As the traditional jazz revival got under way in the 1950s and beyond, the impetus to record the various groups, especially those in New Orleans, came from small independent labels formed for the purpose. (The bigger labels only got involved when they saw a chance to add to their bottom line, and quickly dropped out when the bonanza did not materialize.)
One of these small companies was 504 Records, founded in 1979 by the late Mike Dine, specifically to record such jazz. Later the scope was broadened to “music of New Orleans,” a rubric which would include gospel.
Religious music and jazz have always been compatible—one only has to look at the tune lists of almost any traditional jazz band to find many gospel tunes and spirituals therein, and quite often gospel singers such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Alex Bradford, and Sister Lottie Peavey recorded with jazz bands. Also jazz bands such as those of Kid Howard and George Lewis played (and recorded) at church services. So it is quite fitting that 504 Records should have issued on LP—and now reissued on CD—these performances by the First Revolution Singers on New Orleans, LA, a group formed in 1972, just a few years before the debut of 504 Records.
That said, it has to be admitted that jazz does not figure prominently in tracks of this CD as there is no jazz instrumental accompaniment, although one can see at a glance tha
