Voices of Harlem

They send out waves of joy that jolt an audience right out of the glooms and start it stamping floors and pounding fists on chairs. They have no need of costumes or choreography. Soloists leap forward as if by pure impulse. The rest let themselves be caught up by the sound they create, shouting when they like, dancing when the excitement grabs them, hands flying, arms waving to exhort each other.

Their name is the Voices of East Harlem, and they sing a peculiar mixture of blues, gospel and pop music. In the blase world of popular music, however, few acts can equal the infectious thrill of all those young gospel-shouting vocal cords going at it with a single purpose: to make the last guy in the last row hear them and join in.

After a scant half-dozen appearances, mainly at Manhattan's Electric Circus and Fillmore East, plus a single date on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Voices are poised on the edge of what promises to be a spectacular success.

No Orange Blazers. For the Voices --24 black ghetto youngsters from East Harlem--all this attention is astonishing. The present group got going a year and a half ago with help from urban development programs trying to encourage neighborhood kids to keep off the streets. It rehearses in an empty supermarket purchased by The Vincent Astor Foundation. Under such auspices, the vocal results might have been expected to be worthy, therapeutic, useful--anything but exciting entertainment.

From the beginning, though, the youngsters had a few things going for them. One was a massive ex-gospel singer named Bernice Cole, who was called in by Chuck Griffin of the East Harlem Federation Youth Association. "When they asked me to start a choir," recalls Miss Cole, "I said 'Nothin' doin'. I don't think I have the patience anymore.' So of course I started in doing it. The kids had fun, but we didn't think of it as anything but a once-a-week get-together."

Jerry Brandt, the group's present manager, was equally unimpressed when he first saw them. "They came in wearing orange blazers," he remembers, "and didn't get me very excited. But the next morning I couldn't get their sound out of my head. So I had them try again. The third week I said, 'Look, next time come back in here but leave the orange blazers at home.' Without uniforms, they really cut loose. And they were on their way."

At rehearsals, the two dozen members (mostly girls) sit in the back of the dreary supermarket on Second Avenue, singing instead of chattering like most teenagers, while Bernice Cole strolls around like a matronly cheerleader. She shouts and sings at them, molding a phrase, breaking up at a mistake, her big voice brassing through the uproar. Mostly, though, she stays out of their way.

"We do spirituals, Beatles songs, freedom hymns, anything we like," says Miss Cole. "There's a lot of gospel flavor 'cause I'm an old gospel singer, but everything comes from them. The kids jump up and start moving with the music, and if it's good everybody starts moving the same way. Nobody talks, nobody directs; it just comes natural. One big movie company offered us a rehearsal studio and the help of a choreographer. But that just wouldn't be us. I don't believe people ought to grow out of their identity. We don't want to look like no Rockettes."

Few of the Voices of East Harlem seem really interested in the professional stage. Says Gerri Griffin, an extraordinarily kinetic singer who played in Hair and is the only professional with the group: "I hated all that show-biz stuff when I was downtown. Everybody trying to cut your throat to get your part. Man, I'm not all that uptight about the whole scene. I don't dig money, I dig singing. When I sing I'm the most happiest. That's the way all of us feel."

Nevertheless, there is a practical side to the group's success. "When this is over, they can go ahead and do something," says Miss Cole. "They'll have money to start out in life. Now they want us over there in Paris. The Olympia theater. But I told all these kids If you don't make a 90 average in school, honey, no Paris, nohow.' " She shrugs her shoulders, then growls, "Well, 85 anyway."

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