• By John Ferrannini, Assistant Editor
• Thursday, March 27, 2025 (ebar.com)

Authors Ezra Klein, left, and Derek Thompson talked about their new book, “Abundance” in San Francisco March 26 with Manny Yekutiel, right. Photo: John Ferrannini

Some Democrats grappling with a leaderless party in the wilderness after last fall’s election defeats have turned to two journalists who see a reformation in the party’s mindset about delivering material abundance as the way forward.

The two writers – Ezra Klein of the New York Times and Derek Thompson of the Atlantic – were interviewed as part of their book tour at San Francisco’s Sydney Goldstein Theater March 26 by Manny Yekutiel, the gay proprietor of Manny’s civic event space and cafe, as well as the executive director of the Civic Joy Fund. They will host another event in the same venue Thursday (March 27).

Klein and Thompson, who are both straight, are the authors of “Abundance,” which came out March 18. During the discussion, Yekutiel asked the pair how they’d define the term, and their argument, if they were talking to someone drinking at The Page, a bar on Divisadero Street.

“You know how shit feels kind of broken?” Thompson answered. “Government should make shit work.”

He continued, “One thing this book is trying to do is organize politics on a new axis of abundance versus scarcity, slow versus fast. … Abundance is not a list, but a lens.”

To that end, Thompson argued that political paradigm shifts in American history, such as the New Deal Coalition of the 1930s and the rise of neoliberalism in the 1970s and 1980s, happened in response to internal economic crises, such as the Great Depression in the former case, and stagflation in the latter.

In the present moment, Americans are dealing with scarcity in a post-industrial economy. The two authors argue that politicians of both parties – Republican President Donald Trump, for example, with his support for tariffs, and some Democrats, with their opposition to housing construction and what the authors characterize as an excessive devotion to procedure and bureaucracy – have made this worse, and that the key to victory going forward is to make life more affordable by growing the economy.

Giving an example of how government processes can make government ineffectual, Klein discussed $42 billion in the 2021 infrastructure law that was set aside for broadband connections in rural America. In the end, nobody got broadband internet installed, and now Elon Musk’s Starlink might get some of the money, the Times reported.

“Despite lofty promises, the Biden-Harris administration’s broadband agenda left many Americans behind,” House Committee on Energy and Commerce chairpersons Brett Guthrie (R-Kentucky) and Richard Hudson (R-North Carolina) stated in a news release before a March 5 hearing on the topic. “The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program was saddled with unnecessary red tape to appease the left wing of the Democratic Party, without a single inch of fiber actually being laid.”

The reason, Klein argued, was that there were so many federal preliminary requirements to receive the money that no smaller level of government satisfied all of them by the time of the 2024 election. These included rules requiring public comment on map proposals; that states ensure providers had hired local, union workers; and that states had planned for climate change.

There was also a vaguely-termed requirement that “high-quality broadband services are available to all middle-class families … at reasonable prices.”

“It sucks, and for two reasons,” Klein said, “You didn’t get broadband … and, two, that did not happen in time to keep a fascist [Trump] out of the White House.”

Though they mostly avoided specific reforms they’d like to see, Klein, a former San Franciscan, made a few suggestions.

“We all know CEQA is used as a tool of mass blackmail,” he said, referring to the California Environmental Quality Act. Last month, gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced Senate Bill 607 to make changes to CEQA, which is more extensive than similar laws in other states, in an attempt to streamline housing and other infrastructure projects.

“For California to succeed as a state, we need to build an abundance of housing, child care centers, transportation, clean energy, and all the things that make life better and more affordable for people,” Wiener stated in a news release, explicitly nodding to the abundance terminology. “CEQA provides communities with important safeguards against projects like fossil fuel plants and warehouses that have caused real harm. But too often it has also been abused as a tool to block and delay projects for reasons that have nothing to do with environmental protections. That includes projects that are absolutely essential to protecting our environment like clean energy, urban housing, and public transportation.”

