MUSIC : Take 6 to raise voices in LR with gospel music that cooks
Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Style/215030/
They were just a group of young men singing gospel a cappella at Oakwood College, the small Huntsville, Ala., Bible college where they were students.
Alvin Chea, one of those young men, admits he didn’t think the group would have much staying power. After all, “it was a college group,” he says, adding that he envisioned a future that consisted of the men getting together at alumni events and singing with their kids and other family members.
That didn’t happen. The group that began in 1980 as a quartet went on to be known as the sextet Take 6, then went on to record 12 albums, winning 10 Grammys, 10 Dove Awards, a Soul Train Award and two NAACP Image Award nominations. From the group’s 1988 self-named debut, which sold one million copies and earned three Grammy nominations, to their Feels Good CD released in 2006, Take 6 has become a byword for seamless, soulful harmony delivered via contemporary gospel songs that borrow from R&B, jazz and pop.
“We’ve been very blessed — very, very blessed,” Chea says.
Presented by Lawrence Hamilton and the One Special Angel project at Philander Smith College, Take 6 will appear in concert Thursday at Robinson Center Music Hall. Proceeds will benefit the college. It’s the second concert sponsored by One Special Angel and Hamilton, director of cultural affairs at Philander Smith. Della Reese appeared at the 2007 event, along with middle-school and high-school choirs.
Take 6 consists of Chea, Cedric Dent, Claude McKnight, David Thomas, Mark Kibble and Joel Kibble. It has undergone only one personnel change since its inception — in 1991, group member Mervyn Warren left to pursue a career as a producer, and his place was taken by Joel Kibble, Mark Kibble’s younger brother.
What is it about Take 6 that has made it persevere all these years ? A couple of things, according to lead tenor and founder McKnight.
“First and foremost... we are a group that we believe the Lord put... together. [That’s ] the only way that six knuckleheaded guys could be together for 20 years,” McKnight says. “Other than that, we treat each other like family.” Their shared love for the music they produce has also served to cement their relationship, he adds.
McKnight describes the professional development of Take Six as an ongoing learning experience. “Over the years we have learned to... just let the Lord lead us where he wants us to be.”
Chea, bass vocalist and founding member of the group, remembers one of the little moments at which he realized Take 6 had arrived. The group was in New York for a Radio City Music Hall performance. They went out to dinner afterward and ran into jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who invited the men to sit with him. A big table was pulled up, “and it was like one of those Rat Pack, Vegas-ish kinds of moments,” complete with autographsigning, Chea says, also recalling that musical songwriting-production duo Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson stopped by. “We were at the table — not one of the people walking by trying to see who was at the table.”
During their long careers, the men of Take 6 have performed with such notables as Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, David Foster, Al Jarreau, Stevie Wonder, Denyce Graves, The Yellowjackets and Wynton Marsalis, and have influenced pop groups like Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys and ’NSync. But they have also drawn inspiration from various secular artists — McKnight names Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder and Manhattan Transfer. In addition, “we looked at a lot of big band music” by such legends as Duke Ellington and Woody Herman. “Anything that swings, that cooks... that’s pretty much where our vocal arrangements have come from.”
While in Little Rock, the group will do a little collaboration with Philander Smith students via their Take 6 Master Class, which McKnight calls “a pretty exciting thing.” During the class, to be held at Philander, the students will learn what the group does and how to put it all together... right there on the spot. It’s a way to include the students in the musical arranging process, McKnight says. “They actually get to sing with Take 6 in an arrangement that we actually work on right there in the class.... It’s a way also for us to stay on top of our game.”
The group is still riding the wings of its newest CD, Feels Good. Its treasures include “Lamb of God,” which is a cover of the Twila Paris song; “I’ll Never Turn Back No More,” whose harmonious introduction is nothing short of tear-inducing; and “Family of Love,” a warm, inviting song that Chea describes as a “kind of post-9 / 11 song or healing anthem.”
The project represents “kind of an extension of our very first CD,” which was a completely a cappella project, McKnight says. “We kind of took a journey for quite a few years to get back to what it is we do well.
“ It doesn’t mean we won’t go off in other journeys,” he hastens to add. “[It’s ] just this one was like... let’s do what we know how to do.”
But, Chea says, the album also represents something the group has never done before.
“We’ve gotten the question, ‘ When will you guys do a jazz standards record ?’” he says. “We’ve got these great harmonies; there are so many good tunes out there; and we finally decided to go ahead and go for it. We’ve done a lot of that stuff, especially working on other people’s records..... But we’ve never done that on a Take 6 project.”
The album represents a new direction taken by the group in 2006: the start of Take 6 Records.
“The music business is in a place right now where if you have a good work ethic you could really find your niche here and do it yourself,” McKnight says. “That’s actually why we started it — to be in control of our own projects.”
And how are things going with Take 6 Records ? “We’re learning as time goes on,” McKnight replies. “[There’s ] no real blueprint for how to do this. There are some tremendous successes along with failures along the way.”
Meanwhile, Take 6 the group hopes to go “as far as musically and spiritually it makes sense to do so,” McKnight says. “I think with a cappella music... the sky’s the limit.” After all, the men hold the best musical asset of all... their voices.
McKnight does not think the human voice will ever be aptly recreated. “It is an instrument that cannot be copied.”
Shea has written a book, BassLines, about the life and times of Take 6. The book, (BassLines Publishing, $ 14. 95 ), is available online at Take 6. com / basslines.
Take 6 7 p. m. Thursday, Robinson Center Music Hall, Little Rock Tickets: $ 20- $ 35; $ 10 for students. (501 ) 244-8800