People seemed to react in one of two ways when the news broke that Resonance Ensemble was bringing Sweet Honey in the Rock to town on April 5 and 6. A wide-eyed, gaping-jawed, expletive-laced stream of ecstasy. Or a shoulder shrugged: “Sweet who?”

Sweet Honey didn’t catapult to ‘swift’ stardom. They arose from feet-on-the-ground activism in 1970s Washington D.C., and from the belief of founder Bernice Johnson Reagon that from the arts – in song – the causes of social justice would ring out. Within a decade they were making their way around the country – including into Portland several times – growing their reputation for excellence in vocal style and for singing about and for social justice.

Would you have heard Sweet Honey on the radio in the ‘70s and ‘80s? Rock station? Gospel, jazz, folk? Rarely. But in Portland in 1978 you would have heard them live at the American Old Time Music Festival at the Portland Art Museum’s Swann Auditorium. And several more times in the 80s at Portland State University – after founder Reagon had finished teaching a course on the cultural world of Black women in history – and at Reed College and other small venues. They were booked often in conjunction with civil rights or Black history events. 

And now they returned and we offered them packed houses to sing to. They offered us some of the best of Sweet Honey – some songs taking us back, and some taking us forward – as only Sweet Honey can do.

DON’T HOLD IT IN

Being able to engage the audience is important to Sweet Honey’s success in a performance and they drill down for it when it doesn’t bubble up right away. At the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton on Friday, April 5 they put it to us straight. Moments into the first piece, “Somebody prayed for me,” singer Rochelle Rice stepped forward, struck a pose, stared us down and told us all that we were going to join in. She even providing a mini lesson on call and response and on letting go.

“Bernice always said,” interjected singer Carol Maillard when we (yes, we did join in) finished the first piece “If you hold yourself in you’re gonna hurt yourself.” The audience got healthier as the evening wore on. 

But even the studied banter of Sweet Honey can’t predict brilliant, live-performance kismet. Just as Rice swayed into the quiet strains of “Hush, Hush, Somebody Is Calling My Name” a cell phone went off. Couldn’t have been “unplanned” better and Rice rolled with it. A good spontaneous laugh is relaxing. As is “Hush” which you can listen to here.

Aisha Kahlil, whom fans from the early 80s on would remember, then talked to us at length about water – the beauty of it, her relationship with it, our collective responsibility to it and the ways in which, she said, “we are poisoning the well.” And as she spoke “The Living Waters” just trickled out, flowing into song and onto a video on the wide screen in the background.

In the next offering the upstage wide screen did not serve well for those sitting in the first half of the orchestra section. Text on the bottom half of the screen was blocked by the musician’s bodies and there was, therefore, no context for a segment about women engaged in social activism. And Sweet Honey did not publish their pieces in the brief program or through a link. This was just one of the times I wished I had further detail.

But that video segued organically into “the issues of my womb” – it’s a line from the very creative piece, “Colours.” The percussive repetition of the word womb underpinned a text that argues for women’s rights. A new issue? Yes, the centuries-old, new issue.

Founder Reagon is quoted as saying in an October 1984 concert in Portland’s Starry Night: “Women did some courageous things in the ‘70s, but a lot of us are cooling out now. We act like we still don’t have to deal with…people in power who don’t really care about us at all.” (Oregonian, October 8, 1984, Rick Mitchell). Sweet Honey forty years ago, meet Sweet Honey of today. 

After that, what else could Sweet Honey do but have Maillard, a founding member, lead us in “We Who Believe in Freedom Will Not Rest!” and send us off to intermission.

Resonance who?

This is a good time to thank Resonance Ensemble for bringing Sweet Honey to town. Interestingly, when the seventeen-member Resonance Ensemble took the stage as the opening act, some of the audience were shrugging shoulders wondering “Resonance who?” They were about to find out.