Klein, who said he was also interviewed on Governor Gavin Newsom’s podcast this week, said he raised the issue of CEQA abuses with the Golden State’s leader.

Asked Yekutiel: “Did you tell him that?”

Answered Klein: “Yes.”

Asked Yekutiel: “What did he say?”

Answered Klein, to laughter from the audience: “He agreed!”

Thompson argued more access to housing is an issue of individual freedom, as much as the other, earlier political paradigm shifts in the Roosevelt and Reagan eras were couched in the language of freedom, abundance-minded Democrats should argue that, “The anxiety of rent and mortgage … that’s about freedom, too,” Thompson said.

Klein agreed, saying that while he chose to leave the City by the Bay of his own accord, “Too many people are getting run out of town because they can’t afford to be here. Can’t save the human soul, that’s for the priests; but, we can build more homes.”

Klein also had advice for the city’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, who defeated incumbent London Breed in last November’s election, as well as a Board of Supervisors with four new members this year.

“If I were Mayor Lurie and the Board of Supervisors, there are a couple things that need to be laser-focused on – obviously housing, housing the homeless, public disorder, making the kinds of disorder you see illegal again, and generally making the city affordable,” Klein said. “All these are gonna be hard. … [But] San Francisco is in an emergency. The fact some emergencies are fast and some are slow doesn’t mean one is greater than another.”

Those priorities line up with the stated goals of Lurie and his staff, as well as gay Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who as the Bay Area Reporter previously reported said the city should prioritize “safety, cleanliness, and an economic climate in which people try to pursue their dreams” at an Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club event last month. Mandelman also referenced Klein’s thinking at that event.

Ultimately, Thompson said, the writers hope someone with political skill can galvanize their ideas into a movement, the way former President Ronald Reagan did with neoliberal economists, or that former President Franklin D. Roosevelt did with Keynesian economics. One person Klein referenced as someone who had signed on to the abundance mindset is gay Colorado Governor Jared Polis.

As the B.A.R. previously reported Democrats are still grappling with the ultimate failure of their yearslong efforts to keep Trump, who incited an insurrection against the government in 2021 and has expressed admiration for authoritarian leaders, out of Washington – this time losing every swing state and even the popular vote.

Yekutiel said at the event that, “It has felt like we don’t have an answer,” but that, “This is the first book that called to me, that this could be our answer.”

LGBTQ Agenda is an online column that appears weekly. Got a tip on queer news? Contact John Ferrannini at j.ferrannini@ebar.com

The Onion • Oct 2, 2015 Subscribe to The Onion on YouTube: http://bit.ly/xzrBUA A new study from Harvard University found that men who wear Mötley Crüe denim jackets on a regular basis showed staggering levels of testosterone and sexual prowess.

The Six of Cups One of the truly wonderful things about being alive is that it allows us access to a wealth of different emotions – of course, we sometimes wish it didn’t, particularly when we are hurting – yet this hugely flexible resource of response is one of our most valuable treasures.The Lord of Pleasure is about learning how to enter into pleasure with an open heart which is ready to receive, and freely allow the passage of emotion through it. Too often, we fail to enter the moment, and instead, stand on the threshold of life. This card challenges us to cross that threshold, and flow with the river of love which is always available to us.So on a day ruled by the Lord of Pleasure, we have to consider what pleasures us (and don’t shy away from your own sexuality!!). Today, you need to make a point of taking the time to give yourself up to pleasure, however you define it. (In my mind’s eye, I see certain of our company reaching eagerly for the chocolate bar whilst repeating, like a mantra, the words “Oh thankyou Jan… thankyou Jan…” ;-)And there’s a little exercise I’d like you to take time out to do as well. Sit down comfortably, and relax. Pay special attention to opening out your chest area. Now concentrate on your breathing… feel it flowing in and out of your body… feel it cool, and refreshing. Now each time you draw in breath, draw in love as well… Connect with the all-embracing, infinite, unconditional love that flows through life in each and every day… and enjoy!!! Affirmation: “I become part of the endless river of life and love.”

