- Gospel to me is as I always say, soul music, as I've come to define it as being life in music.

Really, it's just about coming to a heritage of you know the African-American tradition, by way of (Garland clicks tongue) as I like to say, a troubled past, but still keeping their eyes on the prize.

That sense of hope, that sense of, there's a better glory beyond our current situation.

That is really the power of gospel music, powered with praise and worship for god and Jesus Christ.

But even for those who didn't believe, in having coming from a Christian background, you still can have that sense of hope, that power, that enthusiasm, that joy that just pretty much just gets an entire room charged up, that's gospel to me.

(upbeat music) A brother by the name of Joel Moss, who happens to be a multi award winning producer, he stepped to me one day in early 2018, and was like, "Hey you know, we need to do something.

"We need to do something musical "that would help raise the spirits of our community."

And him knowing that I had a gospel background, it was like, hey can we do something that would get everyone involved regardless of faith?

I said, "Absolutely."

So I reached out to my brother, Azzaam Hameed another, a fantastic gospel artist, and musician in his own right in the capital region, to be music directors to put together this vocal group.

- When Garland called me and told me what Joel Moss' vision was, I was immediately on board, and interested, because it also is a vision that I've had, songs of hope and inspiration with universal lyrics.

- We are sitting now in Caffè Lena.

When Joel asked us to be, to do something here, it was like, why here?

And it was like, "Well do you not know "what this, what happened here at Caffè Lena?"

I'm like, "Apparently not."

(light piano music) Miss Lena had this folk house going on for a little bit, where artists like Bob Dylan, and you know Richie Havens, they all kinda came through here.

But there was also another place in Saratoga Springs called Hattie's Chicken Shack.

A lot of brothers and sisters through the track and other summer activities, came up here.

So there was a woman by the name of Bernice Johnson who was from Georgia in the Civil Rights movement in 1962, who was waitressing at Hattie's, making some extra dough for the track season, everything is cool.

And while she was serving food, someone overheard her, I think of miss Lena, and said, "Hey, you know, "maybe you should come sing at Caffè Lena real quick?"

And she was like, "Well I don't really know."

So she came up, did the open mic, and realized that this was a great opportunity to do something.

So when she went back home back to Georgia, she went back and formed a four person singing group called The freedom Singers.

That literally did everything for in the Civil Rights movement, she they marched with MLK, things leading up to the march on Washington.

And periodically, they would come back up here to Saratoga and perform here at Caffè Lena.

And that is one of the earliest first gospel shows Caffè Lena has ever seen, The Freedom Singers.

So at the time, I didn't really, I said, "Why we should do it here at Caffè Lena?

"We can go to some church down the street."

This is the perfect home to start this kind of spirit choir here at Caffè Lena.

So after we did some evaluating, we realized that A Joyful Noise was the project that we were going to start.

And A Joyful Noise really is the capital region spirit choir.

So I kinda stripped the gospel out for a minute, because we wanted to make sure that this was clear.

If we're talking about the gospel, soul music, life in music, different artists that are not church have written amazingly moving songs that will just have that same gospel impact.

You know, "Blowing in the Wind" comes to mind.

It's the reason why Aretha Franklin did it, right?

There are artists like James Taylor that have written like "Shower the People" in terms of uplifting the spirit, and having our minds be hopeful towards something.

So we felt that if we can blend that kinda style with traditional gospel music, and modern gospel, then all a sudden, we can get that participatory interactivity, in addition to the energy needed.

That's A Joyful Noise.