Sacred jazz

From its inception jazz has incorporated aspects of African American sacred music including spirituals and hymns. Secular jazz musicians often performed renditions of spirituals, hymns and early gospel songs as part of their repertoire. Later many other jazz artists borrowed from black gospel music. Prior to World War II, American churches, black and white, regarded jazz and blues with suspicion or outright hostility as "the devil's music." It was only after World War II that a few jazz musicians began to compose and perform extended works intended for religious settings and/or as religious expression. Since the 1950's, sacred and liturgical music has been performed and recorded by many prominent jazz composers and musicians. [4]

Few music historians or musicologists have written about sacred jazz. One of the first and the most extensive treatise to date is a 2013 doctoral dissertation, in which Angelo Versace examined the development of sacred jazz in the 1950s using disciplines of musicology and history.[1] He noted that the historically parallel traditions of black gospel music and jazz were combined in the 1950s to produce "sacred jazz." The two are similar in religious intent but differ in gospel's lack of extended instrumental passages and instrumental improvisation and in gospel's hymn-like structure, and concern with social and political issues. Prominent artists Mahalia Jackson and Rosetta Tharpe contributed to gospel and sacred jazz. Versace maintained that the religious intent separates sacred from secular jazz. Most prominent in initiating the sacred jazz movement were pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams, known for her jazz masses in the 1950s and Duke Ellington. Prior to his later sacred compositions, Ellington included "Come Sunday" and "Twenty-third Psalm" in his "Black, Brown and Beige", which he recorded in 1958 with Mahalia Jackson. However, a number of other jazz artists, black and white, contributed to the movement.

The marked societal changes of the 1960s included changes in attitudes toward the arts in both Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches, which slowly became more open to the liturgical use of jazz.[1] Mary Lou Williams continued composing sacred jazz including her "Black Christ of the Andes" (1964) in honor of newly canonized Martin De Porres. Prior to his death in 1974 in response to contacts from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Duke Ellington wrote three Sacred Concerts: 1965 - A Concert of Sacred Music; 1968 - Second Sacred Concert; 1973 - Third Sacred Concert. Other popular and influential artists including John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Lalo Schifrin and Vince Guaraldi performed and recorded major sacred jazz works. Most works were in the Christian tradition but some were inspired by Asian and African religious traditions, e.g. John Contrane's "A Love Supreme," Alice Coltrane's "Universal Consciousness", and Pharoah Sanders' "Karma."

The last decades of the 20th century and the first of the 21st century saw continued regular composition, performance and recording of sacred jazz by established and new artists. Yet, sacred jazz never achieved a high visibility in the mainstream media or even among jazz lovers or much commercial success.[1] However, this is a testament to the sincere religious motivation of its practitioners and advocates who persist in their calling.[2]

The most common form of sacred jazz is the jazz mass. Although most often performed in a concert setting rather than church worship setting, this form has many examples. An eminent example of composers of the jazz mass was Mary Lou Williams. Having become disillusioned with her life as a secular performer, Williams converted to Catholicism in 1957.[5] and proceeded to compose three masses in the jazz idiom.[6] One was composed in 1968 to honor the recently deceased Martin Luther King, Jr. and the third was commissioned by a pontifical commission. It was performed once in 1975 in St Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Williams pursued composing and advocating for sacred jazz as a divine vocation. However the Catholic Church has not embraced jazz as appropriate for worship.

In 1966 Joe Masters recorded "Jazz Mass" for Columbia Records. A jazz ensemble was joined by soloists and choir using the English text of the Roman Catholic Mass. [7] Other examples include "Jazz Mass in Concert" by Lalo Schiffrin(Aleph Records, 1998, UPC 0651702632725) and "Jazz Mass" by Vince Guaraldi (Fantasy Records, 1965). In England, classical composer Will Todd recorded his "Jazz Missa Brevis" with jazz ensemble, solists and the St Martin's Voices on a 2018 Signum Records release, "Passion Music/Jazz Missa Brevis" also released as "Mass in Blue," and jazz organist James Taylor composed "The Rochester Mass" (Cherry Red Records, 2015) [8]. In 2013, Versace put forth bassist Ike Sturm and New York composer Deanna Witkowski as contemporary exemplars of sacred and liturgical jazz. [1]

Although entitled "mass", the "Abyssinian Mass" by Wynton Marsalis is not a setting of the Catholic Mass but fuses traditions of New Orleans and big band jazz with worship in the Black Church including Scripture, prayer, sermon, processional and recessional.[9] A recording of a performance lasting two hours, which featured the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Damien Snead and Chorale Le Chateau, was released on Blue Engine Records in 2016. The expansive work was commissioned in honor of the 200th anniversary of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City's Harlem. The sermon section features the church's pastor, Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, whose message is inclusively interfaith. However, Christian doctrine is retained in the jazz settings of the Lord's Prayer, Gloria Patri and Doxology. The work, which has antecedents in Marsalis' previous work, was performed both at the church and Lincoln Center in New York City and on a national tour.[10]

Pianist Cyrus Chestnut grew up performing gospel and hearing jazz in Baltimore before obtain a master's degree from Berklee College of Music. He has consistently recorded and performed sacred jazz throughout his successful career.[11] Versace offered detailed profiles of Witkowski and Sturm and brief profiles of many other contributors to the sacred jazz movement.[1] After 1990, Charles Gayle frequently composed, performed and recorded sacred jazz in the free jazz idiom playing a number of instruments with various jazz musicians.