Gospel: Rhythm of the Heart

For a music documentary that purports to track the history of gospel music from its beginnings up through today, this program is pretty lean on historical context and misrepresents the direction of contemporary gospel to boot. Entertainment reporter Chantal Westerman takes the viewer on a mini-tour of gospel music that begins at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and ends at Florida's Sacred Steel Convention. While legends such as Thomas A. Dorsey ("Father of Gospel") and Mahalia Jackson are covered (but not heard), almost everything viewers do hear and see is traditional gospel from artists such as Albertina Walker, Jon Gibson and the Campbell Brothers, among others. Excluded from the film, however, are the artists who comprise the hottest acts in Afro-American gospel today--Darwin Hobbs, Donnie McClurkin, Mary Mary, Hezekiah Walker, the Grammy-winning Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Londa Larmond and Shirley Caesar, to mention but a few. Gospel: Rhythm of the Heart never comes near urban gospel, where spiritual music comes together with soul-pop, new R&B and hip-hop; instead it's stuck on some musical backroad while urban gospel is roaring down main street. Even for a traditional overview, a much better choice here would be The Story of Gospel (VL-7/99). Not a necessary purchase. Aud: H, C, P. (P. Van Vleck)