primary research interests include the generation of religious meaning in jazz music, how religious experience can inspire jazz composition, and practice-based adaptions and explorations of George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept. Steinmetz inter- weaves aspects of jazz history with his own artistic practice, basing his theories on
present six distinct ways of expressing religious belief in jazz, generating new post secular perspectives on jazz, and demonstrate how Russell’s musical philosophy builds a bridge between Western classical sacred music and jazz. Suggested areas for further research include microtonality and twelve-tone tonality in jazz, as well as the embodi- ment of faith through music as an extension of the institutional church in society.
Jazz in W orship and W orship in Jazz
Jazz in Worship
and Worship in Jazz
Exploring the musical language of Liturgical, Sacred, and Spiritual Jazz
in a Postsecular Age
Uwe Steinmetz
Art Monitor
Jazz in Worship
and Worship in Jazz
Exploring the musical language of Liturgical, Sacred, and Spiritual Jazz
in a Postsecular Age
Uwe Steinmetz
Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in Musical Performance and Interpretation at the Academy of Music and Drama,
Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg 2021.
This doctoral dissertation is No 86 in the series ArtMonitor.
Doctoral Dissertations and Licentiate Theses,
at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg.
The dissertation Jazz in Worship and Worship in Jazz - Exploring the musical language of
Liturgical, Sacred and Spiritual Jazz in a Postsecular Age
contains a book and a Research Catalogue Exposition available at:
Uwe Steinmetz, ‘Jazz in Worship and Worship in Jazz‘, Research Catalogue (2021) https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1216772/1216773/0/0
Graphic design and layout: Uwe Steinmetz
Cover photo: © 2016 Uwe Steinmetz/Philippuskirche Leipzig Swedish translation of :
Printed by: Stema Speciatryck AB
ISBN: 978-91-8009-386-6 (printed version) ISBN: 978-91-8009-387-3 (digital edition)
© Uwe Steinmetz, 2021
This doctoral dissertation is No 86 in the series ArtMonitor.
Doctoral Dissertations and Licentiate Theses,
at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg.
The dissertation Jazz in Worship and Worship in Jazz - Exploring the musical language of
Liturgical, Sacred and Spiritual Jazz in a Postsecular Age
contains a book and a Research Catalogue Exposition available at:
Uwe Steinmetz, ‘Jazz in Worship and Worship in Jazz‘, Research Catalogue (2021) https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1216772/1216773/0/0
Graphic design and layout: Uwe Steinmetz
Cover photo: © 2016 Uwe Steinmetz/Philippuskirche Leipzig Swedish translation of :
Printed by: Stema Speciatryck AB
ISBN: 978-91-8009-386-6 (printed version) ISBN: 978-91-8009-387-3 (digital edition)
© Uwe Steinmetz, 2021
Trycksak 3041 0234 SVANENMÄRKET
Trycksak 3041 0234 SVANENMÄRKET
GUPEA: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/68393
i Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I owe my deepest gratitude to my wife Lauren Anne and our children Henry Stanton, Elisabeth Grace and Leo Immanuel who were witnesses and often involuntary participants in all parts of the spiritual and musical journey that this research project opened up. Thank you for your caring love and never-ending support!
I would like to give heartfelt thanks to all who wanted to listen and know more about the research topic – who asked, how does religiously inspired jazz actually sound? – and who reassured me of the importance of the task despite my own doubt. Equally, I would like to thank those who inspired this project, to whom I listened and felt transformed, encouraged and inspired by, in particular:
Peter Bannister, Jeremy Begbie, Ulrike and Wolfgang Bittner, Brian Blade, Melvin Butler, Anders Carlsson, John Cowherd, Donny McCaslin, Alexander Deeg, Hans Martin Dober, Kurt Elling, Gotthard Fermor, Dan Forshaw, Christoph Georgii, Philipp Gropper, Albrecht und Brigitte Guendel-vom Hofe, Hans-Martin Gutmann, Malcolm Guite, Tord Gustavsen, Anders Hagberg, Carol Harrison, Silke Horstkotte, Arne Jansen, Anders Jormin, Christian Jormin, Esther Kaiser, Julia Koll, Palle
Kongsgaard, Matthias Krieg, Eva Kruse, Dirk Lange, Johannes Landgren, Christian Lehnert, James MacMillan, Janne Mark, Clive Marsh, Danilo Pérez, Lewis Porter, David Plüss, Beat Rink, Chanda Rule, Eric Schaefer, Ben Schwendener, Mícheál Ó Siadhail, Wolfgang Sieber, Frank Sikora, Daniel Stickan, Ike Sturm, Michael Villmow, Pauline and Barkos Warjri, J.J. Wright, Bennett Zon and all the wonderful musicians and theologians I was able to collaborate with over the years of this project.
Finally, this thesis would not have come alive without the relentless support, trust, and boundless inspiration from my Doktorvater Joel Speerstra. Thank you Joel for all and everything!
Uwe Steinmetz, April 2021
Abstract
The aim of this dissertation is to identify musical elements that contribute to the generation of religious meaning in jazz performance and to explore how religious experience can inspire jazz composition.
In this study, the history of jazz, specifically tailored to the aspects of my inquiry is imbricated with relevant theories and musical interventions from my own artistic practice in composition and performance. In addition to artistic research through my own practice as a performer and composer, the transdisciplinary fields of musicology, music theory, neurology, history of religion, and theology provides further critical tiles in the knowledge-mosaic constructed by this study.
Using my own artistic practice as my primary research method, my thesis investigates distinct intrinsic and extra-musical elements that help to create a typology of religiously inspired jazz, grounded in historical reference works. Twenty-five of my own compositions following this typology are submitted with this thesis and are analyzed in the three main chapters.
