Various The Human Orchestra - Various Artists (LP)

(Clanka Lanka) 16 tracks 1932 -1940

All Black vocal harmony groups, from the Original Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1871 to the community based, laboring class quartets of the late 1920s, sang a mixed repertory of secular and religious songs.
Nineteenth century jubilee-minstrels performed popular songs and secular 'plantation melodies' along with their spiritual selections.
In the early part of this century Black quartets were singing jazz songs. A mixed repertoire remained the norm among Black quartets until the 1930s, when two exclusive factions began to emerge; one rendering sacred music exclusively, the other ostensibly restricting itself to secular songs.