Spirituals

tuesday, sept 22, 7.30 pm
hybernia theatre

Golden Gate Quartet (USA)

Prague premiere concert of the Vocal Hall of Fame gospel group, part of a farewell international tour.

The history of what is now one of the most celebrated American male vocal quartets started to unfurl in 1934, when it was formed by four students of the prestigious school catering for African Americans, the West Virginia State College. The ensemble's name, Golden Gate, related programmatically to the “Gate of Heaven” (to be sure, the eponymous bridge across the San Francisco Bay was completed only three years later, by when The Golden Gate Quartet had already made its first records, at Charlotte, N.C., released on the Bluebird label. The foursome then had to its credit initial two years of occasional stints in various African American congregations of Virginia and the two Carolinas, where they had previously debuted singing on microphone in local radio stations' studios. The very first series of the Quartet's records, of August 1937, brought out a hit tune, the Golden Gate Gospel Train, in which they linked up with the style pioneered earlier by the popular Mills Brothers. At the early stages of their common career in particular, the Golden Gate Quartet members were still more or less conservative in their approach, remaining faithful to their original focus on spiritual and gospel song repertoire, delivered fairly often in the style of spontaneously harmonized melodies using three or more parts, with characteristic links in the form of alternating dominant seventh chords, inspired by the “barbershop harmony” interpretive practice.

A turning point in the ensemble's history, anticipating subsequent gradual changes in its orientation, was the memorable concert entitled From Spirituals to Swing, on Christmas of 1938, where it was featured alongside the Benny Goodman and Count Basie swing bands, blues singers, and boogie woogie-style pianists. From there, The Golden Gate Quartet was ejected onto music-hall platforms and to Hollywood musical productions (until the end of World War 2 it managed to appear in four movies), as well as, starting with its first European tour in 1955, to major concert and music hall venues of the Old Continent. The current tour, marking 75 years from the foundation of The Golden Gate Quartet, may well be one of the last chances for their audiences to enjoy the live experience of listening to this legendary ensemble which has been instrumental in the making of the history of music of our era.