A Time To Dance
Kim Burrell & The Art of Praise
I'm sure the bishop cleared his throat.
Kim Burrell's 8-piece band was wailing through a
hyperkenetic rendering of Anything, a
dissertation on George Clintonian funk from her
2001 Kim Burrell Live, when, suddenly,
Burrell's musical director, seemingly possessed,
drooped his head into a zombified, stilted
convulsion evolving into a slow pivot and then
into a stylized rendition of the ubiquitous
dance club perennial Cabbage Patch (difficult to
describe if you don't know what this dance is,
but let's just say it's about the only dance
Eddie Murphy can do). This young man, adorned in
jeans, silk shirt open to reveal a platinum neck
chain, and matching satin wave cap (“durag”),
split his time between bashing out big band horn
samples, directing the two drummers,
percussionist, guitarist, bassist, organist and
another keys man, along with five vocalists,
and... dancing. Shaking his marginal rump in
full-tilt defiance of both decorum and accepted
COGIC norms as the band modulated through this
full-throttle kaleidoscopic assault of Prince
licks (all over the place) and hyper grooves
melding into clever reversals and triads and
thrilling-beyond-description breathless coaster
loops of thick, beefsteak funk sliced up with
Ella jazz improvisation and Mahalia country
preacher Hammond B3 pads. It was a mess.
It was an absolute train wreck of musical styles
that only someone as twisted as George Clinton
or The Purple Enigma himself could have/should
have been capable of birthing. But there was Kim
Burrell, a young thirtysomething church gal who
probably should have been into the more ladylike
Yolanda Adams or Cece Winans, stalking the stage
in full command of the chaos. These were her
songs. These were her arrangements. The Durag
Guy shaking his moneymaker there in the pulpit
of Temple of Deliverance— the seat of power of
the 105 year-old arch conservative Church of God
In Christ— was her music guy. Stanley Kirk
Burrell, better known as MC Hammer, was her
cousin. The surgical precision Burrell brought
to bear as she effortlessly scatted through
twisting minor chord slaloms at 90 -plus miles
per hour left the listener with absolutely no
doubt that nothing, not one single note, was
played or sang on that stage without Burrell's
explicit consent. That would include, I imagine,
Durag Guy's improvisational boogie.
I scanned the video best I could, but did not
see the church's pastor, COGIC's presiding
Bishop Gilbert E.
Patterson. But, I have to believe, wherever
he was, he was clearing his throat. I'm not sure
just what lie someone told Patterson, or whose
cousin paved the way for this circus, but I can
assure you this unbridled enthusiasm was wholly
inconsistent with COGIC doctrine. But, I
digress: back to the young man shaking his
cakes: there was a lot of that going on, Burrell
perhaps finally having had enough of the
hypocrisy of the black church's traditional
disdain for dancing.
Living The Now Life? Burrell, in obvious Dreamgirls satire, from her 2010 website, BackstageWithKimBurrell, now discontinued. The site promised acting roles, a reality series, an international tour, endorsement deals, and her first secular album.
Footloose: Thou Shalt Not Dance
The doctrine behind the ban on dancing was always questionable
to begin with. There were people dancing all through the bible,
the entire tome being a veritable Boogie Wonderland of folks
turning cartwheels from Genesis to Revelation. A doctrine that
characterizes dancing as somehow evil or of Satan is not only
preposterous, it's not biblically sound. It is, in fact, a lie,
one of a great many lies the black church in specific have
carried around like luggage since the plantation. Dancing was an
essential part of Jewish life in Bible times. According to
Ecclesiastes 3:4, there is “...a time to mourn, and a time to
dance.” Dances were performed on both sacred and secular
occasions. King David danced before the Ark of The Covenant as
it was brought into Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:14, 16; I Chronicles
15:29). David exhorted others to praise God with music and
dancing in Psalms 149:3 and 150:4. Now, do we want a bump and
grind in Bishop Patterson's pulpit? I certainly hope not, so I
suppose I was of two minds about the whole deal: had this been a
commercial theater, I probably wouldn't have cared. But, this
being a sanctuary, sure, let's dance, but maybe something a
little less... butt involved.
But, yeah, by all means, lets dance. If we had any business
sense or any courage, we'd open up Christian Dance Clubs. See,
my best guess about The No Dance Thing is it was meant to keep
good Christian girls out of dance clubs, where they'd be
easy prey for sophisticated con artists looking to score.
