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Monday, September 26, 2011

House of Prayer Shout Bands

Edited by Azizi Powell

Shout Bands



Uploaded by SeekerTruth2011 on Mar 7, 2011
Sounds of Zion Shout Band

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Selected information and videos of African American shout bands are featured in this post for historical, aesthetic, and religious purposes. This is not meant to be a comprehensive presentation of this music tradition.

My thanks to all of the uploaders of these videos.

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WHAT IS A SHOUT BAND?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shout_band
"A shout band is a traditional, soul based musical style that arose in some predominantly African American Protestant churches in the 1920s.

The shout band tradition of the southeastern United States originated from the exuberant church music of North Carolina. African American brass players formed bands, predominately trombone-based, inspired by jazz, blues, Dixeland, gospel, and old time spirituals: a more soulful version of a New Orleans Brass Band. The United House Of Prayer For All People, a Holiness Denomination founded in 1919 in Massachusetts, is particularly known for its Shout Bands."

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From http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/madison-clouds-of-heaven-a-trombone-shout-band/Content?oid=1197720
"Madison Clouds of Heaven, a trombone shout band
by Grant Britt
June 07, 2006

[The trombone shout band] tradition originated with House of Prayer founder and evangelist Sweet Daddy Grace...Grace originally traveled with a single trombone player, but the excitement the horn stirred up soon led to the formation of entire brass bands. Bandleader Cedric Mangum even says New Orleans funeral bands are a spin-off of the shout-band mold. But now, the Madison Clouds of Heaven trombone shout band serves as the Charlotte [North Carolina] House of Prayer's traveling ambassadors.

"We do our ministry through our music," says Mangum, who follows no set program. "We allow the spirit of the Lord to guide us, and that's how we normally do our performances."

The band's membership ranges from 30 to 35 members, performing in what Mangum calls Jubileeing, an old-time gospel style based on a call and response format used by many groups like the Dixie Hummingbirds.

Like older gospel groups, the band uses one repeating, pulsating chord for hypnotic effect. The technique, termed backtiming, builds excitement in the congregation shout band and paves the way for the run man.

"Once we get into a set backtiming, meaning the background plays a certain note continuously, then the run man comes in to give us some special effects, meaning some other type of runs that go on top of that," Mangum says. It's like the rhythm section with the lead singer soaring over it. "We call it building the spirit."

...Establishing a name outside the church is a fairly recent development [for shout bands]. The United House of Prayer's bishop started allowing shout bands to play secular venues only in the last 15 years. Since then, the word has gotten out in large part due to a Folkways Records compilation, Saint's Paradise, a Smithsonian Institute collection that features the Clouds of Heaven along with other sacred Charlotte bands, like Madison's Lively Stones and McCollough Sons of Thunder."

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SHOUT BAND VIDEOS
[Selected videos are assigned numbers for the sake of this post. No preferential ranking is intended by these numbers.]

Video #1 - Sounds of Zion Shout Band
Embedded at the beginning of this post.

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Video #2 - Harlem Soul



Uploaded by Yojimbot1 on Mar 20, 2011

The United House of Prayer for All People [located in Harlem on 124th and Frederick Douglass Blvd] performs "Touch the Hem of His Garment"

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Video #3 - He Looked beyond my faults!



Uploaded by Facility5 on Mar 21, 2011
MGS playing
-snip-
Note: According to a commenter, this band is the Glorious Sounds from Washington, D.C.

The Bishop (religious leader) of the House Of Prayer denomination is referred to as "Daddy". That is likely who the person in the video is referring to when he says "Thank you Daddy".

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Video #4 - Zeb Harrison and Sound OF Praise



Uploaded by MrMoses11 on Jan 19, 2011

Pre-Christmas program -Pastor Alfred C.Harrison church.

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Video #5 - Trombone shout band: Kenny Carr and the Tigers



Uploaded by carolinashout on Oct 8, 2009

Kenny Carr and the Tigers Shout Band, Carolina Shout, 2001, University of South Carolina

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RELATED LINK
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/01/videos-of-south-african-gospel-brass_7.html to find videos of South African brass bands.

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1 comment:

  1. Hat tip to my facebook friend Andre Hayward for posting a shout band video on his fb wall. That motivated me to look up information on & more videos research about this African American religious tradition.

    Although I'm African American, I wasn't aware of shout bands until I watched that video he shared.

    Thanks, Andre!

    ReplyDelete