(Angelpaths.com)

Point of Departure

Four Arrows

Point of Departure offers a practical metacognitive and transformational learning strategy for human surviving and thriving. Using five foundational and interactive Indigenous worldview beliefs that contrast sharply with our dominant worldview ones, everyone can reclaim the original instructions for living on Earth. Without the resulting change in consciousness that can emerge from this learning approach, no modern technologies can save us. The five foundational Indigenous precepts relate to a radically different understanding (1) Trance?based learning (2) Courage and Fearlessness (3) Community Oriented Self?Authorship (4) Sacred Communications (5) Nature as Ultimate Teacher

Praise for Point of Departure

Four Arrows provides a quintessential critique of how the collective human departure of modern society from “Indigenous Consciousness” has led to the current wholesale exploitation and destruction of “Indigenous Nature” … while providing the impetus for the urgency of a return to the “Indigenous Mind” as one of the true pathways for our future survival. ~ Greg Cajete Director of Native American Studies, University of New Mexico. Author of Native Science and Look to the Mountain

Recognizing the disastrous consequences of the dominant worldview pervading global society, Four Arrows teaches metacognitive strategies to help shift us back toward the Indigenous worldview—the only worldview that can restore balance amidst planetary crisis. With his characteristic insight, he reminds us that interconnectedness with all of creation is the basis of courage that will help each of us, Indigenous and non?Indigenous alike, rise to action in defense of Mother Earth. ~ Waziyatawin

Dakota author and activist from Pezihutazizi K’api Makoce (Land Where They Dig for Yellow Medicine) in southwestern Minnesota

Four Arrows continues to open our eyes to the possibility of a new society, one founded on the empirical data of thousands of years and within the paradigms of traditional wisdom and the people connected to all of life—theirs, ours, animal brethren and Mother Earth. Point of Departure is a MUST read for anyone who wants to be part of the solution. ~ Rebecca Adamson Founder/President First Peoples Worldwide

Anyone who is even slightly Indigenous will nod in recognition all the way through Point of Departure. Using the four sacred directions as cognitive bridges into the circle of all, Four Arrows walks the reader through trance?based, Transformative learning; courage, Indian?style, as connection not fearbased; and the Indigenous grammar of communication and truthtelling, with neither restricted to humans. Then, binding the hoop together for “all our relations,” Four Arrows recommends reacquaintance with Nature. The handy “take?away” discussions and “how?to” manuals concluding each discussion draw the reader into the circle, if only the reader is willing. ~ Barbara Alice Mann Associate Professor of Humanities, University of Toledo. Author of Spirits of Blood, Spirits of The Twinned Cosmos of Indigenous America

(Goodreads.com)

Coordinates: 29°57′39″N 90°4′6″W

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Teena Marie album, see Congo Square (album).

U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Congo Square
Show map of East New OrleansShow map of LouisianaShow map of the United StatesShow all
Location	Jct. of Rampart and St. Peter Sts., New Orleans, Louisiana
Coordinates	29°57′39″N 90°4′6″W
Area	2.7 acres (1.1 ha)
NRHP reference No.	92001763[1]
Added to NRHP	January 28, 1993

Congo Square (French: Place Congo) is an open space, now within Louis Armstrong Park, which is located in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, just across Rampart Street north of the French Quarter. The square is famous for its influence on the history of African American music, especially jazz.