Good gracious, Artistic Director Katherine FitzGibbon made some good decisions. She programmed three pieces commissioned in the last three years – a ten-minute set which illuminate RE’s skills, their mission-based repertoire and their purpose. Many local Resonance fans know “Normal Never Was” by Jasmine Barnes and Damien Geter’s “Agnus Dei” from his An African American Requiem, but this was new music to most of this audience. From the listeners there was a noticeable flutter, a shifting of gears from neutral to drive. The text in “Normal” was so precisely delivered people were chuckling and “uhmming” as they assimilated the poignant message transported by the beautiful music. Resonance Ensemble, you’ve got some new fans out there now.

The Reser acoustic played a role in the concert. Sweet Honey used hand-held mikes and sat or stood about a quarter of the way into the stage and at times I felt their classic close harmony was buffered. In contrast, Resonance brought the semi-circle of singers right to the lip of the Reser Stage, with voices directed toward the middle of their arc, allowing the sound to be blended before being caught by the overhead mikes. Portland performers still “tuning” this lovely hall; Resonance presented the model of how to work the stage to your advantage. 

In this formation they delivered the most crystal clear performance of Resonance member Cecille Elliotts’ “We Are Murmurs” that I’ve heard. Nice mirroring of Sweet Honey’s common practice of performing the works of their own members.

And that’s how Sweet Honey’s second half began. “Retribution”, one of Honey’s newest single releases, composed by founding member Louise Robinson, began with a jazzy/soulful ostinato played oh so coolly by bassist Herman Burney, fragmented into rhythmic ensemble patter which blossomed into that Sweet Honey alluring, pliable, laid-back, slip-toned a cappella signature sound. Dang. This is “Retribution.”

Just as easily the five women shifted into a Caribbean island sound for “It is Love.” And then there was Aisha Kahlil with “Birds Flying High” who held our attention with vocal styling and an intense physical presence. She launched herself into that “new dawn, new day, new life,” giving it everything she had.

It was Kahlil’s solo performance that made me wonder about the professional lives of these artists beyond Sweet Honey. Maillard, Robinson, Rice and Kahlil and the previously un-mentioned Nitanju Bolade Casel, who joined the ensemble in 1985, are all active performing artists and scholars beyond what we saw on this stage. Each had significant solo roles in the concert. The printed program did not highlight their impressive accomplishments but you can click on the above links to find out more.

Again, special mention to bassist Burney, stalwart and solid throughout. But another Sweet Honey member who stole our attention at times was Barbara Hunt. This American Sign Language interpreter does not exist on the periphery; she is a performing member. With gesture Hunt provided the text, her expressive face provided the emotion and her body grooved and rocked and stilled. What an artist!

Before they closed with “Let there be peace on earth” Sweet Honey sang “Sometimes”, a piece by Reagon that many in the audience were waiting for. It’s a lullaby, it’s a ballad, a love song, a hymn. Listen here to Reagon singing one of Sweet Honey’s cherished works.

What do we expect when we sit before a musical artist or ensemble that so rocked us years – decades – before? Of course, we are “wanting memories,” wanting to feel how we felt when we encountered Sweet Honey back then. But only thinking on the things that we love about the Sweet Honey from before–their sound and their message then – would be missing the Sweet Honey right before us. Because this ensemble and these women keep evolving and challenging what they see before us today. And encouraging us to do the same. 

CONNECTIONS

Wanting Answers

When things fall apart where do we turn? Our friends in Cantico Singers are presenting answers to that question in music from Estonia, Syria, Baroque Germany and, hmmm, a James Bond movie? Join them in their spring concert on Friday, May 17, 7:30 pm at St. Philip Neri Church. Tickets are here.

In recital

Portland area artists Madeline Ross, soprano, and Susan McDaniel, pianist, recently competed as finalists for the National Association of Teachers of Singing National Artist Award (NATSAA) in New York City. They perform their competition repertoire on First Presbyterian Church’s “Celebration Works” music series on Sunday, April 28, 2 pm, at First Presbyterian Church, Portland. This concert is free.