(photo: Leo Mazzeo)
Last night we accomplished one of my deepest dreams as we shared our interpretation of John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" in a Good Friday setting. There were three hopes for this event - and they all came to pass - for which I am grateful.
+ First, artistically and theologically, I wanted to share Coltrane's music in church in such a way that its beauty, paradox and promise were experienced on Good Friday. This is not a simple composition to accept: it is musically complex, melodically challenging and wildly passionate in rhythm and vibe. As sax man, Charlie Tokarz, said after the presentation: "This is not just jazz (by which we both knew he meant easy listening, Kenny G-type music). No this is JAZZ in all of its intricate creativity." Wynton Marsalis sometimes speaks of jazz as North American classical music born in an African American context. And it is certainly that - and probably more, too. Just as Good Friday is theologically paradoxical - a liturgy saturated in the reality of human suffering and hope - so too "A Love Supreme." When the idea came to me while on sabbatical in Montreal this past summer, and I shared it with my colleague and collaborator Carlton Maaia II, we both thought: "YES, how totally excellent" and simultaneously, "OMG this is completely crazy to be even contemplating!" Both/and which was my clue that it was the right next step. And as Carlton said at the close of the evening, "We did it... we carried it from concept to completion like you imagined from the beginning. Incredible!"
+ Second, I yearned to play this jazz suite with the three other jazz musicians in our area with whom I share a deep respect, love and sense of camaraderie: Carlton Maaia II, Charlie Tokarz and Jon Haddad. I have been working with Carlton for five years at church. We have done a number of rock and soul shows together as well as weekly jazz meditations for Sunday worship. Things went deeper as we explored, planned and implemented a shared clergy/congregational sabbatical last year - and we've continued to build on that connection. Through the graciousness of another local musician, Andy Kelly, I met Charlie and Jon: we played together in Andy's ensemble and even travelled to Istanbul, Turkey together on a music and peace-making mission six years ago. Since then, I've had the chance to work with these two masters in other settings - including some Christmas Eve and Easter events - that have allowed us to take some time and musically explore the spirituality of this holy days. We've done some big concerts, too. So, professionally and aesthetically, it was vital for me to find a way to keep the creativity moving. Investigating the meaning of "A Love Supreme" for us both personally and as an ensemble was fascinating: we took the time to rehearse, we each practiced vigorously on our own and we built in time for conversation and questions about what the music was communicating to each of us. Those conversations cracked open more meaning for me about the blessings of this composition. And it drew me closer to these three men in ways I will cherish forever. What a privilege to share beauty with these guys!
+ And third, I ached to incorporate our folk/rock musicians from church into the fabric of this tapestry, too. They were never an after-thought but always integral to "A Love Supreme" in three key was: a) Our four vocalists - and two guitarists - are strong, solid musicians in their own right who can carry a song without leaning too heavy on the accompanists. Let's just say that this is not always the case with other vocalists. So knowing their gifts and abilities, I wanted to see what would happen if they were empowered to improvise with their voices the way Coltrane encouraged his instrumentalists on "A Love Supreme." What they collectively created was stunning and exciting - especially on William Billings' "When Jesus Wept" and Ann Heaton's "Prayer of St. Francis." b) Each vocalist knows how to blend and support his/her mates - we've been working together in one form or another for 7+ years - so I wanted them to show the gathered congregation what trust looked and sounded like. They were an embodied sermon in song whether they realized it or not. Like jazz instrumentalists who have played with one another long enough to read their band mates minds and anticipate beyond comprehension how to support them, so too these sings. Eva Peri, Elizabeth McCarty, Dianne De Mott and Jon Grenoble not only have musical reading skills, finely honed instincts about blending together but they also have a deep affection for one another - and in this season of political fear-mongering the more we can do to advance the cause of love the better. Add to this mix the guitar/vocal work of Dave McDermott and Brian Staubach, brilliant players in their own right, and the whole becomes greater than the individual parts. And c) I sensed that for a congregation made up of people of faith, jazz heads, people of no faith as well as all types of curious souls in between, this presentation needed what I thought of as "oasis of beauty and form in the midst of an extended jazz improvisation." The singers and guitarists were essential in helping the congregation find their place - and they did it with subtly and grace.
