The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

Brooklyn Tab, as fondly known by congregants and fans, are their own genre. Not quite urban gospel, nowhere near classical choral ensemble, they're simply a multitude of voices raised in swaying praise, reverent worship and spirited inspirational gospel. They began as an unassuming, run-of-the-mill (though vast in numbers) choir in a church tucked so deep in Brooklyn you have to take the subway to the end of the line (changing trains at Borough Hall), catch a bus the rest of the way, then walk a few more blocks from there. But when the pastor's wife, Carol Cymbala, stepped up as choir director reluctantly (saying she didn't have the know-how for the position) word got out of the music wafting from this humble corner and the Grammys started to rain. It's something about their symbiosis of voice and spirit, the quietness of their musical power and the amount of "church" in their presentation tha! t sets them apart from even the worthiest of their contemporaries.