History

In Louisiana‘s French and Spanish colonial era of the 18th century, enslaved Africans were commonly allowed Sundays off from their work. Although Code Noir was implemented in 1724, giving enslaved Africans the day off on Sundays, there were no laws in place giving them the right to congregate. Despite constant threats to these congregations, they often gathered in remote and public places such as along levees, in public squares, in backyards, and anywhere they could find. On Bayou St. John at a clearing called “la place congo” the various ethnic or cultural groups of Colonial Louisiana traded and socialized.^[2] It was not until 1817 that the mayor of New Orleans issued a city ordinance that restricted any kind of gathering of enslaved Africans to the one location of Congo Square. They were allowed to gather in the “Place des Nègres”, “Place Publique”, later “Circus Square” or informally “Place Congo” ^[3] at the “back of town” (across Rampart Street from the French Quarter), where the enslaved would set up a market, sing, dance, and play music. This singing, dancing and playing started as a byproduct of the original market during the French reign. At the time the enslaved could purchase their freedom and could freely buy and sell goods in the square in order to raise money to escape slavery.^[4]

The tradition continued after the city became part of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase. As African music had been suppressed in the Protestant colonies and states, the weekly gatherings at Congo Square became a famous site for visitors from elsewhere in the U.S. In addition, because of the immigration of refugees (some bringing enslaved Africans) from the Haitian Revolution, New Orleans received thousands of additional Africans and Creoles in the early years of the 19th century. They reinforced African traditions in the city, in music as in other areas. Many visitors were amazed at the African-style dancing and music. Observers heard the beat of the bamboulas and wail of the banzas, and saw the multitude of African dances that had survived through the years. There were a variety of dances that could be seen in Congo Square including the Bamboula, Calinda, Congo, Carabine and Juba.^[5] The rhythms played at Congo square can still be heard today in New Orleans jazz funerals, second lines and Mardi Gras Indians parades. In addition, the music played became the music of Louisiana Voodoo rites.^[6]

Townsfolk would gather around the square on Sunday afternoons to watch the dancing. In 1819, the architect Benjamin Latrobe, a visitor to the city, wrote about the celebrations in his journal. Although he found them “savage”,^[3] he was amazed at the sight of 500-600 unsupervised slaves who assembled for dancing. He described them as ornamented with a number of tails of the smaller wild beasts, with fringes, ribbons, little bells, and shells and balls, jingling and flirting about the performers’ legs and arms. The women, one onlooker reported, wore, each according to her means, the newest fashions in silk, gauze, muslin, and percale dresses. The men covered themselves in oriental and Indian dress and covered themselves only with a sash of the same sort wrapped around the body. Except for that, they went naked.

One witness noted that clusters of onlookers, musicians, and dancers represented tribal groupings, with each nation taking their place in different parts of the square. The musicians used a range of instruments from available cultures: drums, gourds, banjo-like instruments, and “quills” made from reeds strung together like pan flutes, as well as marimbas and European instruments such as the violin, tambourines, and triangles. Gradually, the music in the square gained more European influence as enslaved English-speaking Africans danced to songs like “Old Virginia Never Tire.” This mix of African and European styles helped create African American culture.

Creole composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk incorporated rhythms and tunes he heard in Congo Square into some of his compositions, like his famous Bamboula, Op. 2.

As harsher United States practices of slavery replaced the more lenient Spanish colonial style, the gatherings of enslaved Africans declined. Although no recorded date of the last of these dances in the square exists, the practice seems to have stopped more than a decade before the end of slavery with the American Civil War.

Voodoo

Besides the music and dancing, Congo Square also provided enslaved blacks with a place in which they could express themselves spiritually. This brief religious freedom on Sundays resulted in the practice of voodoo ceremonies. Voodoo is an ancient religion that developed from enslaved West Africans who brought this ritualistic practice with them when they arrived in New Orleans in the 18th century. Although it is not the most noted recreational activity people took part in at Congo Square, it was nevertheless one of the many forms of entertainment and social gatherings here. Voodoo was the most prominent from the 1820s to the 1860s, as Congo Square provided an opportunity to expose people to this intriguing practice. The types of voodoo ceremonies performed at Congo Square were very different from traditional voodoo, however. True voodoo rituals were much more exotic and secretive and focused on the religious and ritualistic aspect, while the voodoo in Congo Square was predominantly a form of entertainment and a celebration of African culture. Some of the dances and types of music heard in Congo Square were the result of these voodoo ceremonies. Marie Laveau, the first and most powerful voodoo queen, is one of the most well-known practitioners of voodoo in Congo Square. In the 1830s, Marie Laveau led voodoo dances in Congo Square and held darker, more covert rituals along the banks of Lake Pontchartrain and St. John’s Bayou.

