Pilgrim Jubilee Singers, Vol. 1

It is hugely ironic that while the African American Jubilee Singers tradition of refined choral repertoire and technique was established and maintained throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries in order to appeal to white audiences, so many recordings by vocal ensembles connected with the Jubilee tradition have been marginalized and even eliminated from reference works by predominately white historians, musicologists, and discographers. Almost everything by the Pace Jubilee Singers, for example, has been declared "of little interest" by the editors of Blues & Gospel Records 1902-1943. This is extremely unfortunate as the beautiful voice of the group's featured soloist, Hattie Parker, is clearly recognizable as a precedent for the later work of Madame Ernestine Washington, Georgia Peach, and Mahalia Jackson. The group's founder, Harry H. Pace, is historically important for his publishing work with W.C. Handy and Thomas A. Dorsey. Document's first volume devoted to the Pace Jubilee Singers contains a number of their best recordings, including "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," "I'm Going Through Jesus," and "My Lord is Writin' All the Time." The pace, so to speak, of many of these songs is unusually slow. A song will unfold gradually, and the impression one gets is that the singer (usually Hattie Parker) has created something recognizable as sacred space.

This disc actually opens with half-a-dozen sides by the Four Harmony Kings, who were formed by William Hann in 1915, got their first big break four years later with James Reese Europe, and were cast in Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake's 1921 Broadway revue Shuffle Along. The Black Swan and Emerson recordings heard here were recorded shortly afterwards, and the remaining two sides appeared on Vocalion in 1924. These performances should be heard as endearing examples of the old-fashioned vocal harmony tradition, and the presence of Sissle & Blake's "Goodnight Angeline," the old favorite "Sweet Adelyne," and "When the Saints Come Marching In" (one of that song's earliest appearances on record) act as a heartwarming prologue for the gentle, ruminative vocalizing of the Pace Jubilee Singers.