Letters From New Orleans:
by Rob Walker
2005
ISBN: 1-1891053-01-9
46 black & white photos
Excerpt from
Letters From New Orleans
by Rob Walker
The Singing, The Song
One morning not long ago I placed a phone call to the St. Paul
Spiritual Church of God in Christ, located in the Lower Ninth
Ward, just down river from the industrial canal in New
Orleans. Feeling slightly foolish, I explained to the nice woman
who answered that I had seen the church’s choir perform at the
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and I wondered if, well, if
it would be okay, I guess, if anyone would mind if -- if visitors
might be welcomed at a service. The nice woman said of course.
The service begins, promptly, at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
And so on a Sunday morning a week and half later E
and I and our friend Marc put on Sunday clothes and we
went to church.
...
Jazz Fest takes place over two long weekends, on the grounds of
a big horse-racing track about a 10-minute walk from our house.
It's a large, sweaty, unwieldy event, with many acts performing
simultaneously on many stages, all day long. These stages, and
the food vendors, and the sellers of "crafts," take up the entire
grassy area defined by the track itself. There’s more over in the
air-conditioned grandstand. Also, there are a couple of huge
tents, or really small buildings made of canvass, standing on
what is normally part of the parking lot.
One of these is the Gospel Tent. It’s often said by devoted
attendees that the very best place to spend a day at Jazz Fest
is in the Gospel Tent. And so, on the festival’s second Friday,
I got to the tent at around 2 in the afternoon, as the Desire
Community Choir was performing. The truth is that I chose
this day because, according to the schedule, Michelle Shocked
was supposed to sing with the St. Paul Spiritual Church of
God in Christ choir. This appearance had attracted almost
no advance attention, perhaps because interest in Michelle
Shocked is limited.
The further truth is that I did not particularly enjoy the
Desire Community Choir. I was distracted by the crowd, or the
"scene." There were a lot of shirtless white guys drinking beer, for instance. They seemed to be enthusiastic about the
music, and I’m not religious so I can hardly critique their
engagement with the spiritual message. I just wasn’t having
a very good time.
...
On the day we went to church, we arrived at about 10:45 a.m.
at an unassuming brick building. Of the 70 or so people in
attendance we were the only three whites, which was not unexpected.
The Lower Ninth Ward is one of many low-income, predominantly
black neighborhoods in what is, after all, a
low-income and predominantly black city. People looked at us,
which was also not unexpected. I remember one young guy in
an untucked white shirt giving me what I was pretty sure was
a resentful glare.
But almost immediately people began to come over and
greet us. Some sort of deputy pastor introduced himself.
Everyone was warm. They shook our hands. Some asked where
we currently "fellowship," and we dissembled. We did not,
exactly, explain ourselves to anyone. Shortly before the service
began, the kid I thought was glaring came over with a big loopy
grin on and his face and shook hands with all of us.
...
Michelle Shocked did in fact perform with the choir at Jazz Fest.
She wore tight black jeans and T-shirt, with a sliver of midriff exposed. She carried a white guitar. Her hair is now shoulderlength,
brown, and I never would have recognized her. She
explained that she would say she was honored by our applause,
but that would be wrong. As wrong as saying that she and the
choir were here merely to entertain us, because it’s not about her,
and it’s not about the choir, and it’s not about entertainment. It’s
about Jesus -- and she’s not ashamed to say that name! She
went on like this for a while.
My heart sank. I have respect for the faithful. But I dislike
holy-rollers who are so theatrical and pushy. I grew up around
people who said things like this, who put Jesus in your face all
the time, and basically I consider it rude. I pondered leaving.
Meanwhile, the St. Paul Spiritual Church of God in Christ
choir filed on stage. There must have been 30 singers, forming
two rows, mostly black, mostly young. Maybe there were two or
three whites in choir. Michelle Shocked began to sing, and the
choir began to sway. I don’t really know my gospel numbers
so well, and I’m terrible at picking out lyrics, but the song
concerned "the rock." It built momentum. The other singers
joined in on the chorus in an astonishing wave of sound. It was
incredible, and I was swept up in it, filled with emotion. I was
more or less choked up, okay?
I looked around. There was a thin white woman in a big
straw hat, shorts, and high heels, balancing a plastic cup of beer
and a camera. I didn’t care. This sound, I decided, is the best
thing I have heard at Jazz Fest this year. So I convinced E, and
Marc, to come to church with me.
...
I guess I had imagined a stifling old room with wood floors and
a vaulted ceiling and garish image of Christ on the cross, like
something out of The Apostle. In fact the interior was carpeted,
and air-conditioned, with modest but upholstered chairs, and,
curiously, not a single religious symbol in sight.
There was a drum kit and two sets of keyboards. The music
began. Five or six women were at the front, behind microphones.
A couple of guys took turns leading a combination of music and
preaching. For half an hour or so most everyone was on his or
her feet, and, with the exception of us, singing and clapping
along. There was a sense of dislocation that came with this -- the
music was coming from everywhere. It was transcendent, in the
sense that being within the music seemed to lift, or maybe push,
us out of the normal way our five senses perceive the world.
At various points we were all instructed to greet or even
embrace our neighbors. Later there was a moment when people
were positively flooding over to greet us, including many people
who had already done so, but who moved from handshakes
to hugs. Eventually the music stopped and the pastor began
to speak. He spoke for a very long time; the sermon related
to money. (I had no small bills on me, so in another non-surprise I threw an absurd $20 into the collection jar.) As the morning
and early afternoon wore on, late-arrivers kept coming, and
I believe at the peak there must have been 120 or more people
there, including three more whites, older than us.
Then, apropos of nothing, there came a point late in the
service when the pastor announced to the room that there were
some people here today who had come because they had heard
the choir sing at Jazz Fest, and would these folks please stand
up so everyone could recognize them for this compliment they
were paying with their attendance?
We stood up to accept a round of applause. It was mortifying.
...
There's this line in an Eric Bogosian play in which a yuppie
character looks back on his life and wipes away the notion
that there might have been any hint of hypocrisy buried in his
privileged lifestyle. Vis a vis those less fortunate, he says:
"Hey, I was concerned." Something about the Gospel Tent had
made me feel as though I was in a place zoned for cultural
curiosity, where people like me could take a seat and say to
themselves: "Hey, I’m open-minded." Take the shallowness of
that sentiment and multiply by ten and you have a reasonable
idea of how foolish I felt being applauded for barging into a
place of worship to listen to music.
On the way out, again, everyone was wildly cheerful and friendly to us. We shook hands with the pastor (who asked,
hilariously, if we ourselves could sing) and told him, honestly,
what a fine service it had been. And thinking about it later, I
now believe I was misguided to be so embarrassed. Michelle
Shocked had said that her relationship with this choir began on
a day when she came to this very church just for the sake of the
music. "I came for the singing," she declared, "but I stayed for
the song." Now, I can't say that I heard "the song" in the way
that she did, or that these various friendly parishioners do. But
I finally realize that the song is what it’s about at the St. Paul
Spiritual Church of God in Christ, whether there are curious
interlopers on hand to hear the morning’s singing or not.
As we left, everyone said they hoped we would return. I
can only assume that they meant it.
JUNE 2001
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