Pebblebrook High School - Kumbaya

Topic: Pedagogy - Goals
One thing that struck me as I watched videos of "Kumbaya" from public school music programs was the overwhelming whiteness of the participants. As the table at the bottom shows, the schools usually had larger percentages of African-American students than existed in their tax-paying communities. And, within those schools, the numbers of Blacks appearing in the videos were much lower than their presence in the student bodies.

There are many problems with such a sweeping generalization, beginning with the fact my sample was defined by music teachers who chose to perform "Kumbaya" in a concert. Their preference for a song associated with children’s summer residential camps in the 1970s may have reflected a general taste for music that attracted certain students and discouraged others.

But it was striking that even in schools like Fayette Middle School in Georgia [1] where the percussion program included non-western instruments, the children taking advantage of the program were overwhelmingly white while the student body was 78% African-American.

Funding and access to technology were more subtle factors. While many audience members owned smartphones that could record performances, not all knew how or desired to upload videos to YouTube. Money for music programs was eliminated in many school districts since the 1970s. The program at Llewellyn Elementary in Portland, Oregon, was funded by a private parents’ foundation. [2] Poor communities don’t have the resources to organize such legal entities.

Schools that were given adequate support often offered a number of choral and instrument organizations, but in others, like the one I attended in Michigan in the late 1950s, there was only one band class, one string class, and two vocal classes. In schools that offered multiple music classes, African Americans may have selected groups that did not perform "Kumbaya."

Some districts responded to financial problems with magnet schools like Las Vegas Academy, mentioned in the post for 6 September 2018. Pebblebrook High School in Mableton, Georgia, was both Cobb County’s magnet school for the performing arts and a neighborhood high school. The total student body was close to 2,300 students. One wonders if any of the students in that school or others in the county who were not accepted by the arts program had any opportunities to sing or play an instrument. Soulful Praise was "the only one of the school’s vocal groups composed of both PA and traditional students." [3]

School size probably was important. When a high school like California’s Mission Viejo had more than 2,400 students, it’s hard to imagine how an average student would have had the opportunity to participate. But, then, the Seventh-day Adventist’s Hilltop Christian, also in California, only had 73 students, and no obvious African Americans participated in a wind ensemble led by a Black wind player. The school’s enrollment was 77% Black, but the four "brown" faces looked more Asian from a distance. The fact the instrumental teacher was only available after normal school hours may have been limited the ability of some to participate. [4]

One suspects part of the problem wasn’t the selection of songs like "Kumbaya," but the lingering influence of the Saint Olaf choir mentioned in the post for 12 August 2018. Walter Turnbull, who founded the Boys Choir Harlem, said he heard them when they appeared at his Alabama college. He remembered:

"I had never heard a sound like that before and had mixed feelings. It was a white sound, very straight with little vibrato. It was totally opposite of the one that I had grown to love.

"I tried to get my boys to have that classic European sound for years. It never sounded right. I wanted the natural sound I heard in Leontyne Price. I heard it on radio stations playing rhythm and blues, and I heard it over the telephone. There is something unique and warm about the black voice that has nothing to do with diction and it clearly distinguishable." [5]

One can hear the difference in two performances of the Soweto Gospel Choir’s version of "Kumbaya," one by an all-white group from Hermiston High School and one by Pebblebrook High School that included some African-American singers.

Joshua Rist remained faithful to Kurt Runestad’s transcription in Oregon. [6] He began with the sopranos singing in clear voices. When the group joined them, they blended into one sound with no depth from overtones. The low voices sang the Zulu section, but were in the back where the video camera’s microphone did not pick them up.

Evelyn White transposed the Soweto arrangement into an African-American song in Georgia. She began with one soprano soloist backed by the group. Soulful Praise sang the middle part together with a fuller sound. Instead of a Zulu chant, White had one girl sing phrases of "Kumbaya" in a falsetto voice that was rough rather than smooth in its intonation. The group sang harmony behind her.

The two choirs had differing accompaniments that reflected the background of their conductors. Rist, who had spent time in Nigeria, had a young woman play a floor drum play throughout the piece. White was a jazz pianist who used a strong piano accompaniment. A drum was used in the last part, as was done by Soweto, but the drummer sat on the floor in the wings.

Performers
Pebblebrook High School
Vocal Soloist: two girls
Vocal Group: girls and boys
Vocal Director: Evelyn White
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: hand-played drum, hand claps

Hermiston High School
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: girls and boys
Vocal Director: Joshua Rist
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: hand-played drum, hand claps

Credits
Hermiston High School
Khumbaya (Soweto Gospel Choir), arr. Kurt Runestad

Notes on Lyrics
See post for 28 August 2017 for details on Soweto Gospel Choir version.

Notes on Music
See post for 29 August 2017 for details on Soweto Gospel Choir version.

Notes on Performance
Pebblebrook High School
Occasion: Christmas Concert
Location: First Christian Church of Mableton, Georgia
Microphones: two floor mikes; one was used by the soloists.

