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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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032089
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03208900.073
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1990-09-17
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RELIGION, Page 76Evangelism and All That JazzTake 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."