The final chapter (Imagine) summarizes conclusions of the main chapters and includes a brief evaluation of the research process. Conclusions from the thesis include (i) defining six distinct ways of expressing religious belief in jazz, (ii) demonstrating that the extrinsic meaning of religiously inspired jazz changes when placed within a liturgical dramaturgy, and (iii) generating new postsecular perspectives on jazz.
Another concrete result of this thesis involves revisiting George Russell´s Lydian Chromatic Concept as a basis for my own compositions. The practice-based adaption and exploration of Russell´s theory opens new ways of understanding how his musical philosophy builds a bridge between Western classical sacred music and jazz.
Finally, this thesis also raises new areas for further research such as microtonal and twelve-tone tonality in jazz, temporal concepts in jazz composition and improvisation, and the embodiment of Christian faith through music as an extension of the institutional church in society.
Keywords: jazz and religion, jazz liturgies, George Russell, Spiritual Jazz, Sacred
Jazz, Liturgical Jazz, postsecularity in the arts, twelve-tone tonality in jazz
iii
List of figures
Figure 1: Google search for "jazz improvisation" 2
Figure 2: Multi-mode epistemology after Nelson 9
Figure 3: Fields of research and their common ground 10
Figure 4: Interdisciplinary categories of musical and spiritual practice 15
Figure 5: Sixteen of my original CD productions 17
Figure 6: F Lydian horizontal and vertical 30
Figure 7: Harmonic series on F (tones 8-15) 31
Figure 8: F Lydian chordmode example 32
Figure 9: The Primary Modal Genre of Russell´s concept 33 Figure 10: Further harmonic colors of the Lydian Augmented chordmode 35 Figure 11: Harmonic colors of the Harmonic Major Scale 35 Figure 12: Harmonic colors of the Harmonic Minor Scale 36 Figure 13: The Lydian scale as a continuation of the Pentatonic Scale 37
Figure 14: Interval tonic relationships in C Lydian 37
Figure 15: F Lydian Consonant Nucleus (9 Tone Order) 39
Figure 16: The four levels of Tonal Gravity and their Tonal Orders 40 Figure 17: Overview of "avoid notes" within the seven chordmodes of F Lydian 45 Figure 18a-b: Piano solo by Bill Evans on Flamenco Sketches (from 05:59min) 45 Figure 19: Overview of reduced voicing possibilities in F Lydian 48
Figure 20: Blue and Green, first theme 49
Figure 21: Miles Davis´ Solo on Blue and Green 51
Figure 22: Analysis of Blue in Green with chord-scale theory 52
Figure 23: Nardis with chords as written by Bill Evans 60
Figure 24: Misirlou 63
Figure 25: Harmonic analysis of Nardis with Russell´s theory 65
Figure 26: Cartoon: George Russell and Bill Evans 66
Figure 27a-d: Harmonic analysis of Bill Evans solo on Nardis 67
Figure 28: Tonal movement in Blue and Green 72
Figure 29: Modulation Circle of Lydian Tonalities 73
Figure 30: Tonal Movement within Giant Steps 74
Figure 31: Roel Hollander´s interpretation of Coltrane´s tone circle 76
Figure 32: Hollander´s tone circle of Giant Steps 77
Figure 33: Layers of Lydian Tonalities 81
Figure 34: From Tonality to Pantonality - the four levels of tonal extension 82 Figure 35: Modes of liturgical behavior imbricated within the liturgical form 128 Figure 36: Cyclical nature of transformative liturgical experiences 128 Figure 37: The modes of liturgical behavior imbricated within the mass form 129
Figure 38: The numinous as the center of gravity 130
Figure 39: The liturgy as multisensory space of transformational rel. experience 133 Figure 40: Levels of religious experience and mus. expressions within the liturgy 138
Figure 41: Melodic archetypes 140
Figure 42: Befiehl Du Deine Wege (arranged by Christoph Georgii) 140
Figure 43: Music example C1.1 141
Figure 44: Tonal center movements within C1.1 142
Figure 45: Music example C1.2 144
Figure 46: Tonal center movements within C1.2 145
Figure 47: The tonal movements of C1.2 in three phases 146
Figure 48: Music example C1.3 147
Figure 49: Music example C1.4 149
Figure 50: Harmonic analysis of C1.4 150
Figure 51: Tonal center movements within C1.4 151
Figure 52: Music example C1.5 152
Figure 53: Harmonic analysis of the final section of C1.5 154
Figure 54: Music example C1.6 156
Figure 55: A pantonal modulatory field in C1.6 158
Figure 56: Analysis of closing passage in C1.6 159
Figure 57: Voice leading example 159
Figure 58: Symmetrical Modulations 160
Figure 59: Standard liturgical form within the protestant church of Germany 161
Figure 60: Interplay of liturgical elements 165
Figure 61: Three levels of temporal perception 165
Figure 62: Jazz-centered traditional liturgical form 167
Figure 63: The seven-step transformational liturgical process 171 Figure 64: Jazzliturgy 2019 (Abstraction of standard liturgigcal forms I) 174 Figure 65: Evening Jazzvesper 2019 (Abstraction of standard liturgical forms II) 176 Figure 66: Three streams of joint thematic inspiration for music and word 182 Figure 67: Poster of the series Alone together - On Freedom 184 Figure 68: Liturgical order and timeline from Alone together - On Freedom 185 Figure 69: Two complementary homometric rhythms (Toussaint) 232
Figure 70: Fume Fume Rhythm 233
Figure 71: Messiaen Modes as perfectly balanced sub-periodic patterns 233
Figure 72: The two possible perfectly balanced patterns 234
Figure 73: Creation of three Ten Tone Orders through Messiaen Mode 3 235 Figure 74: Composition example of rhythmic and modal layers of perfect balance 235 Figure 75: Cyclical dramaturgy of the four solae by Luther 249 Figure 76: Structural overview of bars 11-24 in Der Mensch 252
Figure 77: Four-part harmony in Kyrie (bars 51-54) 253
Figure 78: Rising Cathedral of Faith (guitar part) 253
Figure 79: Sketch: Rising Cathedral of Faith 254
Figure 80: Three Kyrie narratives 255
Figure 81: Father, Son and Holy Spirit chant 256
Figure 82: bars 114-119, Durch die Stille geht ein Atem 257
Figure 83: bars 124-128, Durch die Stille geht ein Atem 257
