art and faith in the berkshires...

This week marks the Fifth Pittsfield City Jazz Festival - with Dave Brubeck playing the town on Saturday at 7:30 pm. It is the 50th anniversary of his classic "Time Out" album which features the ground breaking hit "Take 5." Along with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Brubeck helped popularize "cool" jazz - a genre bending mixture of white musicians and black bebop artists who called New York home after WWII. Eventually their "cool" style took up residence on the West Coast and emphasized sweet tones and an understated emotion as opposed to the aggressive sound of bebop.

Brubeck - as well as all five of his musician children - have worked with young artists for decades and still do their part with students in 2009. Part of the Pittsfield Festival will include the "Jazz in the Schools" work of our local jazz man: Andy Kelly. Interestingly, after being drafted into WWII, Brubeck came to faith after wrestling with the conflict between war and the call of love and justice in the Christian scriptures. He has written a setting for the Eucharist and continues to use his music to promote understanding and peace concerns. No wonder it felt so right a few years ago to greet the season of Advent with an improv based on his "Take 5" that eventually morphed into "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."

Our festival starts on Wednesday, Oct. 7, with a free concert by the Royal Hartigan group, blood drum spirit, at the Berkshire Athenaeum. Local jazz acts will perform in clubs and restaurants throughout the city during our Jazz About Town program Columbus Day weekend (Oct. 9-11). The headline event of Pittsfield’s Third Thursday Oct. 15 will be the Industrial Jazz Group, from California, in a free outdoor performance on Pittsfield’s mobile sound stage. For more information: www.berkshiresjazz.org/about

It is clear to me - and a variety of others - the artists often help us both encounter something of the sacred and express our own spiritual experiences, too. As someone from IAM (International Arts Movement) once said: the church - and people of faith - need to be in the business of helping shape culture - and you can't do that inside the church. You have to get out and be with the real artists who are struggling to make it real while making a living.

I look forward to stopping by a variety of the local venues just to hear - and encourage - our local jazz men and women. Who knows where the spirit will blow us once we make a connection?

Mako Fujimura - founder of IAM (International Arts Movement) - continues to help me find a language for exploring both the arts from within my faith experience as well a way of encouraging other artists to go deeper, too. This short clip of his thought and art is worth the effort...