Formed around 1919 in Norfolk, Virginia by bass singer Len Williams and baritone Delroy Hollins, the group worked the vaudeville circuit as the secular Norfolk Jazz Quartet while doubling as the sacred Norfolk Jubilee Quartet, recording more than a hundred sides between 1921 and 1940. Williams' rhythmic, jazz-inflected bass patterns anchoring the group's close harmony made them, by most historians' account, the most influential Tidewater jubilee group of the era — a direct model for the younger Golden Gate Quartet.

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1925

Get On Board, Little ChildrenNorfolk Jubilee Quartet