Moreover, salacious dancing, the simulated sex pelvic grinding
and/or thrusting, likely does not edify God either, and
certainly sets our thoughts towards them drawers (which were on
prominent display in the jitterbug dance halls of the war
years). Dance halls were full of booze and reefer and the music
certainly didn't glorify God. Thus, for any or all of those
reasons, absolutely, I can embrace the horror of the black
church's traditional ban on dancing. Only, it wasn't dance in
and of itself our great church mothers and fathers were
concerned about; what they intended to ban was the atmosphere of
sin in which dancing typically took place.
However, the notion of the church policing social behavior is a
ridiculous and antiquated one. If a Christian does not truly
know Christ, he or she has greater worries than Burrell's
shakemeister. Keeping Christians in pens, in small cells of
mind-controlled social stasis, is the laziest expression of
ministry. Ministry is about meeting the physical, emotional and
spiritual needs of people. Ministry is about connecting people
to God— not policing behavior or art or thought. Of course,
doing the mind control thing is perhaps easier than doing our
real jobs. Helping someone get to know God in a real way is much
harder than getting them a haircut and dictating patterns of
behavior.
To that end, we've taken things to the extreme of demonizing
dance itself. While a growing number of black churches are
beginning (beginning! In 2002!!!) to allow liturgical dance in
the sanctuary, there are typically ridiculous and arbitrary
limits imposed on just how the human body may bend or sway
during such recitals. Practitioners must be careful not to be
too funky or too graceful, and more often than not what we end
up with are wooden, clumsy attempts at ballet or bad mime.
Beyond that, the only widely acceptable form of dancing in the
black church is the Chicken George “Shout,” a theoretically
spontaneous dance form wherein the Holy Spirit allegedly takes
control of the worshipper (usually, after the worshipper has
conveniently secured her big hat and purse) and
keeps said worshipper dancing in time with the music and in
widely accepted patterns of acceptable movement, usually
involving a flapping of the arms and a kind of Reverse Moonwalk
toe-step-toe. Now, I doubt King David danced this way. I have no
evidence from Jewish history of any Jew dancing this way,
whether possessed of the Holy Spirit or not. The Old Testament
employs eleven terms to describe the act of dance. The basic
Hebrew term that translates “dance” means “to twist” or “to
whirl about in circular motions.” Thus the widely-held belief,
in our 2002-né-1965 black church experience, that the only acceptable dance
is the “Holy Dance,” for which there are no classes and no
recitals, is ludicrous and achingly stupid.
But, as I've said, for us in the black church, it is 1965. It has
always been 1965, except when it actually was 1965. Then, it was
1945, and Aretha Franklin's too-hip-for-the-room Amazing Grace
was almost a scandalous recording: a “worldly” artist (whose
albums most if not all church women bought anyway) “returning to
the church,” insinuating Franklin's secular career somehow
barred heaven's gates to her. Today, our grand standard of
musicality remains Clara Ward, Franklin, James Cleveland and Mahalia Jackson. In thousands of churches across America,
organists and bassists are pumping out 1940's blues runs (think
Mama's Little Baby Loves Shortnin'-Shortnin'), which, at this
very hour, is the melodic bellwether for music within the black
church. In fact, without the classic sound of the rotary speaker
and antiquated drawbar registry of the genuine Hammond B3 organ,
many black folk don't even think they're in church. It's very Pavlovian, the communal chattering of arriving parishioners
ultimately dimmed by the encroaching strains of lofty funereal
chords, calling the assembly to worship. This is where we are.
This is Who We Are. This is where we want to be and where we
want to stay.
So, imagine my shock at these kids swinging their way through an
hour and a half of music so hard-driving, so, dare I say
masculine, that it seemed beyond the powers of some nice church
lady like Burrell. But Burrell is, of course, a woman of
incredible power and incredible anointing and a vision too
unique and too broad to be bottled up by the Deaconess Board,
whose apparent function is to have meetings about, I dunno,
having other meetings. Burrell speaks loudly and swings a big
stick and shakes her, ah, womanly blessings, losing herself in
the turmoil that somehow resolves itself into a coherent message
of forgiveness and reconciliation. Burrell's defiant contralto
barks, “I don't care 'bout no recording. I don't care 'bout no
video. I just want God to have His way.” And she means it. From
the first note of her first song on her first solo album, the
dazzling masterpiece Everlasting Life, it is evident Burrell is
the genuine article.