Hoodoo

Hoodoo practices at Congo Square were documented by Folklorist Newbell Niles Puckett. African Americans poured libations at the four corners of Congo Square at midnight during a dark moon.^[7][8] During slavery, a ring shout (a sacred dance in Hoodoo) was performed to invoke ancestral spirits for assistance and healing in the enslaved and free black community.^[9]

Formal venue

In the late 19th century, the square again became a famous musical venue, this time for a series of brass band concerts by orchestras of the area’s “Creole of color” community. In 1893, the square was officially named “Beauregard Square” in honor of P. G. T. Beauregard, a Confederate General who was born in St. Bernard Parish and led troops at the Battle of Fort Sumter. This was part of an attempt by city leaders to suppress the mass gatherings at the square. While this name appeared on some maps, most locals continued to call it “Congo Square”. Local New Orleans author and historian Freddi Williams Evans was the main advocator for the name change. As a result of her encouragement, City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer created an ordinance to rename the area Congo Square in 2011. In the ordinance, Palmer claimed that “By restoring the name, Congo Square will continue to be remembered for the birthplace of the culture and music of New Orleans” and that “Jazz is the only truly indigenous American art form, and arguably its genesis was Congo Square, a true gift to the entire country and world.” In 2011, the New Orleans City Council officially voted to restore the traditional name Congo Square.^[10][11][12]

In the 1920s New Orleans Municipal Auditorium was built in an area just in back of the square, displacing and disrupting some of the Tremé community.

In the 1960s a controversial urban renewal project leveled a substantial portion of the Tremé neighborhood around the square. After a decade of debate over the land, the City turned it into Louis Armstrong Park, which incorporates old Congo Square.

Starting in 1970, the City organized the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and held events annually at Congo Square. As attendance grew, the city moved the festival to the much larger New Orleans Fairgrounds. In the late 20th century and early 21st century, Congo Square has continued to be an important venue for music festivals and a community gathering place for brass band parades, protest marches, and drum circles.

Today

Today, there are still celebrations of the historical and cultural heritage of New Orleans. Congo Square Preservation Society is a community-based organization created by percussionist Luther Gray that aims to preserve the historical significance of Congo Square. Every Sunday, it carries on the tradition by gathering to celebrate the history and culture of Congo Square through drum circles, dancing, and other musical performances.

Along with these gatherings, other celebrations and events that are held in Congo Square every year include Martin Luther King Day celebrations, and the Red Dress Run. There are also numerous weddings, festivals, and concerts that take place in the park every year. On Martin Luther King Day, the park serves as the ceremonial starting place of a march that goes all the way to the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument on South Claiborne Avenue. On this holiday in 2012, a ceremony was held in Congo Square in which New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu gave an inspirational speech calling for the city to reduce violence in the streets. The annual Red Dress Run begins in Congo Square, and is organized by the New Orleans Hash House Harriers, a running group in the city. The race is known for its participants dressing in all red and heavy drinking. The profits from the race are given to local charities. After the 2014 race, it was announced that over one million dollars had been given to over 100 local New Orleans charities.

More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Square

On Language

William Safire, Vincent Torre (Designer)

William Safire is the most widely read writer on language in America. In his witty way, Mr. Safire enlightens us concerning proper usage, correct pronunciation, the roots of our daily discourse, and the vacuous vogue lingo in which “subsume” is co-opting “co-opt,” wood-burning stoves become “energy systems,” and stores that sell eyeglasses squint out at us as “vision centers.” He is aided in his campaign for precision and clarity in language by a legion of word buffs, language lovers, and learned eccentrics–many of them world-class wordsmen in their own right. Here are Mr. Safire’s delightful, crotchety, subtly informative, and awesomely informed comments, decisions, and advisories–the best of his famous column in The New York Times. Plus scores of letters written by enthusiastic or furious readers, who glory in nailing an expert to the wall.