Figure 84: Transposed theme, a major third up, bars 129-132 258 Figure 85: We are Spirits in the Material World, final section 260
Figure 86: Cyclical bass pattern 261
Figure 87: Credo melody (bars 204-228) 262
Figure 88: Credo, final section from bar 218 262
Figure 89: Excerpt from Luther´s Te Deum 263
Figure 90: Holy is our God 264
Figure 91: Simplified Harmonic Structure of Holy is our God 264
Figure 92: Prayer of the Heart motif 265
Figure 93: Prayer of the Heart motif expanded 265
Figure 94. Final arrangement of the Prayer of the Heart 266
Figure 95: Hope no higher 266
Figure 96: Solus Christus 267
Figure 97: Rhythmic displacement in the center of the ostinato 268
Figure 98: Interplay of horizontal and vertical layers 268
Figure 99: New chorale melody 276
Figure 100: Three canons (“The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit”) 277
Figure 101: Mirror-symmetrical rhythm and drone (throughout Section B) 277
v Figure 102: Supra-Vertical tonality and rhythm (Section B, bar 24) 278 Figure 103: Rhythmically augmented free fugato of the melody 279
Figure 104: Incarnation (section F) 279
Figure 105: Short instrumental Cherubicon interlude (bar 116) 280
Figure 106: The Dancing God 281
Figure 107: The sudden revelation of God 282
Figure 108: Choir harmony from bar 230 (stanza 6) 283
Figure 109: Three different types of voicings in ascending order 283 Figure 110: Woodwind section with bird calls (excerpt from bar 255) 284
Figure 111: Stanza 7 285
Figure 112: A Love Supreme dedication 286
Figure 113: Db Lydian motif of Acknowledgement 297
Figure 114: Modulation of the Acknowledgement motif 298
Figure 115: Illustration of tonal movements (from figure 114) 299
Figure 116: Apparition 320
Figure 117: Promise with analysis of the modal alterations 322
Figure 118: Seven Words lyrics 323
Figure 119: Spirit River (bars 11-19) 324
Figure 120: Spirit River (bars 20-28) 325
Figure 121: Spirit River (bars 29-36) 325
Figure 122: Spirit River (bars 37-39) 325
Figure 123: Spirit River (bars 41-46) 326
Figure 124: Spirit River (bar 44) 326
Figure 125: Solo background line 326
Figure 126: Tonal analysis of Adoremus in Aeternum 328
Figure 127: The Well (bars 4-11) 330
Figure 128: The Well (ending) 330
Figure 129: The Well (solo section) 331
Figure 130: Waters of Peace, the interplay of different motifs, bars 11-14 332 Figure 131: Solo Section in F Lydian VI 9 Tone Order (added Ab in bass line) 333 Figure 132: Waters of Peace, final section, bars 40 - 48 334
Figure 133: Wholeness 336
Figure 134: Gloria in Excelsis Deo 351
Figure 135: Typology of religiously inspired jazz within the three subgenres 356
Figure 136: Ascent 369
Figure 137: Contemplation 370
Figure 138: We Have Seen the True Light 371
Figure 139: Microtonal structure of the soft chromatic genus 372 Figure 140: F Lydian 10 Tone Order in Meantone and Equal Temperament 374 Figure 141: We Have Seen the True Light (liturgical chant version) 375 Figure 142a+b: Overview of research events and activities 376
Figure 143: Stages of my compositional process 383
Figures 69 and 70: Reprint permission through Elsevier License, source:
https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/open-access-licenses/elsevier-user-license
Figure 138: Reprint of the score within the right of "fair use" granted by Capella Romana,
source: https://cappellaromana.org/divine-liturgy-music/
List of tables
Table 1: Search for online resources of religiously inspired jazz 22
Table 2: The order of the eight Primary Modal Genre 34
Table 3: Differences between Chord-Scale Theory and Russell´s theory 52
Table 4: Interconnected music and faith experiences 94
Table 5: The four steps of Lectio Divina after Fr Michael Casey 126
Table 6: A typology of religiously inspired jazz 135
Table 7: Modes of liturgical behavior and temporal experience in liturgy 136 Table 8: Timescales of bodily and musical activities (Vijay Iyer) 224
Table 9: Constituent qualities of jazz 236
Table 10: Tracklist for CD 241
Table 11: Interwoven Benedictus and Agnus Dei 250
Table 12: Overview of tonalities and tonal gravity levels in the oratorio 251
Table 13: Overview of the following transpositions 259
Table 14: Overview of sections in the cantata and main musical activity 274 Table 15: Overview of all stanzas and their instrumental responses 275
Table 16: The two-part Suite of Spiritual Songs 317
Table 17: Overview Suite of Spiritual Songs 318
Table 18: Transdisciplinary connections created within this thesis 349 Table 19: Comparative matrix - typology of religiously inspired jazz 354 Table 20: Overview of my compositions within the typology and subgenres 357 Table 21: Microtonal differences between different tuning systems 373 Table 22 a+b: Overview of my compositional elements 386
List of photos
Photo 1: With George Russell in 2001 24
Photo 2: Jazzvesper at Philippus Church, Leipzig, March 15, 2018 100 Photo 3: Global Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, Windhoek, May 15, 2017 100 Photo 4: A jazz band in the Market Church in Halle on October 8, 1956* 119 Photo 5: Candle prayer with jam session at St. Katharinen, Hamburg 137 Photo 6: Solo with Eric Schaefer at the altar of the American Church Berlin 183 Photo 7: Blue Church Ensemble at the Kirchentag Dortmund 2019 194
Photo 8: Guests at Kirchentag Dortmund 2019 205
Photo 9: Bluechurch at Kirchentag Dortmund 2019 205
Photo 10: Janne Mark / Esben Eyerman 205
Photo 11: Recording of "Lass leuchten uns Dein Göttlich Licht" 206 Photo 12: Concert with Tord Gustavsen Trio and Simin Tander 206 Photo 13+14: Performance of God is Now, Memorial Church Berlin (2019-04-03) 286 Photo 15: Page 14 from Ellington's PR statement provided by Patricia Willard 292
Photo 16: Program of the service for John Coltrane 303
Photo 17: Premiere of my jazz oratorio at Emmaus Church Berlin, November 18, 2020 316 Photo 18: Suite of Spiritual Songs (II) live at the Baku Jazz Festival (2018-10-16 338
* From the television Documentation Kirche, Pop und Sozialismus which was broadcasted
by RBB Television on 2013-11-26 and contained documents by Theo Lehmann such as this photo.
