It was such a great thrill to receive the copies of Abdoullah’s songs from the Library of Congress today! Many months of searching and waiting… and waiting. Eight of the nine registered 1935 songs are recovered for now.

Opening the scores is amazing as a piece of history. Little details like the choice of paper and typeset. The interesting logo, and that “infamous” address, 30 West 72nd Street right there on the cover. This is the location Neville Goddard mentioned his mentorship with Abdoullah took place. They were priced at 50 cents ($12 today) and one “Engraved and printed by Radom & Neidorff, Inc” New York.

It was pretty overwhelming to “see” so many different songs but music is meant to be heard.

I pulled out my nifty folding Carry-On piano. Tried to spark those very old 10-years-of-piano-lessons’ neurons and started to play. It looked like a sweet little hymn or a popular parlor song at first. But no, it is not, it is a five-act emotional odyssey. What does he want here? I struggled. Okay, Moderato, then achingly Lento con espressione. Here, wrenched back in a softened Teneramente. Oh boy, here we go, a full Maestoso, with rit., ritenuto, and allargando. Oh my God!

I thought I was going to be playing something from The Beatles’ Songbook. This was not that. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Up until now, Abdoullah was a mysterious footnote in mystic philospher Neville Goddard’s spiritual biography.

The truth is though, that before he was anyone’s mystic mentor, G. M. Ahmad-Abdoullah (Modeste Guillaume) was a serious, elite working musician and a pioneer in early 20th-century Black history.

He trained in the Leschetizky and Lamperti methods in Europe. He toured as a premier baritone in the Williams & Walker Glee Club (the company behind Abyssinia and Bandanna Land – two of the most important all-Black Broadway productions of the early 1900s). He sang in Booker T. Washington’s living room in the summer of 1905. We recently discovered that he was ‘frequently in command’ at the Columbia Phonograph Company (Columbia Records) in Washington, D.C. in 1904, and by 1909 was writing operatic selections exclusively for the Oliver Ditson Company. He ran a highly successful Bel Canto conservatory in Atlantic City for years.

By the late 1920s, he appeared on the Three-Fold Movement’s interfaith stage in New York alongside Dr. Frederick Lynch, Swami Paramahansa Yogananda, and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at a moment in history when very few Black religious leaders were given a platform at all.

He was a master. This sheet music reflects it.

After an hour of defeat and a great longing to hear… just one song properly…I went to Soundslice (which is excellent by the way) and scanned the sheet music. It did a great job. Played it, made a midi and an mp3. What was I thinking? No scanner, no midi is going to have read “Lento con espressione” and play it that way.

I called a friend who plays piano and begged them to play just one piece.

Oh… it was just so beautiful!

We truly want you to have that same experience, so we thought, let’s do a donation drive so everyone can hear the music.

20-Day Historic Music Score Drive

This is short, 20-day donation drive to pay a very kind, economical pianist to properly play these songs for us.

We also need to pay some serious bills. We paid the Library of Congress archivists out of pocket to unearth these physical documents. We need to hire a specialized physical vault archivist for the books because there is an issue at LOC. There is also a collector who wants a significant sum for some unreleased lectures from the late 40s and 50s. We have been trying for years to persuade. So, your support goes toward the whole ongoing archive, not just this one release

If you pre-order one of the packages today, you’ll fund the pianist, the archivist, and most importantly the preservation of history.

When the 20-day drive closes on October 16th, the complete packet will be automatically emailed to you.

It includes 8 high-resolution LOC scans, the clean modern sheet music, and the piano working recordings so you can hear the beautiful music and melodies.

Hopefully, these reference files will give a deeper experience of the songs, and musicians in the future may be inspired to bring them to life.

Donation Drive

The Sheet Music Archive $28

The Original 1935 Documents, and the Clean Sheet Music

Eight lost songs, recovered from the Library of Congress after months of searching. This includes both the high-resolution scans of all eight original 1935 sheet music deposits filed by G. M. Ahmad-Abdoullah (Modeste Guillaume) – 48 pages and clean, modern-typeset editions of all eight songs, ready to read and play.

You receive:

• 8 high-resolution PDF scans of the original 1935 Library of Congress deposits (48 pages)
• 8 clean, modern-typeset sheet music PDFs 6 pages each

Note: This funds the research, retrieval, and digitization work that made these scans available.

The Complete Collection $45

8 Songs Heard after 90 Years

Everything in the Sheet Music Archive, plus a full 8-track album of piano recordings

You receive:

• Everything in The Sheet Music Archive (8 original scans, 6 pages each, 8 clean sheet music PDFs)
• 8-tracks piano recordings

Note: This funds the transcription, recording, and archival work behind this edition.

Archival Patron Price: $100 and Pay What You Want

Fund the Next Discovery

This tier is for the people who understand that this release is one chapter, not the whole story. Your support goes toward the full ongoing archive: hiring a specialized archivist to resolve an access issue at the Library of Congress blocking four of Abdoullah’s known books, and toward acquiring a private collection of unreleased 1940s-50s lecture recordings we’ve been negotiating to secure for over a year.

You receive:

• Everything in the Researcher’s Edition (scans, modern sheets, piano recordings)
• Our direct thanks and a real stake in what we find next

Note: This directly funds the next phase of archival recovery, beyond this release.