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The Journal of New York Folklore was published 1975-1999. Back issues are still available.  The New York Folklore Quarterly was published 1946-1974. Back issues are still available. New York Folklore Society P.O. Box 764 Schenectady, NY 12301 518/346-7008 Fax 518/346-6617 nyfs@nyfolklore.org |
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IN NEW YORK CITY The joyful sounds of sacred quartet harmony have resonated through the black neighborhoods of New York for nearly a hundred years. This is not surprising, considering New York is home to one of the oldest urban African-American communities in the United States. In the late nineteenth century, as the city’s commercial entertainment industry boomed, the best minstrel and vaudeville acts in the country flocked to New York. These arts often featured four- and five-man tight harmony singing groups known as quartets. Their diverse repertoires included secular novelty songs, popular ballads, and parlor songs, as well as sacred spiritual and jubilee songs. In 1894, an outdoor extravaganza in New York City entitled “Black America” featured no less than sixty-three quartets, the best of which were praised for their exquisite harmonizing on plantation numbers and operatic selections (Fletcher 1954:97). Groups such as the Old South Quartette and the Four Harmony Kings were among the best harmonizing quartets to grace the stages of New York’s vaudeville theatres during the early decades of this century (Seroff 1982a:147; Funk 1985; Johnson 1940:36). As early as the 1870s, jubilee groups from southern black colleges such as Fisk University and Hampton Institute were appearing in New York City (Marsh, 1880:24-39). On occasion the larger jubilee choirs were pared down to smaller, one-on-a-part quartets, that sang smooth renditions of spirituals and other black folk songs. Because members of these early black college quartets were formally trained in the Western European choral tradition, their arrangements tended to emphasize clear diction, precise harmony, and relatively simple rhythmic patterns. At least one of the many college-based quartets that visited New York, the Utica Institute Jubilee Singers, actually relocated in the city where they broadcast on WJZ of the National Broadcasting Company During the 1920s, two other New York college-trained groups, the Southernaires and the Original Dixie Jubilee Singers (later known as the Eva Jessye Choir), popularized smooth, barber-shop and semi-classical arrangements of spirituals through regular radio broadcasts (Funk and Grendysa 1985; Southern 1983:411-415)....
 BACK TO NEW YORK FOLKLORE, Vol. 14, No. 3-4 — Table of Contents.NOTE: The New York Folklore Society Newsletter and New York Folklore Journal were replaced by Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore which debuted in December, 2000. Membership in NYFS includes a subscription to Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. HOME | ABOUT NYFS | PROGRAMS & SERVICES | MUSIC | PUBLICATIONS | RESOURCES | CALENDAR | WHAT’S FOLKLORE? | MEMBERSHIP | GALLERY | SHOP | SEARCH | CONTACT US © 2012, 2011, 2010 New York Folklore Society |
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