One of the band said to me afterwards, "You know that you made this selection much more
accessible for people than just an encounter with listening to it on a CD allows, right? It wasn't dumbed down in any way, but the way it was presented brought people into its heart rather than perplexed them." And for that, kudos go to our musical director, Carlton Maaia II, who told me something like this after one rehearsal: "Because "A Love Supreme" is so nuanced and elaborate as music, we must do two things consistently to help the gathered crowd "get" it. First, we must play the "head" - the opening melody" a few times at both the start of each movement and the close so that people have a reference point. Not everyone is able to bring closure to a song, so we have to help them by giving them musical landmarks. And second, when we are improvising within the body of each song, playing a set of notes twice - repeating them right new to one another - also helps the listeners find some grounding." What he was saying speaks about the tender relationship between improvisation, personal creativity, respect for each individual and the spirituality of compassion we want to share in our music. A barrage of sounds might be fun for the player, but it is rarely of any value for most listeners. Same goes for rehearsal: just showing up and throwing a bunch of notes together may be fun for the one making the noise, but it rarely edifies an audience - and never strengthens a congregation.
I personally learned so much about how compassion must consciously be built into my music through this encounter - and I suspect it was felt and confirmed by the over 100 folk who gathered. At least half the crowd had not formal relationship with First Church. And as I spoke with some afterwards, they told me they had driven 50+ miles to experience "A Love Supreme" in a church on Good Friday. I heard this over and again from people I had never met. And, they expressed thanks to me. My hunch back in our Montreal summer sabbatical was right: there is a group of people aching for a place to nurture their hopes and dreams and music helps them come together in ways most of us cannot articulate - yet most of us know is true, too.
NOTE: Some have emailed me that they would like to reread my remarks from last night, so here we go... Thanks be to God we raised $1000 for Syrian refugee relief, too.)
Good evening
and welcome. Tonight we will be sharing
our interpretation of both John Coltrane’s masterwork and the
essence of this sacred day in the Christian tradition. It is my contention that “A Love Supreme” and
Good Friday are exquisitely nuanced meditations upon the blessings of the
blues in our everyday lives.
For those
who appreciate jazz, you know that the very essence of this art form is
constructed upon the blues tradition: experimenting,
improvising, honoring as well as pushing the limits of the blues evokes
simultaneously mourning and celebration.
Wynton Marsalis, director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, once observed that: Everything
in jazz comes out of blues music: joy, pain and struggle for the blues is affirmation
with absolute elegance. It's about a lovers and the human condition. So the
pain and the struggle in the blues is that universal pain that comes from
having your heart broken.
Throughout
“A Love Supreme” I hear the artist, John Coltrane – and our musicians –
reverently beginning with a blues form and a blues soul, but never resting
upon either in a static way. For this is
not a recital – a recreation of a 50 year old composition – but rather a
living, breathing, melodic pilgrimage in prayer that invites you to rejoice in
your inner journey even as you recognize your wounds. Guided by the musicians, this is a time to listen
carefully to whatever your journey is saying to you and follow wherever it may
lead.
That is why
we have set this encounter within the wisdom of Good Friday: of all the holy days in the Christian
liturgical calendar, this is the most paradoxical. There is fear present as we consider the
suffering of the Cross, but trust as well: sorrow alongside of song, darkness
as well as illumination, despair, betrayal and bleak emptiness in addition to human
solidarity and divine hope born from above.
Because when the Cross is embraced in its essence, it is not about
punishment, penitence or even judgment as we normally imagine. No, the Cross rightly
conceived points to the place where the holy intersects our humanity. The Cross graphically that there is NO place
exempt from God’s grace: not addiction, not
abuse, not war, exploitation or even death.
