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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 9, 1962
Jazz in Church Coming?
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — Modern jazz fans, following the enchanting strains of an unfamiliar syncopation on a Sunday morning, may find themselves unexpectedly in church.
Many church leaders believe jazz is the music of modern man and, therefore, should be the music of modern religion. They will try to prove their point in Washington soon
THE USE OF JAZZ liturgicals is becoming increasingly popular in Episcopalian, Methodist and other Protestant churches. But the movement is expected to get its biggest spur to date when a jazz service is presented in the nation's capital June 3.
The complete liturgical service is being composed by Edgar Summerlin under commission from Broadcast Music Inc. It is being sponsored by the President's People-to-People program at the request of the National Council of Churches.
Summerlin was asked to compose a jazz liturgical that can be used in churches in cities of more than 50,000 population throughout the country. It was felt that churches in smaller cities would not have the talent to perform such liturgicals.
Summerlin's work will be performed first in the Church of the Epiphany in Washington as part of the People-to-People program's international jazz festival week.
SOME PERSONS HEARING a modern liturgical for the first time may be surprised, according to Mrs. Joeytshouse, chairman of the People-to-People program's music committee.
Most people think of traditional jazz or Dixieland when jazz is mentioned, especially if it is mentioned in connection with church services.
But the jazz Summerlin is composing will be a far cry from the syncopations born in religious and funeral services of Negroes in the New Orleans area.
The liturgical will be third stream, or classical. jazz.
Actually, Mrs. Shouse pointed out, this is not really jazz at all because it is being written—and jazz by definition is extemporaneous. It is really a modern form of musical expression which developed from jazz and retained the label of its ancestors.
BUT IT KEEPS THE EMPHASIS on syncplication, the use of the off
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beat, the deliberate clash of rhythms. The People-to-People program became involved in composition of a jazz liturgical because it "wanted to demonstrate what is being done in the field and religious jazz was needed to give a complete picture." Mrs. Shouse said.
"The requests for church music in the jazz idiom is steadily increasing," Cox said. "The church music written since 1865 does not express modern man."
Alva I. Cox, executive secretary of the National Council of Churches, broadcast information department, said his group became interested because it wanted to "open up a new area of composition."
REV. CHARLES D. KEAN of the Church of the Epiphany agreed. "All the arts during that period
represented a flamboyancy and gaudiness that made it a singular sterile period for church music," he said. "It was a period when the arts were prostituted."
With the exception of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rev. Kean said, church music has been "built on prevailing popular folk music, although that is hard to appreciate now.
"This (performance in Washington) is an experiment," he said. "It is an attempt to return to religious music that represents modern man."
REV. KEAN SAID the Episcopal cathedral in St. Louis has been leading in experiments with jazz liturgicals, partly because the Episcopal church services lend themselves most readily to a complete mass-type liturgical.
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