The movie is an important part of the Schallarchiv at the Liturgical Institute, Leipzig University.
All figures, tables and photos ©2015-2021 by Uwe Steinmetz except where indicated.
vii
Recorded Musical Examples
All musical scores and the audio and video documentation of this thesis can be viewed and listened to at:
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1216772/1216773/0/0 All rights ©+℗ Uwe Steinmetz 2016-2021.
I. LITURGICAL JAZZ
Audio file #1 Kyrie - Intercessory prayers (page 141) 05:43 Recording from RBB radio service
at Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church Berlin on 7 January 2018.
Pastor Martin Germer and Julia Hartmann - prayers;
Helmut Hoeft piano; Nadja Dehn - vocals; Lauren Steinmetz - cello;
Marcel Krömker - bass; Uwe Steinmetz - Saxophone
Audio file #2 Psalm 90 instrumental (page 144) 02:23 Carlos Bica, bass / Arne Jansen, guitar / Sebastian Merk, drums
Recorded in Berlin in June 2018 by Guy Sternberg
Audio file #3 Threefold Kyrie and Gloria (page 147) 03:49 Live at Oecumenical Christusfest, Aula Palatina Trier
Kyrie and Gloria: Dr. Irmgard Schwaetzer, Präses EKD-Synode (Berlin) Bishop Dr. Stephan Ackermann (Trier);
Vizepräses Christoph Pistorius (Düsseldorf) Organ: KMD Martin Bambauer (Trier)
Musical director/saxophone - Uwe Steinmetz (Berlin)
Choir: Evangelischer Kinderchor Trier, conducted by Astrid Hering (Trier) Violins: Lisa Henn (Trier); Lilia Hägele (Trier)
Viola: Tination Gnitecki (Trier)
Violoncelli: Moritz Reutlinger (Trier); Lauren Steinmetz (Berlin) Percussion: Dr. Boris Becker (Düsseldorf)
Audio file #4 Psalm133 (page 149 06:41 Live at the American Church Berlin
"Jewish-Christian-Dialogue in Music"
Tal Koch & Aviv Weinberg, vocals / Albrecht Guendel-vom Hofe, piano Birgitta Flick, tenor sax / Uwe Steinmetz, soprano sax and composition Marcel Krömker, double bass
Pastor Mari Thorkelson and Pastor Andreas Goetze: text recitation
Audio file #5 Kenosis Hymnus (page 152) 05:10 musicians - same as (3)
Audio file #6 Song of Awareness (page 156) 03:44 Carlos Bica - double bass, Marie Gitman - oboe, english horn
Arne Jansen - electric guitar, Esther Kaiser - vocals, readings Carol McGonnell - clarinet | Eric Schaefer - drums
Lauren Steinmetz - cello | Uwe Steinmetz – Soprano & Alto Saxophone Recorded in Castle Church Wittenberg on November 20, 2020.
Recording, Mixing & Mastering: Rainer Ahrens
II. Sacred Jazz
Audio file #7 Jazz Oratorio Lass Leuchten uns Dein Göttlich Licht (page 238) 1:001:21 I. Sola Gratia
1 Prelude Der Mensch 00:00
2 Kyrie Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein 07:30
3 Response Das stumme Kreuz 16:10
4 Song Spirits in the Material World 20:15
II. Sola Fide
5 Credo We All Believe in One True God 24:51
6 Gloria O Lord we praise you 28:55 7 Response Der Du bist drei in Ewigkeit 35:20
8 Song Hope no higher 42:55
III. Solus Christus
9 Sanctus Jesus Christus, unser Heiland 46:05
10 Response Song of Awareness 49:12
11 Benedictus Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich 54:00 & Agnus Dei Jesus Christus, unser Heiland
Musicians and Recording: same as (6)
Audio file #8 Jazz Cantata God is Now 53:55
Introduction / Interview 00:00
1. Cherubicon / Coro I / Three Responses & Dedication 02:42 2. Coro 2 (Fugato): "Herr Komm in mir wohnen" 13:09 3. Incarnation / Rezitativ 1 / "Renunciation" 17:56 4. Coro 3 / Response / Coro 4 "Luft die alles füllet" 26:55 5. Coro 5 / Du durchdringest alles / Inspiration 36:40 6. Rezitativ Alto: Mache mich einfältig / Silence 41:05
7. A love Supreme / Coro 6 / Cherubicon 43:11
Live at the Memorial Church Berlin Memorial Church Berlin, April 3, 2019.
