Gospel songs are spirituals with a bounce--a mixture of Protestant hymns and the religious songs brought North by Negroes a couple of generations ago. Jazz bands picked up the beat; nightclub singers took some of the music intact and pasted on pop words.

But there was no general market for genuine gospel until Mahalia Jackson made her first European tour in 1952. Now there are about 20 well-known professional groups, like the Stars of Faith, singing for pay around the country and getting paid well. Such gospelers as Clara Ward and her Ward Singers, who tour in a custom-built lavender Chrysler, are taking the Word as far afield as nightclubs and the borscht circuit. Even the big record companies have begun to realize that gospel sells--chiefly, as one A. & R. man points out, because "gospel singing has the greatest concentration of exciting voices in the country." Although Clara Ward is a veteran queen of the gospelers, some fans think that she has been surpassed by onetime Disciple Williams and the Stars of Faith.

Born in Miami of a West Indian father, Songstress Williams has retained some of the rhythmic flavor of the Caribbean in her gospel songs. Those wild, vibrant rhythms, plus her instrumental style of phrasing and her phenomenal range, set her apart from every other gospeler. The classic of her repertory is Packin' Up, in which her voice soars and plunges with an exuberance no other gospeler can match.

Baptist Tambourines. The Ward Singers were drawing audiences of 20,000 nearly 20 years ago, and many of today's good gospelers were trained under Clara Ward.

A little (5 ft. 3 in., 105 Ibs.) woman with a big voice, Clara started singing in the choir of Philadelphia's Ebenezer Baptist Church when she was five, soon was singing in a trio with her mother and sister, formed her own group with several other singers in 1941. The best pianist in gospel, she also represents the best of the unadulterated Baptist-style singers who work in the old hymn-singing tradition. In Washington her singers appeared in flowing white robes with purple sashes from shoulder to knee. They often move into the audience slapping tambourines while singing the likes of Travelin' Shoes.

Two other groups belong with the best: > The Alex Bradford Singers take their name from a remarkable musician and an outstanding composer: Bradford's Too Close to Heaven has sold more than a million records. Alabama-born, he is a gifted choir director (now at Newark's Great Abyssinian Church), and his gospel style is notable for its sophistication--particularly in its choral effects. In churches around the country, Bradford and the group shout out their wildly exultant songs while appropriately clad in flowing robes.

>The Staple Singers stick with their family name; the group consists of Father Roebuck Staples, two daughters and a son. Their muted but intensely exciting gospel style, with its country blues feeling, is a reflection of what Roebuck heard when he was growing up in rural Mississippi. Roebuck himself is a first-rate guitarist, but his daughter Mavis is the best vocalist--a contralto whose voice has both a honeyed quality and almost hypnotic intensity. The Staples, who have been appearing together for 12 years, feel "we are fulfilling our obligation as Christian people by singing the Gospel."

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