Jazz Theology

Normally, I”m not one to take the copy-and-paste approach to blogs when it comes to text. I much prefer to generate my own content. But by means of introducing you to “jazz theologian,” pastor, and eloquent communicator Robert Gelinas, I want to let him speak for himself.

Responding to the question, “What is a jazz theologian?” Gelinas provides the following insight:

A jazz theologian is someone who understands that jazz is more than music. Music is a great place to hear and observe jazz, but jazz is so much more. Jazz has been expressed in a number of mediums: poetry, literature, sports and art to name a few.

Fundamental to jazz is Call and Response, syncopation and improvisation. A jazz theologian takes these concepts and then applies them to following Christ and living out his glorious gospel of the Kingdom of God.

I strongly encourage anyone interested in the link between jazz and spirituality to check out Gelinas”s blog, Reflections of a Jazz Theologian. You”ll find some refreshingly original observations about the nature of Christianity, the gospel of Jesus, the way the church was designed by God to function versus the different ruts it has fallen into, and the implications of a “jazz-shaped faith” for living a fully integrated life.

Keep an eye on Gelinas. He has a lot to say, and he says it very well, with a rare combination of thoughtfulness, creativity, and passion.

February 28, 2008 by
Filed Under: Uncategorized

Good Beer, Revisited

I never did make it to the Fletcher Street Brewery after my gig in Alpena last December. Not that I didn’t want to, not that I didn’t try, but I’m here to tell you that life has its ironies.

A few other band members seemed reasonably enthused about hitting the brewpub once we had packed up the equipment, so we wound up with a bit of an entourage cruising the streets of Alpena. Finding Fletcher Street Brewery was not much of a problem, but I had forgotten one small detail: the place doesn’t serve food.

No food!

What’s wit dat?

How can you serve beer without offering something in the way of edibles to take the edge off an appetite, not to mention off the alcohol?

Now, this lack of food didn”t bother me to the extent that I was prepared to give up on my prospects of a fine IPA. But everyone else was hungry. So off we went to a restaurant down the block for a meal, all ten or twelve of us.

The place we wound up at majored in high-decibel background noise and your usual American pilsners. Frankly, I would rather drink lizard pee than Miller’s, but at least Sam Adams was available in a bottle, and that”s what everyone ordered.

Everyone, that is, except me. Nothing against Sam Adams, mind you–it”s decent enough beer–but I was saving myself, you see. Fortified by visions of that mug of IPA at Fletcher’s, I wasn’t about to sacrifice either my stomach space or my sobriety on lesser brews. So I suffered beerlessly through my hamburger. It was hard. But my mind was focused on a higher cause.

An hour later, we headed back to our vehicles, spun down the side streets, and pulled into Fletcher’s parking lot.

The lot was empty.

Fletcher Street Brewery had closed five minutes before our arrival.

And that, my friend, is why my lip trembles and there is a tear in my eye as I write these words. If ever a man wanted a good beer that night, I was that man. If ever a man deserved a good beer that night, it was I. And yet, out of all our little coterie, I was the one–the only one–who didn”t get a beer. Not even a lousy Sam Adams. Still, tonight, nearly two months later, just thinking of this is causing me to relive the trauma.

Thankfully, I”ve got just the cure for the pain. There’s a sweet, fat growler of Hopnoxious IPA from the Walldorff sitting in the fridge. There’s a good, solid glass beer mug in my cupboard. As for the rest, well…you know the drill.

January 23, 2008 by
Filed Under: Humor, Jazz, Life, Music, Saxophone, Uncategorized

Foundations in Bebop

Bebop is to jazz what Baroque harmony is to classical music. Both became the “common practice” of their genre, foundations on which the entire body of music that was to follow would stand. Even seemingly unrelated musical expressions, such as Schoenberg’s atonalism or Miles’s modalism, were creative attempts to break free from what had gone before, and as such are vitally linked to the common practice of their genre.

This is why I’ve concentrated quite a bit on developing my bebop capabilities–not that I’ve by any means mastered bop, but I get around in it fairly well, well enough to hold my own in most settings. My philosophy has been that a good foundation in the common practice of jazz, bebop, will equip me to handle a broad range of other music besides. The premise is simple: metaphorically speaking, if I own a car that can top out at one hundred thirty miles an hour, I know it will handle seventy, no sweat.

The harmonic sophistication and technical demands of bop lead to the development of a respectable musical toolkit. The melodic language is nearly as universal as the blues; a lot of it is in fact dipped in the blues, and works with reasonable success in blues bands.

There is one challenge I face, though, that stems from saturating myself in a particular style. It’s hard to break out of the box and think in a different mode. I have to remind myself to lay back, take it easy, and not default to frenetic double-timing when I’m playing some up-tempo piece with the Grand River Blue Cats. That approach doesn”t fit, or rather, it fits when used sparingly. Ditto with smooth jazz. I am not a smooth jazz player–not that I can”t handle it, but it’s not my area of concentration. Smooth jazz is a highly nuanced music. A lot of it isn”t particularly challenging technically, but that doesn”t mean it’s simple stuff. You have to think in a smooth idiom, and in order to do that, you have to listen to a lot of the stuff. And to be honest, when I”m getting set to plunk down my fifteen bucks for a CD, I naturally gravitate to something a little more hardball. Jackie McLean. Mike Brecker. Cannonball. Eric Marienthal. That’s just my musical instinct, and maybe I need to broaden it.

But that being said, while I”m no music educator, I’ve heard it said more than once that a lot of young players are sidestepping the roots. That”s too bad. Bebop may not be what everyone listens to these days, but it remains the foundation, the source of much contemporary musical language. Studying it–really getting inside it and working at it–pays off. The best players know that”s true.