The mystical truth of creation that Coltrane tapped into – and Good
Friday honors – is that the Holy mercifully meets us in all our human
experiences – including shame, abandonment and our experiences with hell – in
order to set us free.
You may know
that Coltrane himself was once a heroin addict, yes? The junk got him fired from the Miles Davis
band back in the day and was about to devour his life. But after nearly 10
years of shooting smack and drinking to excess, ‘Trane had an inner spiritual
awakening that empowered him to get clean.
An apocryphal story says that while playing his saxophone wildly and
beyond all traditional sounds and scales, Coltrane was given a gift of love in
sound that so nourished his core with beauty that he was liberated from his cravings.
The story goes on to say that in response to this grace he gave the rest of his
life to sharing beauty with the world in the hope that his music would inspire
healing in other wounded souls. No longer a junkie, the artist himself said:
In 1957, I experienced, by the grace of
God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more
productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the
means and privilege to make others happy through music.
Coltrane
never named his spirituality as Buddhist or Christian, Muslim, Jewish or
earth-centered; he just played and shared the sounds of love born of the blues. We know from his biography that both of his
grand-fathers were Baptist preachers – and that his soul was saturated in the
old gospel hymns of the South – but ‘Trane’s message cut deeper than any
denomination. One of the wisest spiritual teachers of the Western world,
Richard Rohr, once wrote:
All great spirituality teaches about letting go of what you don’t
need and who you are not. Only when you can get little enough and naked enough
and poor enough will you find that the little place where who you really are is
ironically more than enough and all that you need. At that place, you will have
nothing to prove to anybody and nothing to protect. That place is called freedom. It’s the freedom of the
children of God and such people can connect with everybody… because they don’t
feel the need to eliminate anybody . . .
Part of what we’re exploring with you tonight is precisely
how the liberating power of love is often revealed to us through our
wounds. The power to break down barriers
– to trust that when we’re fortified by grace we can challenge tyrants and
bullies, embrace those who have been excluded and feast together with former
enemies in hope rather than fear – all of this has its origins in owning our
own pain. That’s where the blues becomes sacred prayer: until we’re honest with
ourselves and feel our own need for a love greater than ourselves, we’re just
play acting – and nothing changes. But when we’ve been touched within by love –
and start to trust it by living into its freedom – then our humanity is allied
with the holy.
And as St. Jerry Lee Lewis noted, “Then we gotta whole
lotta shakin’ goin’ on” because now we’re spirit-fed. Now we trust that God’s love looks beyond
what the obvious, beyond the comfortable, beyond even what is even
comprehensible. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was martyred for his opposition to
Nazi hatred in Germany, said:
Discipleship is never limited to
what you can comprehend – it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the
deep waters beyond your own comprehension and God will help you to comprehend…
for bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is
the true knowledge. In this holy comprehension transcends (anything we can
imagine.)
So because
so many of us are usually so busy, so worried, so anxious, so distracted, so
That’s why
Good Friday is ideal for considering Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” Like the old rabbi Saul of Tarsus told
us: All things work for good when we
love and trust the Lord. Not all things ARE good, mind you, but they can be
used for good if we are open and nourished by love. Coltrane tells us this in four musical
movements.
Acknowledgment suggests the
wonder of discovering that we are God’s beloved even in the midst of pain: it starts with a fanfare announcing that something important is
about to happen in the key of E – the quintessential guitar blues key. Then it moves
to a blues riff on the bass in F to remind us that this journey of faith is
about the marriage of the human and the holy, a song of hope and love even in
hard times. And dig this: with 3 notes,
Coltrane provides us with a penetrating, audible historical overview of Black
history. The bass note riff that grounds “Acknowledgement” references a
time-tested blues riff made popular by Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf (play:
I’m a Man.) And the Chicago blues giants are referencing the folk
and Creole music they heard in both New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta – and
that music harkens back to the Caribbean slave trade and then to the grooves of
West Africa. All in three notes! But the
lesson doesn’t end there as there is a recurring theme that ‘Trane opens this
movement with that returns later over and over again, but now in every different
key possible. He wants to show us through music that God’s love not only
transcends every key, race and religion, but that it works in every situation.
