The Harlem Gospel Travelers

The Harlem Gospel Travelers Live at Groove | Friday, December 13th | 6PM Doors, 7PM Show

With their new albumRhapsody, the extraordinary vocalists Ifedayo Gatling, Dennis Bailey, andGeorge Marage are able tofully explore the entire range of music that influenced them. Thefollow-up to their acclaimed 2021 releaseLook Up!, the record is a dive into a lesser-known buthugely important era in the evolution of gospel music.Starting in the mid-1960s, local gospel groups and singers began incorporating elements ofpopular soul and funk styles and in 2006, Chicago-based reissue label Numero GroupreleasedGood God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal.HGT’s longtime friend and mentor Eli PaperboyReed approached the group withthe idea of digging through the Numero catalog and recordingsome of the gospel funk material, reinterpreted in their own way—from the high-energy, old-school soul of“God’s Been Good to Me” to the hip-hop-inflected “Get Involved.”The Harlem Gospel Travelers story began when Gatling and Marage met while studying underReed's tutelage. The group put out their debut LP,He’s On Time, to rave reviews in 2019,earning them high profile fans like Elton John and landing them festival slots everywhere fromPilgrimage to Telluride Jazz. Originally a quartet, they brought in Bailey and reconfigured as atrio prior to recordingLook Up!,their first album of all original material.At a moment when the world is reconsidering the concepts of genre and category and who’sallowed to participate in which traditions, HGT are squarely on the cultural pulse. “We alwaysfound it difficult to stay in this one lane of what people think gospel is supposed to be,” saysGatling. “This record allowed us to hear people that were innovators in their own time, pushinghow gospel music sounded, and now we've created this project that is message-wise gospel, butthe feeling and the sound can be whatever you want it to be.”

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