Editing Mahalia Jackson (section)

== Rise of gospel music in Chicago ({{circa|1928|1931}})==

In a very cold December, Jackson arrived in Chicago. For a week she was miserably homesick, unable to move off the couch until Sunday when her aunts took her to Greater Salem Baptist Church, an environment she felt at home in immediately, later stating it was "the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me".<ref>Jackson and Wylie, p. 49.</ref> When the pastor called the congregation to witness, or declare one's experience with God, Jackson was struck by the spirit and launched into a lively rendition of "Hand Me Down My Silver Trumpet, Gabriel", to an impressed but somewhat bemused audience. The power of Jackson's voice was readily apparent but the congregation was unused to such an animated delivery. She was nonetheless invited to join the 50-member choir, and a vocal group formed by the pastor's sons, Prince, Wilbur, and Robert Johnson, and Louise Lemon. They performed as a quartet, the Johnson Singers, with Prince as the pianist: Chicago's first black gospel group. Initially they hosted familiar programs singing at socials and Friday night musicals. They wrote and performed moral plays at Greater Salem with offerings going toward the church.<ref>Jackson and Wylie, pp. 39–50.</ref><ref name="goreau51-61">Goreau, pp. 51–61.</ref><ref>Darden, p. 211.</ref>

Jackson's arrival in Chicago occurred during the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]], a massive movement of black Southerners to Northern cities. Between 1910 and 1970, hundreds of thousands of rural Southern blacks moved to Chicago, transforming a neighborhood in the [[South Side, Chicago|South Side]] into [[Douglas, Chicago#Bronzeville|Bronzeville]], a black city within a city which was mostly self sufficient, prosperous, and teeming in the 1920s. This movement caused [[white flight]] with whites moving to suburbs, leaving established white churches and synagogues with dwindling members. Their mortgages were taken over by black congregations in good position to settle in Bronzeville. Members of these churches were, in Jackson's term, "society Negroes" who were well educated and eager to prove their successful assimilation into white American society. Musical services tended to be formal, presenting solemnly delivered hymns written by Isaac Watts and other European composers. Shouting and clapping were generally not allowed as they were viewed as undignified. Special programs and musicals tended to feature sophisticated choral arrangements to prove the quality of the choir.<ref>Harris pp. 91–116.</ref><ref>Marovich, pp. 17–20.</ref><ref>Jackson and Wylie, pp. 60–69.</ref>

This difference between the styles in Northern urban churches and the South was vividly illustrated when the Johnson Singers appeared at a church one evening and Jackson stood out to sing solo, scandalizing the pastor with her exuberant shouts. He accused her of [[blasphemy]], bringing "twisting jazz" into the church. Jackson was momentarily shocked before retorting, "This is the way we ''sing'' down South!"<ref>Goreau, p. 55.</ref> The minister was not alone in his apprehension. She was often so involved in singing she was mostly unaware how she moved her body. To hide her movements, pastors urged her to wear loose fitting robes which she often lifted a few inches from the ground, and they accused her of employing "snake hips" while dancing when the spirit moved her.<ref>Broughton, p. 80.</ref> Enduring another indignity, Jackson scraped together four dollars ({{Inflation|US|4|1928|fmt=eq}}) to pay a talented black operatic [[tenor]] for a professional assessment of her voice. She was dismayed when the professor chastised her: "You've got to learn to stop hollering. It will take time to build up your voice. The way you sing is not a credit to the Negro race. You've got to learn to sing songs so that white people can understand them."<ref>Jackson and Wylie, p. 59.</ref>

Soon Jackson found the mentor she was seeking. [[Thomas A. Dorsey]], a seasoned blues musician trying to transition to gospel music, trained Jackson for two months, persuading her to sing slower songs to maximize their emotional effect. Dorsey had a motive: he needed a singer to help sell his [[sheet music]]. He recruited Jackson to stand on Chicago street corners with him and sing his songs, hoping to sell them for ten cents a page. It was not the financial success Dorsey hoped for, but their collaboration resulted in the unintentional conception of gospel blues solo singing in Chicago.<ref name="goreau51-61"/><ref>Harris, pp. 257–258.</ref><ref>Darden, p. 212.</ref>{{efn|Dorsey helped create the first gospel choir and its characteristic sound in 1931. (Harris, pp. 180–208.)}}