Rusea's High School choir perform at 'All Together Sing' at TVJ studios. - Colin Hamilton

Having followed the sing off competition on television for two years and attended a few concerts by the University Singers, I am quite enthralled by the sound of a mass of, voices, all in harmony.

In fact it started well before that, with church choirs during my childhood and then the recording of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For on U2's Rattle and Hum 1988 album/documentary film. It was done with the New Voices of Freedom chorale and I played it over and over.

Choirs by themselves are fine, but as a non-Christian, most of the themes do not appeal to me (you know, choirs tend to be Christian oriented), although the Brooklyn Tabernacle Mass Choir moved me. But then a sistren introduced me to Sounds of Blackness' Africa to America: Journey of the Drum album in the mid-'90s and I was hooked to songs, such as Black Butterfly. It did not hurt that they later performed on a remake of Many Rivers to Cross with Jimmy Cliff.

I have not, however, been able to lay my hands on many recordings by Jamaican choirs. And, this is a shame, because whether I choose to like the direction they choose to go in, there is a wealth of talent and good music that is going to waste. If something is not recorded, it really has not existed, in the sense that the memories of the people who were there die with them and also their retelling of the tale cannot transmit what took place.

I would like to see more choirs, apart from the University Singers, head into the studio, or at the very least do recordings of their live performances. There is even the advantage of numbers, as the cost could be spread among the members of the unit and then the sales are virtually guaranteed to the members of the organisation that the singing unit is a part of.