Livingston Gearhart - Koom Ba Yah

Topic: Choral Arrangements
Following the publication of Harry Harter’s SATB arrangement of “Koom Ba Yah” in 1958, Fred Waring published a version for boys’ choirs the next year.  It appeared in Gentlemen Songsters, a choral collection edited by Livingston Gearhart.

The arrangement was the first published one to use vocal melodic and rhythmic parts.  The upper voices sang the tune in unison while the lower ones repeated “koom by yah” in a dotted-quarter-note/eighth note/quarter-note pattern.  The first two notes were the same, and the third was a step lower.  The second part of the arrangement used two melodies.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: two parts
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: vocal part

Credits
Headnote: African Spiritual
Footnote: “Koom ba ya,” is derived from the words “Come by here.”
Title Page: © Copyright MCMLIX by Shawnee Press, Inc., Delaware Water Gap, Pa.

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: dialect for “mah,” “Lawd”; drops terminal G’s

Verses: those published by Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) – kumbaya, prayin’, cryin’, singin’

Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lawd, Savior
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: 4-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: Savior for Lord in last line

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5; same melody as that published by CRS
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: fast, quarter note = ca 138

Rhythm: introduction is “very short; brittle”; first section rhythm part is “hushed, but strongly percussive”; second section is “subtito”

Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Dynamics: first section soft (“pp”), second section loud (“f”), ending soft (“pp”)
Basic Structure: two sections
Singing Style: one syllable to one note; “savior” used in place of “Lord” in final line

Harmonic Structure: verses 1 and 2 use one melodic line for upper voices and rhythmic repetition of “koom ba yah” for lower voices; verses 3 and 4 use two melodic lines

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: piano alternates two-note right-hand chords with two-note left-hand chords

Ending: last note held by vocal parts as accompaniment gets progressively softer

Notes on Performance
Cover: four male figures with staffs of music across their bodies

Color Scheme: cover is vanilla with taupe and black printing; black ink on white paper inside

Notes on Audience
Gentlemen Songsters used “spirited rhythmic drive” to attract and keep “the interest of men and boys.”  The arrangements were “tested by the Fred Waring Music Workshop and in a high school boys chorus.” [1]

At least one school is known to have performed Gearhart’s arrangement in 1962: the Essex District High School in Ontario, Canada.

Notes on Performers
The publisher of Gentlemen Songsters, Fred Waring, was best known in 1959 as the director of the Fred Waring Singers, who appeared on television from 1948 to 1954. [2]  Partly in response to choir directors wanting to learn from him and use his arrangements, he organized his own workshops. [3]  From those he discovered what worked with youth, and began publishing arrangements through his Shawnee Press. [4]

Livingston Gearhart, who made the arrangements in the collection, had a long and sometimes complicated relationship with Waring.  He was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916.  His mother, the former Lillian Hawley, was a trained pianist.  Gearhart learned piano, violin, and oboe as a child, and sang in church choirs.  At Curtis Institute, he began with oboe in 1935, then changed to piano. [5]

While he was studying in Paris he met Virginia Clotfelter.  They toured as the piano duet Gearhart and Morley, and married in 1940.  They began working with Fred Waring in 1943, and he began making arrangements for Waring. [6]

Gearhart made his first foray into music methods with Clarinet Sessions in 1945. [7]  The arrangements were made by him and Dan Cassal, whom he knew from oboe classes at Curtis. [8]  Waring was the publisher.

The following year Shawnee issued Gearhart’s most popular arrangement, “Dry Bones.” [9]  It was described as a “rhythmic spiritual” for “percussion, two bass voice, piano, and string break.” [10]  Waring’s Pennsylvanians recorded a version for Decca in 1947 that featured the men singing in unison with percussive sounds at the end of phrases. [11]  The arrangement still is in print, and several versions are available of YouTube.

In 1954, Gearhart and Morley divorced and she married Waring.  He moved to the University of Buffalo where he taught music until he retired in 1985. [12]  The break was not complete because he continued to do work for Shawnee Press like Gentlemen Songsters.

After his death in 1996, his widow, the former Pamela Gerhart, gave his papers to the University of Buffalo.  The finding aid recalled that “as an author and teacher, Gearhart delighted in composing lively, stimulating music for young singers and instrumentalists.” [13]

Availability
Book:  “Koom Ba Yah.”  59–61 in Gentlemen Songsters, edited by Livingston Gearhart.  Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania: Shawnee Press, Inc., 1959.

Concert:  “Koom-ba-yah.”  Essex District High School, Essex, Ontario, Boys’ Glee Club.  Reported in 1962 school yearbook, Argus, edited by Sharon Greenwood.  Helmut Keil contributed “Boys’ Glee Club” on page 56.

End Notes
1.  Gentlemen Songsters.  Inside cover.
2.  “Fred Waring.”  Wikipedia website.

3.  Virginia Waring.  Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.  222–223.

4.  Fred Waring and Shawnee Press is discussed in the post for 28 March 2021.

5.  “Livingston Gearhart Papers 1933-1997, 1933-1997.”  State University of New York at Buffalo Music Library finding aid.  Available on Empire Archival Discovery website.

6.  Gearhart papers.

7.  Don Cassel and Livingston Gearhart.  Clarinet Sessions.  East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania: Shawnee Press, 1945.

8.  Laila Storch.  Marcel Tabuteau.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.  191.

9.  Livingston Gearhart.  “Dry Bones: A Rhythmic Spiritual.”  New York: Shawnee Press, 1946.

10.  WorldCat entry for “Dry Bones.”

11.  Fred Waring And His Pennsylvanians.  “Dry Bones / Ole Moses Put Pharaoh In His Place.”  Decca – 23948.  Issued 1947. [Discogs entry.]

12.  Gearhart papers.
13.  Gearhart papers.