Arthur Jones
Arthur Jones is the founder of The Spirituals Project, which is concerned with the preservation and revitalization of the spirituals tradition. In addition to the current multidisciplinary website, the initiatives of The Spirituals Project include various community-based education programs, a documentary film project, and a 70-voice multi-ethnic, multi-generational community choir. Trained as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Jones is currently a faculty member in the Psychology Department at the University of Denver. He is also an accomplished singer who, since 1991, has presented lecture-concert and workshop programs focused on spirituals in educational, community and church settings around the country. The comments posted here provide a recounting of the various events that led to the founding of The Spirituals Project.
--------------------------
And then another turning point came because at this point I was still separating out the music on the side kind of as an avocation and my work as a psychologist in another compartment and in 1990 -- November of 1990 came the next turning point. And that was when I volunteered to do a fundraising solo recital for the Black AIDS Project at Large in Denver and this was a project that I was on the Board of Directors of through the Urban League where we were basically doing education in the black community to help people understand how to prevent AIDS and the need for health education and prevention. But the Black AIDS project was really struggling financially and so I volunteered to do this concert to raise money for the project. Well, at the end of the concert -- it was a wide-ranging concert and I did a variety of music -- some classical music and some musical theater -- Broadway stuff -- and some spirituals at the end. At the end of that concert when it was over you know it was very successful -- we did raise $3,000 which was really helpful to us at the time, but a woman from the Museum of Natural History named Anne Jennings who was the Community Outreach Coordinator came up to me and said, you know, “This was a great concert and I really enjoyed it and I’m wondering if you would be willing to do something for us for the upcoming African American history celebration at the Museum of Natural History?” And, this was going to be in February, and without thinking about it, and it was a really strange kind of thing, I just heard myself saying, “Yes I would love to do a concert and what I would really like to do is a program on hidden meanings in African American spirituals.” And I heard myself saying this and I found myself puzzled about why I was saying it because I really didn’t know enough about that subject to do a competent program. You know, I had known kind of what most people know -- you know, that spirituals were created in slavery and that they were used as secret codes on the Underground Railroad and so forth. And I had sung spirituals all my life and even when I wasn’t singing seriously I’d sing them to myself in the shower. But I wasn’t prepared to do this kind of a serious program. But Anne said oh, that’s great. Would you like to have February 2nd or February 16th or whatever. Anyway, there I was signed up to do this program and I had an anxiety attack. I was just in a panic. I didn’t know what I was going to do because I wasn’t really ready to do this.
So, I did what I have done at many times in my life in dealing with anxiety. I went and just did some hard work. I went to the library -- I did some reading -- I listened to music -- I did a lot of thinking -- and in February of 1991 I went to the Museum of Natural History with my piano accompanist, Ingrid Thompson, who still is my accompanist and we still work together -- and I did this program where I sang a sampling of spirituals and then I wrote a script that I read in between that basically explained some of the deeper meanings and hidden meanings in the songs. I had done enough work to be able to do a minimally competent program. I was well received but what was more important than how it was received was the fact that in doing this program I found myself feeling all of these powerful confusing seemingly contradictory emotions. Sadness and joy, rage, guilt, confusion all this stuff and I just didn’t know what was going on. I was doing this program and people were responding enthusiastically but I kind of was an emotional wreck not really understanding what I was feeling. And then I realized after some reflection after the program that what I was feeling was the combination of emotions that were associated with the history of these songs. These were the songs that were created by African American people in bondage and used as a central part of their struggle for freedom -- for psychological healing -- for community bonding -- for all these different things and there was a complex mix of emotions that went with that history. And that was part of what I was experiencing. And I found myself realizing that even though my plan had been to just do this one program in February of 1991 and then go on to do other things that I was going to have to spend some more time with these spirituals. And so I did more reading and more listening and before I knew it I was being invited to do some additional concerts and programs and to make a long story short -- I found myself totally obsessed with the spirituals and realized that I was really receiving what I now understanding was a calling that I had a responsibility to do some education -- to help people understand the importance of this music.