NDR Big Band with Lars Moeller, conductor
Berlin Vocal Project: Young Voices Brandenburg and students from HDPK and JIB under the direction of Marc Secara and Judy Niemack
Eric Schaefer - drums & modular synth Daniel Stickan - organs, electronics Composition and Saxophone: Uwe Steinmetz
Video Documentation: Klaus Mancke Recording by NDR - North German Radio
Recorded by Christian Cluxen // on air (NDR) 06/16 10.11pm
III. SPIRITUAL JAZZ
Audio file #9 Apparition (live) 05:30
Arne Jansen - guitar / Anders Jormin - double bass Uwe Steinmetz - Soprano Saxophone
Recorded live at Domkyrkan Gothenburg by Uwe Steinmetz on September 10, 2016.
ix
Audio file #10 SEVEN WORDS (Suite of Spiritual Songs I) 25:16
1 Seven Words 00:00
2 Song of Awareness 03:52
3. Waters of Peace
I. Spirit River 07:38
II. Adoremus 12:00
III. The Well 15:02
IV. Waters of Peace 17:42
5. Hope no Higher 22:01
Recorded in Berlin in June 2018 by Guy Sternberg
Chanda Rule & Esther Kaiser, vocals / Birgitta Flick, tenor sax Timo Vollbrecht, tenor sax / Richard Maegraith, bass clarinet, flute Marcus Rust, trumpet, flugelhorn / Uwe Steinmetz, soprano & alto sax Uwe Steinmetz, soprano & alto sax, composition / Carlos Bica, bass Arne Jansen, guitar / Sebastian Merk, drums / Lauren Steinmetz, cello
Audio file #11 IN SPIRIT (Suite of Spiritual Songs II) 47:30
I. Promise 00:00
II. Spirits in the Material World 05:17
III. Lament 10:24
IV. Invocation 12:44
V. Pleading 16:12
VI. Trusting 20:07
VII. Acclamation 24.01
VIII.Wholeness 27:25
Recorded in Berlin in June 2018 by Guy Sternberg
(I-II) Arne Jansen, guitar / Sebastian Merk, drums, synth, Uwe Steinmetz, soprano & alto sax, flute
(III-XIII) same plus Daniel Stickan, clavichord, Fender Rhodes, organ
ARRANGEMENTS (Chapter IMAGINE)
Audio file #12 Ascent musicians and recording: same as (11, I-II) 06:24 Audio file #13 Contemplation musicians and recording: same as (11, III-XIII) 06:28 Audio file #14 We have seen the true light 01:45 Uwe Steinmetz, soprano sax / Daniel Stickan, clavichord
recorded by Rainer Ahrens in October 2016 at St. Nicolai Church Lüneburg
Audio file #15 We have seen the true light (meantone tuning) 02:24 Uwe Steinmetz, soprano sax (overdub) and Schwalbennest-Orgel
at St. Pauli University Church Leipzig in meantone tuning.
Choir recording by Capella Romana from the CD (track 29):
The Divine Liturgy in English: Byzantine Chant, Alexander Lingas, director, 2008.
source: https://cappellaromana.org/
Used by permission of Professor Alexander Lingas, London.
Audio file #16 Demo Recording of Balanced Steps (page 236) 04:15 Produced by Uwe Steinmetz (soprano & alto saxophone),
excerpts from a drum solo by Eric Schaefer, recorded by Uwe Steinmetz.
Music programmed and recorded on Finale Music Notation software.
VIDEOS (Artistic Collaborations)
I. LITURGICAL JAZZ
Video 1 shows excerpts from a Jazz Worship Service at the German "Kirchentag," the largest gathering of German protestant Christians were the BlueChurch network was able to host a jazz church. The video starts with the opening song "Praise to you" by Ike Sturm, it
demonstrates the improvisatory treatment of a biblical reading and, finally, a communion hymn by Janne Mark, premiered in its German translation at this event.
Additionally, there are some photos taken during the last musical piece from the annual Blues Mass at St. Katharinen Church where the congregation gathering around the altar for a candle prayer, blessing and a jam session.
Musicians: Chanda Rule, vocals, Daniel Stickan - piano, Gernot Bernroider - drums, Marcel Krömker - bass, Esben Eyermann - bass and Lauren Steinmetz (with Janne Mark). The Liturgists are Kathrin Oxen and Maike Wächter. All rights: ©Uwesteinmetz.net
Video 2 documents the first night of the Jazz Evensong Series ALONE TOGETHER - ON FREEDOM at the American Church Berlin on 10th July 2020. Guest musician is Eric Schaefer on drums and modular synth, the "house band" consists of Albrecht Guendel-vom Hofe (organ) and Marcel Krömker (bass). Liturgists are Pastor Mari Thorkelson and Bishop Christian Stäblein. All rights: ©Uwesteinmetz.net
Video 3 is from an online worship service. I play a free improvisation on the hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel as a prelude in the chapel of the Memorial Church Berlin on December 5, 2020. All rights: ©Uwesteinmetz.net
II. SACRED JAZZ
Video 4 - The first part of the video documents rehearsals for the performance of Tord Gustavsen´s Mass at the ENJOY JAZZ FESTIVAL in Heidelberg with a project choir from the school of church music in Heidelberg conducted by Tine Wiechmann on November 15, 2019.