And just so that we don’t fail to miss his message, he closes the first
movement by chanting: a love supreme.
Resolution, the second movement, reminds
us that holy love is all about compassion. When our wounds have been touched, when our
broken hearts have been honored, when the violence and fear of the world is
challenged, blessing does not take place through brute force but… through
compassion. All true mystics know that
the sacred is a lover not a judge – and Coltrane is among them. He communicates this with an aching melody
that he lets his band improvise on however their hearts feel inspired. This shared freedom, you see, is all about
listening carefully to one another, helping one another take the music to a new
place in real time, respecting one another in love and celebrating the joy of
being creative in community.
Pursuance, movement three, is
about dancing to a love that is greater than our imagination. Its form is pure blues but
Coltrane sets it to such a wild be-bop beat that unless you saw the chord
changes in front of you, you wouldn’t know it was the blues: it feels too joyful. But that’s part of the mystery: even in disaster there is love and hope and
tenderness. To me this sounds like the
old preacher saying: Hold on, it may be Friday but Easter Sunday is coming!
The closing movement, Psalm, is a
saxophone mediation based on a love poem/ prayer: ‘Trane wrote this prayer to return
thanks to the Lord; and we will actually say it and pray it out loud at the
close of this liturgy. It is both a
celebration of a love supreme as well as the start of a new pilgrimage in
faith, too.
The other
music we are sharing tonight, the vocal selections, have been chosen to give
you a firm foundation in the beauty and diversity of the blues. They are an
oasis on this jazz pilgrimage that lift up the paradox of sacred tenderness in
a world of pain in more traditional styles.
We opened with a tune from the early American composer, William Billings,
who born in Boston and raised in the Congregational tradition. It is a
traditional Good Friday theme that I’ve come to think of as a blues song born
of colonial Boston; because Billings was not only a man who knew physical pain –
he was born with a deformed leg and only one working eye – but he fought a
lifetime addiction to snuff.
Nevertheless, the love of God raised him from his working class roots to
become the father of American Choral Music.
The second
vocal offering comes from the incomparable American indie artist, Ann Heaton,
who lived for years in Cambridge, MA. Her reworking of the Prayer of St. Francis
is a love lament if ever one existed – and at the close of this song our singers
do what Coltrane did as they improvise and see where the spirit leads them. We close
with George Harrison’s stinging song of sorrow:
While My Guitar Gently Weeps. For me this is rock and roll blues
saturated with sacred sadness – and the electric guitar that wails and weeps
takes on the voice of the holy crying over the pain and brokenness we have
created.
It is,
perhaps, a fitting conclusion in the aftermath of yet another wave of terrorist
bombings in Ankara, Brussels and Istanbul. Just 6 years ago, some of the
musicians on our stage were in Istanbul bringing a message of peace- making
through music. I remain steadfast in
that commitment – as do all the performer’s here tonight – trusting that beauty
can save the world even as the forces of hatred spew violence and death. More
than ever we need to nourish the promise of a love supreme.
That’s why
in addition to the music and poetry and prayers, we will take up an offering to
assist our sisters and brothers fleeing the violence and terror of Syria. When you come forward to light a candle of
hope, if you are able to make a donation, it will all go to Syrian refugees who
are now in Turkey or Jordan awaiting relocation. We are using the interfaith
organization, Church World Service, to make certain that more than 95 cents of
every dollar goes to direct services. So, please share what you can and
strengthen the spirit of a Love Supreme.
And now let
me encourage you to enter the music, poems and silence as a pilgrimage of
prayer. You don’t have to be Christian to take this journey – you just have to
be honest with yourself – and let the blues connect you to all that is sacred
in the human experience…
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