About the author

William Safire

William Lewis Safire was an American author, columnist, journalist and presidential speechwriter.

He was perhaps best known as a long-time syndicated political columnist for the New York Times and a regular contributor to “On Language” in the New York Times Magazine, a column on popular etymology, new or unusual usages, and other language-related topics.

(Goodreads.com)

Jimi Hendrix • Oct 17, 2018 Provided to YouTube by Legacy Recordings Bold as Love · The Jimi Hendrix Experience Axis: Bold As Love ℗ 2009 Experience Hendrix L.L.C., under exclusive license to Sony Music Entertainment Released on: 2022-10-26 Composer: Jimi Hendrix Producer: Chas Chandler Engineer, Re- Mastering Engineer: Eddie Kramer Re- Mastering Engineer: George Marino Auto-generated by YouTube.

Lyrics

Anger!
He smiles, towering in shiny metallic purple armor
Queen jealousy, envy waits behind him
Her fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground

Blue are the life-giving waters taken for granted
They quietly understand
Once happy turquoise armies lay opposite ready
But wonder why the fight is on

But they’re all bold as love
Yes, they’re all bold as love
Yeah, they’re all bold as love
Just ask the axis

My red is so confident, he flashes trophies of war
And ribbons of euphoria
Orange is young, full of daring
But very unsteady for the first go round

My yellow, in this case, is not so mellow
In fact, I’m trying to say it’s frightened like me
And all these emotions of mine keep holding me from
Giving my life to a rainbow like you, but I’m

Yeah, I’m bold as love, yeah-yeah
Well, I’m bold, bold as love
Hear me talking, girl
I’m bold as love
Just ask the axis

He knows everything
Yeah-yeah-yeah

Yeah

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Jimi Hendrix

Bold as Love lyrics © Experience Hendrix Llc., Experience Hendrix, L.l.c.

Tertium Organum

P.D. Ouspensky

Ouspensky’s believed “Tertium Organum” was the third major philosophical synthesis, the previous being those of Aristotle and Bacon. With the publication of “Tertium Organum” in Russian, in 1912, Ouspensky became a widely respected author and lecturer on metaphysical questions. The American translation of Tertium Organum in 1922, won him widespread recognition in England, where he lived from 1921, and in America.

Ouspensky’s experimental efforts to enter higher states of consciousness proved to him that an entirely new mode of thought was needed by modern man, qualitatively different from the two modes (classical and positivistic) that have dominated Western civilisation for 2000 years. “Tertium Organum” is a clarion call for such thought, ranging brilliantly over the teachings of Eastern and Western mysticism, sacred art and the theories of modern science.

About the author

P.D. Ouspensky

Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii (known in English as Peter D. Ouspensky, Пётр Демья́нович Успе́нский; was a Russian mathematician and esotericist known for his expositions of the early work of the Greek-Armenian teacher of esoteric doctrine George Gurdjieff, whom he met in Moscow in 1915. He was associated with the ideas and practices originating with Gurdjieff from then on. He shared the (Gurdjieff) “system” for 25 years in England and the United States, having separated from Gurdjieff in 1924 personally, for reasons he explains in the last chapter of his book In Search of the Miraculous.

All in all, Ouspensky studied the Gurdjieff system directly under Gurdjieff’s own supervision for a period of ten years, from 1915 to 1924. His book In Search of the Miraculous is a recounting of what he learned from Gurdjieff during those years. While lecturing in London in 1924, he announced that he would continue independently the way he had begun in 1921. Some, including his close pupil Rodney Collin, say that he finally gave up the system in 1947, just before his death, but his own recorded words on the subject (“A Record of Meetings”, published posthumously) do not clearly endorse this judgement, nor does Ouspensky’s emphasis on “you must make a new beginning” after confessing “I’ve left the system”.