The second part of the video is a recording of the concert performance of the Mass as part of the BLUE CHURCH FESTIVAL 2017 at Dreikönigskirche Dresden on March 5, 2017 with a project choir from the Music Conservatory of Dresden "Karl Maria von Weber," conducted by Keno Hankel. All rights: ©Uwesteinmetz.net
III. SPIRITUAL JAZZ
Video 5 - The first part of the video from Swiss public Television documents a duo
performance with Daniel Stickan in the Kunsthalle Zürich on December 17, 2017 where the BlueChurch network set up a series of performances and public jazz vespers within Rob Pruitt´s installation The Church.
The second part of the video documents part of a duo concert with Daniel at the Karviná Organ Festival in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic on September 24, 2017.
The concert consists of Spiritual Jazz from our CDs Waves and Where Roots Grow. All rights:
©Uwesteinmetz.net
Video 6 shows a live version of my arrangement of Spirits in the Material World performed with Simin Tander, vocals and Tord Gustavsen, piano. We have performed my arrangement in various concert settings, this video is from a concert at the Kirchentag in 2019.
All rights: ©Uwesteinmetz.net
xi
Table of contents
INTRODUCTION - Listen 1
A. Research inquiry, methods and aim: Finding a common ground 3 B. The brain on jazz and prayer: Perspectives of Neuroscience 11 C. Listening to God through music: Perspectives of Music Theology 16
D. Audio resources 21
E. How to read this thesis 24
PRELUDE - The quest for unity
An introduction to George Russell´s Musical philosophy 25 A. Unity within Chordmodes, Tonal Orders and Tonal Gravity 29
A.1 The Primary Modal Genre (PMG) 32
A.2 Unity within Tonal Gravity 39
A.3 Kind of Blue as a sonic embodiment of George Russell´s theory 42 B. Unity and diversity within three forms of Tonal Gravity 55
B.1 Vertical Tonal Gravity (VTG) 55
B.2 Horizontal Tonal Gravity (HTG) 56
B.3 Supra-Vertical Tonal Gravity (SVTG) 59
C. My application of George Russell´s tonal theory 61
C.1 Understanding and analyzing jazz history through VTG and HTG 61
C.2 A Supra-Vertical perspective on Nardis 62
C.3 Overview of analytical and compositional tools and tonal resources 70
C.3.1 Six analytical tools used in this thesis 71
C.3.2 Six compositional tools inspired by George Russell 78 C.3.3 Six tonal resources inspired by George Russell 80
D. My quest for unity 87
D.1 Interdisciplinary Impromptus 89
D.2 A vertical man - closing remarks 95
D.3 Testing George Russell´s theory through this thesis 98
I. LITURGICAL JAZZ - Jazz in worship, a pilgrimage 101 A. HISTORY - The liturgy as the source of inspiration 103
A.1 Protestant Reformation in liturgy and song 103
A.2 The birth of Liturgical Jazz in the USA 111
A.3 Jazz and the Protestant Church in Germany after 1950 116
B. THEORY - Liturgy as a transformational process 120
B.1 Musical and liturgical identity as a communal cultural identity 121 B.2 Transformational liturgical experience as a practice of lectio divina 125 B.3 The three modes of liturgical behavior 128
B.4 A typology of religiously inspired jazz 134
C. PRACTICE -The technique of my musical language in Liturgical Jazz 139
C.1 Six compositions of Liturgical Jazz 139
C.1.1 Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison 141
C.1.2 Antiphon: Psalm 90 144
C.1.3 Gloria in Excelsis Deo 147
C.1.4 Psalm 133 149
C.1.5 Psalm: Kenosis Hymn 152
C.1.6 Song of Awareness 156
C.2 Creating liturgies of Liturgical Jazz 161 C.2.1 Liturgical preconditions for Liturgical Jazz 162 C.2.2 Artistic Interventions in the Protestant Liturgy 167
C.2.3 Liturgical Reduction and Transformation 170
C.2.4 From an Evening Vesper to a Liturgical Concert 175 C.2.5 Solo-Saxophone Experiences: Timbre, Melos, Time and Space 190
D. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 195
D.1 Liturgy as a multidimensional sensual space 196
D2. Institutional critique 201
II. SACRED JAZZ - Faith in my Fashion 207
A. HISTORY – Music as an act of faith 208
A.1 Historical introduction: Religious Religious Music 209
A.2 “It must never be considered jazz” 214
B. THEORY – How to compose faith in my fashion 218
B.1 Improvisation – the fearless quest for the unknown 220 B.2 Call & Response: It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) 222 B.3 Participatory Temporality - Jazz as live music and life music 226 B.4 Participatory Narrativity: Jazz improvisation as Emmaus experience 227
B.5 Repetition, Ritual and Symmetry 231
C. PRACTICE - The technique of my musical language in Sacred Jazz 238 C.1 Jazz Oratorio - Lass Leuchten uns Dein Göttlich Licht 238
C.1.1 Identifying and crafting the narrative 239
C.1.2 Structural and thematical overview – Sola Gratia 241 C.1.3 Structural and thematical overview – Sola Fide 245 C.1.4 Structural and thematical overview – Solus Christus 247
C.1.5 Musical considerations - Sola Gratia 251
C.1.6 Musical considerations - Sola Fide 262
C.1.7 Musical considerations - Solus Christus 267
C.2 Jazz Cantata - "God is Now" 270
C.2.1 Identifying and crafting the narrative 272
C.2.2 Structural and thematical overview of the cantata 272
C.2.3 Musical considerations 276
D. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 287
III. SPIRITUAL JAZZ - Worship in Jazz 293
A. HISTORY - Worship on the Jazz Stage 294
B. THEORY - Fragile Faith, Spaces for religious imagination in a postsecular world 304
B.1 Wrestling with religion 307
B.2 A postsecular perspective on religiously inspired jazz 310 B.3 Spiritual Jazz and Christian Religion Today 312
B.4 Jazz between exile and pilgrimage 315
C. PRACTICE - The technique of my musical language in Liturgical Jazz 317
C.1 Apparition - Daniel 10:5-9) 319
