Jazz's long road to religious respectability

[rug]

Sep 16th 2015, 16:35
by H.G. and ERASMUS | WASHINGTON DC

EVER since the Psalmist urged worshippers of God to "praise Him with the sound of trumpet, praise Him with psaltery and harp", the relationship between religion and music has been deeply ambivalent. Faith has inspired the most glorious compositions, but its practitioners are also wary of music's ability to touch the deepest places in the human psyche.

In 1921, a popular American publication, the Ladies' Home Journal, warned its readers about the dangers of one musical style, under the glorious headline: "Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?"

“Jazz originally was the accompaniment of the voodoo dancer, stimulating the half-crazed barbarian to the vilest deeds. The weird chant, accompanied by the syncopated rhythm of the voodoo invokers, has also been employed by other barbaric people to stimulate brutality and sensuality. That it has a demoralizing effect on the human brain has been demonstrated by many scientists.”

Things have come a long a way since that stark warning which may have reflected a particularly conservative moment in social and religious history. (It's a striking fact that jazz funerals were popular among all races in New Orleans around 1900, but in subsequent years white people gradually shied away from those exuberant obsequies.) For people who yearn to combine riffs, religion and respectability, there was a breakthrough just over 50 years ago when a "Jazz Mass" was celebrated at Grace Cathedral in San Franscisco, a newly completed Episcopal place of worship. The work by Vince Guaraldi (who was then little known but would later become famous for composing music for the animated Peanuts) has been performed at least twice in the past few weeks to mark the happy anniversary.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/09/religion-and-jazz

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. great jazz has always been a somewhat religious experience for me!

one of my favorite genres.

[longship]

2. Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts

[rug]

3. Yes! And he took the A train to get there.

[longship]

4. That's the way you get to Harlem.

I saw Duke live in the sixties at a small club in Dearborn, MI. The whole band was there. It was astounding. He also did his sacred concert at a big church in Royal Oak, but I missed that one.

I love him madly.

[rug]

5. Yup, straight up Eightth Avenue.

Coincidentally, my daughter came home from school today and she and a partner have to do a project on a 20th century musician for her 8th grade music class. She wanted to do it on Duke Ellington but her partner wanted Louis Armstrong. So, being nonconfrontational like me, they're now doing Louis. I'm taking them to Louis Armstrong's house in Corona over the weekend.

[longship]

6. Yup, Louis is the source. nt

[Cartoonist]

7. Religious respectability

I doubt if any player lost any sleep waiting for the respect of religion.