Clothing: the girls wore black dresses with scarves of maroon, yellow, or white; the boys wore black shirts and slacks

Hermiston High School
Occasion: Choirs of the Valley 2015, LeGrande, Oregon
Location: stage
Microphones: none

Clothing: the choir wore robes; the drummer wore a long, dark dress; the director wore a light colored suit

Notes on Movement
Pebblebrook High School
Soulful Praise stood in two rows on the stage floor. After the first soloist returned to her place, the group began stepping side to side. When the second soloist went to the microphone, they began clapping while they stepped. They clasped hands and raised their arms at the end. No one had a music stand or sheet music.

Hermiston High School
The chamber choir stood in a semicircle in four rows on three tiers of risers. The drummer was in front at stage right; the director stood in the center. They began clapping half-way through. Most continued to stand in place looking at the director while they dropped their arms between claps in front of their chests. Rist used both arms symmetrically except when pointing to a group to begin; he clapped with the choir. No one had a music stand or sheet music.

Notes on Audience
Audiences applauded at the ends of both performances.

Notes on Performers
White played piano in the Mount Olive Baptist Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, when she was a child. After graduating with a degree in piano performance from Austin Peay State University, she played professionally. Tony Bennett and Nancy Wilson helped her become a singer. She then performed with jazz groups until she joined the high school faculty as coordinator of the piano laboratory. [7]

Rist was home schooled in Shedd, Oregon, where he took piano lessons and played in "worship and garage bands at his church." He joined his first choir when he attended Linn Benton Community College. [8] After his trip to Nigeria with "a church humanitarian group," he earned his music education degree from Oregon State University. [9] During the three years, he was at Hermiston, [10] the vocal music program grew "from 70 students in four choirs to more than 220 in five choirs [11] drawn from 1,400 students. [12]

Availability
Soulful Praise Gospel Choir of Pebblebrook High School
YouTube: "Kumbaya." Uploaded by Personnia Rawls on 15 December 2015.

Hermiston High School Chamber Choir
YouTube: "Khumbaya." Uploaded by Rick Scheibner on 16 October 2015.

Table

State	Town	School	Type	% Black	% Black	% Black	Posted
		Public		Town	School	Group
SC	Columbia	Dreher	H	42.2	53	Most	9/16/18
Ga	Mableton	Pebblebrook	H	39	62	Most	Today
Ga	Fayetteville	Fayette	M	33.9	78	Total 3	8/28/18
Ill	Freeport	Freeport	H	13.8	23.7	Couple	8/5/18
Nev	Las Vegas	Las Vegas Acad	H	11.1	7	None obvious	9/6/18
Wisc	Madison	Jefferson	M	7.3	21.3	19%	8/9/18
Ore	Portland	Llewellyn	E	6.3	9.7	None obvious	8/9/18
Calif	La Verne	Bonita	H	3.4	0.5	0	8/23/18
Mass	Newton	Newton North	H	2.5	5	Some	8/16/18
Calif	Mission Viejo	Mission Viejo	H	1.3	3	Total 1	8/23/18
NY	Bemus Point	Bemus Point	E	1.1	1	0	8/9/18
Ore	Hermiston	Hermiston	H	0.8	1	0	Today
Ohio	West Milton	Milton-Union	M	0.5	2	0	7/18/18
Iowa	Packwood	Pekin	H	0	0	0	8/5/18
Ga	Decatur	Columbia	H	N/A	N/A	Total 1	8/12/18
		Religious
Ill	Lansing	Illiana Calvinist	H	31.59	18	None obvious	8/23/18
Calif	Antioch	Hilltop SDA	E	17.3	77	None obvious	7/1/18
Calif	Sebastopol	Pleasant Hill	E	5.1	0	None obvious	7/18/18
Wisc	Greendale	Martin Luther	H	2.8	4	None obvious	8/23/18

2010 Census data for city populations was taken from Wikipedia. Data on school demographics came from Great Schools and School Digger websites. Neither may have represented the time period of the video. Comments on the racial composition of performing groups are vague because shadows, poor lighting, fuzzy camera work, and long-distance shots all made it difficult to judge face color, especially in schools known to have large numbers of Asian or self-identified Hispanic students.

End Notes
1. For more information on Fayette Middle School, see the post for 28 August 2018.
2. "What is the Llewellyn Elementary Foundation?" Its website.

3. Jay Young. "Pebblebrook Gospel Choir Performs at The Black Box." South Cobb [County, Georgia] Patch website. 7 May 2011. PA referred to the performing arts program.

4. For more on the Pleasant Hill program, see the post for 18 July 2018.

5. Walter Turnbull. Lift Every Voice. With Howard Manly. New York: Hyperion, 1995. 207. For more on Turnbull and the Boys Choir Harlem, see the post for 1 October 2017.

6. For more on Runestad’s transcription, see the post for 28 August 2017.
7. "Evelyn White, Collaborative Pianist & Piano Laboratory Coordinator." School website.
8. "Singing His Story." Terra website. 19 July 19 2013.
9. Claire Sykes. "The Music Men." Oregon State University website.
10. "About Josh Rist." Facebook.

11. Derek Wiley. "McNary Taps its New Choir Director." Keizer [Oregon] Times website. 22 July 2016.

12. "Hermiston High School." Great Schools website.