C.2 Promise - Philippians 4:8-9) 321
C.3 Seven Words - The "I Am Words" in the Gospel of John 323 C.4 Waters of Peace - 1 Corinthians 12:13 / John 7:38 324
C.5 Wholeness (Unity) - Colossians 1:17 335
D. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 337
xiii
IMAGINE 339
A. HISTORY - God is at the center 340
A.1 Liturgical Jazz - The legacy of Ed Summerlin and Mary Lou Williams 340 A.2 Sacred Jazz - Mary Lou Williams and Duke Ellington 342 A.3 Spiritual Jazz - George Russell and John Coltrane 344
A.4 Final commentary 346
B. THEORY - From Narration to Imagination 347
B.1 Musical and Liturgical modes of behavior 348
B.2 Categories of religiously inspired jazz 351
B.3 George Russell´s musical philosophy in this thesis 358 C. PRACTICE - A transdisciplinary rainbow as inspiration 363 C.1 Considerations on composing and arranging for this research project 367
C.1.1 Ascent - Über den Wolken 368
C.1.2 Contemplation - Christ lag in Todesbanden 370
C.1.3 We have seen the true light 371
C.2 Collaborations and the unfolding of the research inquiry 378 C.3 Summary of compositional techniques used in my own music 383
D. CONCLUSIONS 378
SVENSK SAMMANFATTNING - Swedish summary
Introduktion – Lyssna 391
På spaning efter enhet – George Russells musikfilosofi 394 Slutsatser (från det sista kapitlet: Föreställ dig 395
A. Historia 395
B. Teori 397
C. Praktik 397
D. Slutsatser 399
BIBLIOGRAPHY 403
APPENDIX 420
I. Reference compositions of religiously inspired jazz 421 II. The first 25 years: Discography (1954-1979) 422 III. Discography of religiously inspired jazz (1980-2021) 427
IV. Table of all Combinatorial Hexachords 434
V. Bill Evans´ handwritten lead sheet of Nardis 446
VI. John Gensel: Worship and Jazz 447
VII. John Coltrane´s manuscripts for A Love Supreme 453
1
Listen
“I wrote the shortest jazz poem ever heard, nothin’ ‘bout huggin’... kissin’...just one word - Listen!”
Jon Hendricks, 1958 1
“Lend your ears to me, your hearts to him, that you might fill both”
St Augustine, ca. 406 2
1
George Russell, “Liner Notes,” George Russell and His Orchestra, Decca LP DL 9216, 1959.
2
Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John 1-40, trans. John E. Rotelle (New York: New City Press, 2009), 44.
Figure 1: Google search for "jazz improvisation"
Introduction: Listen 3 There are many books that teach jazz improvisation (figure 1), 3 but none of them teach how to play religiously inspired jazz. However, there are numerous jazz records that are inspired by religious experience. As a musician I entered the field of religiously inspired jazz, not through study, but relying on what I could compose, play and hear.
Listening is a key factor for me, as there is no meaningful musical improvisation without intensive listening by the performers and audience. Equally, there is no prayer experience in the Christian tradition – my own faith practice – without the concentrated attempt to hear a response.
A. Research inquiry, aim and method: finding a conceptual common ground
The aim of this dissertation is to identify musical elements that contribute to the generation of religious meaning in jazz performance and to explore how religious experience can inspire jazz composition. The Dutch music theorist and philosopher Henk Borgdorff, a pioneer who helped to integrate artistic research into many European academic institutions, articulates a central motivation for my research inquiry:
How much theory does artistic research need? Well, we should not say: ‘Here is a theory that sheds light on artistic practice’, but ‘Here is art that invites us to think.’ Immanuel Kant described the aesthetic idea as a ‘representation of the imagination which induces much thought, yet without the possibility of any definite thought whatever, i.e., concept, being adequate to it, and which language, consequently, can never get quite on level terms with or render completely intelligible’...That ‘more’ is the ability of art – deliberately articulated in artistic research – to impart and evoke fundamental ideas and perspectives that disclose the world for us and, at the same time, render that world into what it is or can be. 4
The joy of attentive deep listening invited me in and disclosed for me – through my own research – the ways in which jazz can enter into the world of worship. And the impacts of the research have taken a step towards rendering the concert stage into a broader space for worship that jazz is or can be. Both of these directions, inward toward jazz in liturgy and outward towards spiritual experiences on stage, are captured in the title of this thesis. I will study jazz in sacred contexts and identify the experience of the sacred within jazz. These two seemingly separate worlds come together in this thesis in one embodied practice of jazz that I will identify as musical narratives of faith.
In this study I am limiting myself to religiously inspired jazz within post-Reformation Christian liturgical practice in Germany, which I will examine in the Liturgical Jazz chapter, as this is where my own artistic and religious practice are both situated. 5
3
“Jazz improvisation books,” Google image search, accessed January 16, 2020.
4
Henk Borgdorff, The Conflict of the Faculties: Perspectives on Artistic Research and Academia (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2012), 72.
5
The term Protestant covers many widely different denominations, including Lutheran, Reformed, Baptist, and
Anglican churches, which are, however, all united in their approach to integrating secular musical expressions
in their liturgies since the Reformation period, to a much larger degree than the Catholic or Orthodox Christian
traditions.