January 15, 2008 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Music, Saxophone, Uncategorized

Sonny Stitt

My earliest encounter with Sonny Stitt was through a live performance album that featured Sonny on alto, Miles on trumpet, and Stan Getz on tenor. That was back in my college days, and at the time, I couldn”t detect a difference between Stitt and Bird. Both had a blazing technique, and both had a phenomenal command of bebop.

Today, of course, the differences are instantly discernible. Bird was simply nonpareil. His rhythmic approach was considerably more sophisticated than Stitt”s; his vocabulary was broader; his technique, more facile; his overall conception, more inventive.

But that is hardly to diminish Stitt. I am, after all, comparing him to Charlie Parker, and if Stitt stands in the shadow of Bird, he nevertheless stands dauntingly tall. Sonny Stitt was a monster of bebop, and when I listen to him today, my admiration for his playing remains as strong as ever.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a CD called Sonny Stitt: Just In Case Your Forgot How Bad He Really Was. The title is an apt one. The venue is once again a live performance, or possibly a couple live performances, featuring such other sax notables as Richie Cole and John Handy. Stitt plays both alto and tenor, and he shines on each.

Sonny’s quicksilver technique allowed him to execute the fastest passages with precision and conviction. He loved to play in double-time, and he typically outshone most other sax players at it. On this CD, the opening tune, a blues, spotlights Sonny’s penchant for high velocity playing. Following a riff-style blues head, Stitt, the sole horn man, charges into his solo with the aggressiveness of a heavyweight boxer on meth. The mode is double-time from the get-go–inventive, impeccable, a bebop tour de force a la Stitt. You just can”t ask for better.

I hadn’t listened to Sonny for quite a while, so it’s nice to return for a reminder of “how bad he really was.” He was the baddest! He was also accessible. He”s fun to play along with, and to absorb as best I can. Not that I”ll ever sound like Sonny–not that I would ever want to; I want my own language. But when it comes to a mentor in bebop, Sonny is hard to beat and well worth emulating. The man knew a huge number of tunes, and he knew them well. He also knew his horn inside out, and he had a solid command of the building blocks of music. To listen to him analytically is to sit at the feet of a true jazz master. If you at all aspire to excellence on the saxophone, don’t–do NOT–pass him up. Listen, be amazed, learn, and grow.

January 14, 2008 by
Filed Under: Entertainment, Jazz, Music, Saxophone, Uncategorized

Church Music

I’ve been a follower of Jesus for nearly thirty years now, and from day one, I”ve played my saxophone as one of the means God has given me to worship him. I love doing so. However, I”m afraid the word worship is fraught with preconceptions and bad theology among Christians, and over the years, I’ve concluded I can’t live up to some of the expectations that arise as a result.

What do I mean? The best way I can explain myself is to consider a common saying among Christians in regard to the role of church musicians. To hear it told, my job is to “usher people into the presence of God.” I used to believe that, but today, I don’t think it’s possible. I can”t conjure up God’s presence, and I can’t cause people to experience it. The best I can do is simply worship God myself with earnestness and passion, whether with my instrument, or my voice, or simply in listening and silence. The rest is up to God and individual hearts.

Worship is an organic, intimate experience, and it deviates from person to person. One person may be filled with joy, and exuberant praise comes naturally to him; another may be struggling with a broken heart, and tears are the truest expression of her connection with God. A few seats down sits a couple who got into a nasty argument before church, and who are too pissed off at each other to feel very good about being in church at all right now. And those examples are just for starters.

In the midst of all the variables in even a small gathering, I’m supposed to “usher people into God”s presence”? Sorry, but I”m a musician, not a magician. I can”t usher anyone anywhere. Worship is part heart attitude and part divine action. It isn”t about selecting the right tunes, or about getting everyone to clap, or raise their hands, or dance, or any of that. Worship is a condition of the heart, and nothing I do can produce it in others. The best I can do is cultivate it in myself, and express it in ways that hopefully will free up others to follow me. Beyond that, I enter into spiritual manipulation, and I”m not willing to go there. I”ve seen too much of it, and it never bears good fruit.

Do I believe the Holy Spirit shows up in the midst of worship? Absolutely. But I can’t make him do so, nor can I determine how he will do so. I do think too many churches are so preoccupied with seamless musical productions they call “praise and worship” that they don’t give the Lord much opportunity to get a word in edgewise. I wonder how differently we would approach the act of corporate worship if we actually expected God to show up–if we really believed that he might have something to communicate or accomplish that placed the focus on his performance, not ours. Perhaps we”d be less concerned with smooth segues from one tune to the next, and more concerned with listening for his voice.

On the day of Pentecost, no mention is made of a well-rehearsed praise band facilitating the event which transpired in that upper room. As a church musician, I find this thought humbling, reassuring, and freeing. It allows me to keep things simple, and not make more of myself than I am. Because it’s not about me, it’s about Jesus. I’m just a man who plays the saxophone, and who loves God, and who has been given the gift of music as a language to express my love to my Lord. Hopefully, in what I and my fellow praise team members play, you will find something that frees and inspires you to find your own voice, be it song, or laughter, or tears, or whatever it is that most genuinely expresses your connection with God in the moment.

If you’ve prepared your heart through prayer, you’ll encounter God on your own, and if not, God may choose to initiate contact anyway, just because he loves you. Worship musicians can enhance an atmosphere for such a connection, but that’s about it. The rest is up to you and God.

It’s a matter of the heart.

January 13, 2008 by
Filed Under: Band, Christian Music, Church Worship, Entertainment, Jazz, Life, Music, Saxophone, Uncategorized
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