TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/032089/03208900.073

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 3.6 KB | 72 lines

                                                                                RELIGION, Page 76

Evangelism and All That Jazz


Take 6 puts Seventh-day Adventism on the charts


    In accord with their rigorous faith, the clean-cut singers
perform no non-Christian material onstage and book no secular
dates after sundown each Friday because of their church's
Jewish-style Sabbath observance. They shun alcohol and tobacco
and try to maintain daily devotionals and to give one-tenth of
their income to the church.

    Meet Take 6, the hot new gospel group whose performers, all
devout Seventh-day Adventists, are as much in the business of
preaching as entertaining. The six men, who perform with no
instruments except their heaven-sent voices, count themselves
among the world's more unusual evangelists. "Our mission," says
bass Alvin Chea, "is to take the word of Christ into places it
doesn't ordinarily go." Founder Claude McKnight III says of the
group's Christian message, "It's not a gimmick for us. It is our
lives."

    At last month's Grammy Awards, that was more than enough to
earn them an odd coupling of both jazz and gospel prizes. They
are also up for six Gospel Music Association awards next month.
The sextet appeared out of nowhere in 1988 with an impeccable
debut album (titled Take 6) that inspired hallelujahs from the
likes of jazzman Quincy Jones. Coming up in 1989: a second
album, a video with Stevie Wonder, a 36-date tour with Al
Jarreau, album backup for Johnny Mathis and a sound-track tune
for filmmaker Spike Lee.

    This is not the hog-stomping, Bible-thumping, camp-meeting
music that used to rattle the tent poles along the revival
circuit. Consider these elliptical lyrics about being born
again: "I never thought I would ever/ Spot a ray of hope in the
residue . . . But this time I found a Gold Mine in You" (God,
not a girlfriend). Even the sextet's gospel oldies are revamped
with vocal pyrotechnics, improbable harmonies and sly humor. As
it injects religion into the freewheeling jazz-soul world, Take
6 is loosening up staid Adventism. Just before the Grammys the
group gave its first performance at Sligo Church in Takoma Park,
Md., where members include many officials of the denomination's
nearby world headquarters. McKnight shouted to the roaring
throng, "We believe there should be no happier people on the
face of the earth than those who serve a risen Saviour."

    The singers' soul-saving urgency flows from the Adventist
teaching that the Second Coming could occur virtually any day
now. Tenor Mark Kibble, who devised the distinct six-part sound,
scans the drug scene and other manifest modern evils and
concludes, "We are truly living in the last days before Christ
comes. Because of that, we are more intense in showing people
they need not be subject to this world."

    Black Adventist congregations headed by graduates of
Alabama's superstrict church-run Oakwood College, where Take 6
began in 1980, provided the young men with most of their
performing dates as they struggled to survive during the early
years. Their fortunes changed when a representative of Reprise
records turned up at an audition in 1987. The group had hoped
to sign with a religious-record company, but its members now
realize that this would have greatly limited the evangelistic
opportunities. Asks singer-arranger Mervyn Warren: "How many
non-Christians go into a Christian bookstore?" When asked how
long the act will stick together, group member Cedric Dent sees
just two possibilities. "Either our commitment to the Lord will
wander, and he will see fit to break us up," Dent says, "or he
will come."