Her music is not the watered down appeasement of Bebe Winans. I
mean, who is he singing to? Winans deliberately styles his music
to be far too ambiguous for me to take any comfort in it: one
minute I think he's singing this cool Luther riff to a girl, and
then he snaps into something about God, and I'm jolted out of my
nice, not knowing what mood I'm supposed to be in. I'm not sure
about Winans' purpose, as his thinking may be to get
non-believers across the threshold, but it smells like sell-out,
when it probably isn't or shouldn't be. Still, I find scant
worship value in Winans' wildly popular Kenny G Gospel Lite,
with its vague and fuzzy references to love and peace and so
forth. I'm a guy who needs to know where you stand, whether
you're Shirley Caesar or Marilyn Manson.
Burrell has no such ambiguity. [Editor's Note: in 2011
Burrell released the uneven and fairly lifeless Love Album,
which does precisely the same thing, confuses the listener as
to who or Whom she is cooing to.] This woman is a vessel of God's
peace. Paradoxically, she has this guy wiggling behind her, and
at some point or another, the entire band is dancing. Not that
half-hearted, stilted, crippled lurching us respectable Church
Folk do, as if we held invisible sand bags and were shackled by
invisible leg irons— but dancing. These people are giving it up.
And, y'know what? It's glorious, and far less hypocritical than
the half-lurch-step of Kirk “The Sneer” Franklin, or the sudsy
ambiguity of Bebe. My first thought, of course, was that this
woman would not be welcome in any black church here in town.
This town, like so many other towns, is beset by a great
paradox: huge, successful, progressive white churches; churches
with orchestras, jazz bands, cappuccino machines in the lobby,
64-channel mixing consoles. One church has a kind of night club
room, specifically designed for bands like Burrell's.
And then there's us: cramped into aging storefronts with leaking
roofs and moldy basements because we simply refuse to work or
worship together, refuse to sacrifice like white folks do to
build anything, mainly out of legitimate concern the pastor or
church elders will mismanage the funds. The problem has never
been that white churches are somehow better than black churches.
The problem is white churches average a higher per capita income
because, in America, white people average a higher per
capita income. White Christians are, more often than not, giving
from their excess while black Christians are, more often than
not, giving out of their need. We also prioritize the wrong
things, insisting on expensive, antiquated wooden pews and
blood-red carpet and paying our pastors way out of proportion to
what the church takes in. It's not that white churches are
better, it's that black churches take in less money and do
stupid things with it.
Lord, You've Been Good To Me: Burrell's amazing 100-pound weight loss.
The Secret Super Bowl
As I write this, the St. Louis Rams are getting pasted by the
New England Patriots ten minutes into the third quarter of Super
Bowl XXXVI at the Superdome. The Patriots hold a 14-3 lead after
a first-half TD catch from David Patten and an interception
return for a TD from Ty Law. I just called one of the larger
white churches here in town to see if they were still having
their 6PM Praise & Worship Service, which I periodically attend.
A friendly voice on the other end said, “No, we're not having a
worship service tonight— we're having a Super Bowl party! C'mon
down!”
This modern, large church way up the hill, knowing better than
to try and compete with the Super Bowl, wisely took advantage of
this seasonal event— bigger and, sadly, more sacrosanct than
even Christmas— to promote fellowship among the parishioners.
This church has dual diamondtron-style monitors on either side
of the sanctuary. Tonight those monitors are showing the game
and the sanctuary is packed with believers and their families
and pizza and soft drinks.
Our church is closed. Our church body splintered off to its
respective cliques and cells, hushed invitations abound to
secret parties and so forth.
So, why, you may ask, do I bother with black churches if all I
ever do is post these repetitive, whiny complaints about them?
It's because we, all of us, need some sense of community. Some
common circle of acquaintance; a place where we belong. Can I
find that at a Korean church? At a white church? Sure. But my
hope and my prayer is to make enough noise about the stupid
stuff that maybe, just maybe, we'll begin to inch our way toward, say, 1970. And then, who knows? Maybe we make it
all the way to, say,
1984. Now that was a fun year. Michael Jackson's
Thriller was
topping the charts, the country was in post-Nixon rebound
with the fabulous king of TelePrompters Ronald Reagan, and
George W. Bush was not much more than a footnote.
My larger goal, however, is to help us all get rid of the god
Religion and find the god God, something that can only happen
when we awake from the brainwashing and start to think for
ourselves. Am I John The Baptist or David Koresh? Neither. I'm
just a guy who's had enough. A guy who wants to live in the
present day, and desperately wants his Christian community to
live there with him.
I've got Kim Burrell's video playing. Man, that guy can
dance.
Christopher J. Priest
19 February 2013 Page One
3 February 2002 Page Two
editor@praisenet.org
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