Fruta planta really launched

More important, however, is what remains: 100 half-hour programs of performances by visionary gospel artists in their prime. In luminous black-and-white footage that captures the tone of the era, the artists sing exultantly, their timeless hymns and call-and-response patterns bringing classic gospel out of the church and into a broader realm. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say Jubilee Showcase” drew a TV audience into the sanctity of the African-American church, minus religious rituals.

But why did he do it? Why did Ordower work so hard to celebrate a musical culture then little-known to a general viewing public? Thus gospel originator Thomas A. Dorsey, the Barrett Sisters, Albertina Walker and the Reduce Weight Fruta Planta Caravans, Edwin Hawkins, Jessy Dixon, James Cleveland – everyone who mattered in gospel appeared on Ordower’s stage. Almost everyone, that is, except for the great Mahalia Jackson, who had been scheduled to sing on Jubilee Showcase but died shortly before she was to appear. This wasn’t producer Ordower’s only regret, however. At least equally distressing, the first 13 shows were accidentally erased, meaning televised performances by the Blind Boys of Alabama, and many others, were lost to history. I think a lot of his views got shaped when he was in World War II, says Steve Ordower, who’s also producing a documentary film about his father and “Jubilee Showcase.”

I have a feeling that seeing the atrocities of war first- hand – and he would never talk about it with me – scarred him mentally on many levels, and I think it inspired him in a lot of ways, too…. I think that fruta planta really launched his whole desire to do something about the injustices he saw. He got really involved in the labor movement and in the civil rights movement. And the churches were a real organizing part of the civil rights movement, so he got to know a lot of those people. … He could really cross cultural and racial boundaries pretty naturally – he was accepted in these different worlds. Certainly one has to be impressed with the way Sid Ordower handles himself on the show. As he introduces the performers, he often stands at one side of the TV frame, as if peripheral to the main event: the musical performance. Ordower keeps his remarks short and sweet, quickly yielding the spotlight to those who matter most. You see, I wasn’t the star of the program, and I didn’t pretend to be, Ordower told me. Those who performed on “Jubilee Showcase” treasured the spotlight he afforded them.