(Goodreads.com)

Jim Ball Recorded the Pivotal Moment When Choirs Got Gospel

By Robert M. Marovich March 31, 2025 (ZocaloPublicSquare.org)

The Los Angeles filmmaker Jim Ball, who died in 2022, was known for b-movies. 1964’s Fraternity of Horror, a low-budget black-and-white horror film that would make Wes Craven blush. Night of the Demon, the 1980 Sasquatchploitation movie, banned for a decade in the U.K. for its gruesome depictions of castration and disembowelment. A host of 1970s gay male erotic videos.

But Ball’s most important legacy, arguably, has nothing to do with the movie business. It’s a long-forgotten library of midcentury religious music he recorded in and for Los Angeles-based African American churches—recently rediscovered among piles of his old stuff, in a Winnetka, California garage.

It doesn’t seem church music fans ever got their hands on the libraries; hardly anyone outside a small circle of Ball’s friends knew that copies of the 40-album opus, the Saviour Home Record Library, ever existed. For this reason, the project, now set for digitization by Baylor University’s Black Gospel Archive and Listening Center, is a crucial artifact. It preserved the sound of Black sacred music in Los Angeles as it transitioned from Western European choral and congregational singing to more capacious repertories featuring newly composed gospel songs influenced by blues and jazz. Had Ball not captured the sound of these churches at that particular time, much of the aural history of this transition—which echoed national changes, as the Great Migration brought traditional Southern folk sounds to urban centers in the North and West—would likely be lost forever.

Ball, a Texan who moved to Los Angeles in the late 1950s to study cinematography at USC, enjoyed using his reel-to-reel tape recorder to capture audio from “Great Churches of the Golden West,” a local television program that featured white congregations. Ball told musician and fellow USC student Carl Matthes about his unusual hobby, and Matthes thought immediately of his friend J. David Bowick, the choir director at Holman United Methodist, an African American church in L.A.’s West Adams district. Bowick wanted to convert a tape recording of his 120-voice choir performing Haydn’s Third Mass, with an orchestra, to vinyl. Ball pressed the record. At a time when African Americans were sometimes derided unfairly as being incapable of performing classical masterworks, Bowick was delighted to have a record of his church music ministry’s superb presentation of Haydn.

Ball and Matthes realized they might be onto something. They began knocking on doors of African American churches, many near the USC campus, to see if they, too, might want bespoke recordings of their choirs or small singing groups. The duo’s business model was simple: Churches paid a flat fee for 100 copies of a custom recording, including pressing, cover art, and final packaging. Ball engineered the recordings; Matthes typed up the album jackets and handled vocal arranging as needed. “Word of mouth got around that we were reliable, we were affordable, and we would turn out a decent product on time,” Matthes told me recently.

Had Ball not captured the sound of these churches at that particular time, much of the aural history of this transition—which echoed national changes, as the Great Migration brought traditional Southern folk sounds to urban centers in the North and West—would likely be lost forever.

Churches including Trinity Baptist, Pilgrim Baptist, Second Baptist, Friendship Baptist, and the First AME Church of Pasadena all contracted with Ball Records. Their recordings reveal a varied community in a moment of promise and change. L.A.’s Black churches developed as African Americans began flocking to the city after the Civil War. As in other urban centers, members of 19th-century Black churches in Los Angeles were driven by middle-class aspirations and stuck to the songbooks and stylings of their white middle-class denominational counterparts. Initially, at least, they rejected the spontaneous and effervescent music that drove Pentecostal worship services and eventually informed gospel music. Some Black churches’ artistic conservatism lasted well into the 20th century. You can hear it on Ball Records recordings.

Los Angeles’s Liberty Baptist Church’s 1968 Ball release Bells Over Jordan, subtitled “Music of the Christian Negro,” showcases 19th-century hymns like “Go Heralds of Salvation Forth,” and an array of sturdy anthems and classical choruses. Around 1963, Ball recorded Bowick’s Holman United Methodist choir singing an entire album of concert spirituals arranged by composer and choir director Hall Johnson. Also included in the Saviour library are spirituals by Black composers and arrangers Harry T. Burleigh, William L. Dawson, John Wesley Work III, and Jester Hairston.

