For Wilshire Baptist Church
Last Wednesday evening, Wilshire member Mark McKenzie started a three-week study on “Jazz + Faith,” and it’s off to a great start. We haven’t even gotten to the “faith” part of it yet, but in week one Mark walked us through the history of jazz in sounds, words and images. It was fascinating and revealing and I’m looking forward to week two and seeing how faith enters the picture.
I’m drawn to the topic because I love the way music adheres to the soul and stays with us as no other artform can. Music was a big part of my formative years, and today my most vivid memories, whether good or bad, are accompanied by the soundtrack of whatever I was listening to at the time: country, pop, classical, rock.
I don’t know exactly when jazz first tickled my ears, but I probably can trace it to a Herb Alpert record my parents had in the 1960s and Scott Joplin’s ragtime music from “The Sting” in 1973 – both parts of the history of jazz as told by Mark. I do know that my interest was in full swing by high school when I was in the jazz band. I found myself wading into jazz with school friends, and especially John, who played tenor sax. He was a better musician and a mentor of sorts, and when we were in college we’d connect over the summer and listen to jazz at clubs such as Strictly Tabu on Lomo Alto in Dallas. It was dark and Art Deco inside with patrons twice our age smoking cigarettes, sipping cocktails and swaying to the beat of whoever was playing. We were there just for the music, and I’m sure the waitresses laughed all the way back to the bar after taking our orders for Cokes and Dr Peppers.
But as much as I appreciate it and as hard as I’ve tried, I can’t play jazz worth a darn. I know Mr. Hargrove pulled me into the high school jazz band because I was the only baritone sax player around, but I was definitely out of my league. I could read the notes on the page and I could play them — most of them, anyway — but I could never shake off the stodgy 4/4-time sensibilities that are the foundation of other genres and just let the music swing and flow through me. I also couldn’t improvise, and that’s one of the key elements of jazz. A couple of times at concerts I had solos, and when I stood to play as you do in jazz, my throat tightened, my breath got short, and my brain shut down. I don’t remember what I played, but I’ll never forget how I felt: like a fish out of water flopping on the dusty ground.
Despite that terrifying experience, I still enjoy jazz, appreciate the talents of Mark and people who can play it, and I’m looking forward to week two and three of his study. That is if I get there, because I’m a writer rather than a musician, and I dropped some interviews for an article onto my calendar that will have me pushing to get back in time for week two. I’m not a scientist either, but I’m writing an article about how science students, faculty and researchers are conducting cutting-edge research that is changing the way we live.
And that’s the thing about this jazzy life: We’re not all jazz musicians, or writers, or scientists; we are what God made us to be. That’s the richness of God’s creation. Each of us is equipped for unique purposes, all worthy of our pursuit and focus, and all needed by someone else. I sat in an automobile service waiting room while writing some of this because I’m not a mechanic. And the day before, I spent way too long in the plumbing aisle at Home Depot trying to figure out which of the dozens of faucet parts was the one I needed. A plumber would have grabbed the right one in an instant because he would know how it all fits together.
Like a good jazz group, we all have a part to play. We complement each other, and together we create the sweet music of life. When we’re doing our best, we might even sense that God is swaying to the beat.