Black sacred music in Los Angeles was already beginning to change, however, as more Southern migrants settled in Los Angeles after World War I. Their style of worship retained an informal, impassioned, and communal style with roots in West African traditions. Emotional reminders of the world they left behind helped transplanted Southerners adjust to the hustle and bustle of their new home. Gospel music, which came to L.A. via Chicago, set traditional hymns, revival songs, and newly-composed works to the bouncing beat of Black popular music, and best reflected the new style and sound.

But even as local pastors adopted the newfangled gospel music, many refused to completely forsake the formality of “respectable” church music. So, a number of the 1960s-era Ball recordings feature church choirs presenting a mix of tried-and-true hymn standards, anthems, and spirituals, as well as newer gospels. Releases by Victory Baptist, Friendship Baptist, and Sweet Home Baptist churches feature songs such as “Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody,” which blended formal training with gospel techniques such as vocal melisma, a Hammond organ mimicking human voices, and call-and-response singing between the lead singer and the choir.

Several tracks recorded by Ball capture vocal and instrumental gospel talents in their ascendancy. These include “Fifth Beatle” Billy Preston, who makes the Hammond organ moan and shout on an album for the Church of Divine Guidance, and his equally gifted sister, vocalist Rodena Preston, who sings on a release from Pilgrim Baptist Church. Young future Motown recording artist Sondra “Blinky” Williams sings with closed-eyed abandon on the album by her father’s Friendship Baptist Church choir, and gospel luminary Thurston Frazier directs the Voices of Victory Baptist Church as they sing “I’m So Glad that Jesus Lifted Me” at full throttle.

Sometime in the mid-1960s, Ball anthologized 40 of his previously issued albums—mainly from Black churches but with a handful of white church artists included—and created the Saviour Home Record Library. Each library consisted of four cream-colored boxes that held 10 albums apiece; a fifth box contained a 120-page spiral-bound finding aid created by Matthes, organized alphabetically by song title, category, and topic.

Over time, Ball dropped his music projects to focus on movies; years later, he told Matthes he had stored the 68 complete copies of the Saviour Home Record Library in his garage. Then he told him the records had been stolen. It was only by a stroke of luck that Matthes, as executor of Ball’s estate, found the Saviour libraries in 2023. They were indeed in a garage—not Ball’s but another friend’s. None, Matthes believes, had ever been sold to listeners. Baylor University anticipates making the recordings available to the public for online listening as early as late May of this year. This 60-year-old time capsule of the sacred music of Los Angeles will be a treasure for the churches, their congregations and, most importantly, the family and friends of those featured on the recordings.

That a white producer of grisly films and erotic videos became an important producer of Black sacred music is not as strange as it seems. Ball fulfilled on shoestring budgets the entertainment demands of underserved audiences, ignored by major record companies and film studios. In the process, he provided a distinct sound print of African American church music in transition that will be accessible for generations to come.

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Robert M. Marovich is editor-in-chief of “The Journal of Gospel Music,” a Grammy-nominated liner notes writer, and author of Peace Be Still: How James Cleveland and the Angelic Choir Created a Gospel Classic.

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Primary editor: Eryn Brown | Secondary editor: Sarah Rothbard

Samy Nour Younes | TED Residency

• December 2018

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Transgender activist and TED Resident Samy Nour Younes shares the remarkable, centuries-old history of the trans community, filled with courageous stories, inspiring triumphs — and a fight for civil rights that’s been raging for a long time. “Imagine how the conversation would shift if we acknowledge just how long trans people have been demanding equality,” he says.

• Culture
• Social Change
• History
• Activism
• Society
• Identity
• Transgender
• TED Residency
• Equality
• LGBTQIA+

About the speaker

Samy Nour Younes

Actor, activistSee speaker profile