But before that, in order to detail the nature of my research methodology and epistemology, I will first clarify why artistic research appeared as the right path for my inquiry with a brief discussion on the development of artistic research.
Borgdorff laid the groundwork for a new methodology of research in the arts and contributed substantially to distinguishing that artistic research applies other methods and produces different knowledge and results in comparison to established research practices within the academy. He embraces a rich spectrum of methods for artistic research but proposes that they are all unified in their focus on the artistic practice.
Practising the arts (creating, designing, performing) is intrinsic to the research process. And artworks and art practices are partly the material outcomes of the research. 6
The knowledge production in an epistemology of artistic research surpasses for Borgdorff the established categories of “knowing that” (cognitive propositional knowledge) versus “knowing how” (performative knowing, embodied and tacit knowledge) and a third form, which he refers to as “understanding,” “a form of knowledge in which theoretical knowledge, practical knowledge, and acquaintance may intersect.” 7
In the history of epistemology, these types of knowledge have been thematised in a variety of ways, ranging from Aristotle’s distinction between theoretical knowledge, practical knowledge, and wisdom to Polanyi’s (1958) contrast between focal and tacit knowledge. Different notions exist as to the relationships between the three types of knowledge – notions which are also identifiable in the debate about artistic research. ... In the case of artistic research, we can add to the knowledge an understanding duo the synonyms
‘insight’ and ‘comprehension’, in order to emphasise that a perceptive, receptive, and verstehende engagement with the subject matter is often more important to the research than getting an ‘explanatory grip.’ 8
This last category in particular creates the distinction for Borgdorff:
Artistic research, therefore, does not really involve theory building or knowledge production in the usual sense of those terms. Its primary importance lies not in explicating the implicit or non-implicit knowledge enclosed in art. It is more directed at a not-knowing, or a not-yet- knowing. It creates room for that which is unthought, that which is unexpected – the idea that all things could be different. 9
This intertwinement of insight in an artistic process and comprehending it while participating in it (or initiating or creating it) results for Borgdorff in an ontology that is intrinsically linked to the methodology and epistemology of the respective research
6
Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties, 122.
7
Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties, 163.
8
Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties, 162–63.
9
Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties, 191.
Introduction: Listen 5 process since “identifying a research object is always at the same time an epistemic act – that is, knowing at least roughly the kind of knowledge the object might convey or embody – and a methodological act – that is, knowing how to get access to the knowledge the object is said to convey or embody.” 10 And this wrestling with an object of art through an experimental artistic engagement and understanding defines for Borgdorff the nature of “how art practice-as-research can be distinguished from art practice-in-itself”:
Art practice qualifies as research if its purpose is to expand our knowledge and understanding by conducting an original investigation in and through art objects and creative processes. Art research begins by addressing questions that are pertinent in the research context and in the art world. Researchers employ experimental and hermeneutic methods that reveal and articulate the tacit knowledge that is situated and embodied in specific art- works and artistic processes. Research processes and outcomes are documented and disseminated in an appropriate manner to the research community and the wider public. 11
Swedish artists and researchers Henrik Frisk (Saxophone) and Stefan Östersjö (guitar) also emphasize the transdisciplinary character of artistic research (like Borgdorff who argues from the immanent perspective) 12 that any artistic practice always involves reflection and knowledge meaningful for the respective field of practice, but:
The potential for novel contributions from the artistic researcher lies in the meeting between artistic research and other disciplines. We regard interdisciplinary research as the future challenge and developmental possibility for the artistic researcher. Again, we make this claim while maintaining the necessity for the artistic researcher to be, first and foremost, an artist whose practice is solidly situated in the surrounding art world. 13 They argue that in studying its own artistic practice, artistic research “encompasses the full complexity of artistic thought and practice,” and with this, “the artistic practice is essentially both object and method,” and “the closeness of, and feedback between, the artistic work and the research makes it difficult, if not impossible, to identify the exact relation and order of precedence between the two.” 14 But they clarify that a reflection on the artistic practice alone:
should not be called upon as the single solution (or quick fix) to the recurring question of methodology. Reflection without method remains trapped within the researcher and may become a manifestation of some of the elements that have provoked criticism against artistic research as a discipline. 15
10
Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties, 180–81.
11
Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties, 53.
12
Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties, 20–21.
13
Henrik Frisk and Stefan Östersjö, “Beyond Validity: Claiming the Legacy of the Artist-Researcher,” Svensk tidsskrift för musikforskning 95 (2013): 44.
14
Frisk and Östersjö, “Beyond Validity,” 44-45.
15
Frisk and Östersjö, “Beyond Validity,” 45.
While this subjectivity of the researcher seems primarily a specific problem within the field of knowledge production in the arts, Frisk and Östersjö refer to the discussion in natural sciences since the 1980s, where research objectivity is doubted as well. 16 This has led to a different view on knowledge production in the natural sciences shifting towards authenticity and credibility instead of validity and reliability summed up in three main strands that Steinar Kvale showed: “validity as craftsmanship, communicative validity, and pragmatic validity.” 17
Naturally, as Frisk and Östersjö also conclude, these criteria all show high congruences to artistic research, but the pragmatic validity, if applied artistically in the sense of using all the available means and resources to produce the intended work without a reflection, bears the risk of losing track of the wider political and sociological dimensions in which the research is situated. In addressing the position of the researcher within these frameworks of cultural and political identities, “the artistic research activity may break free from the individualistic perspective that has sometimes been criticized as the solipsistic consequence of practice-based research and widen the potential for knowledge production.” 18
Frisk and Östersjö seek knowledge production by “situating artistic practice in a wider discourse, and of strengthening the aim of producing artistic work that is in itself shaped by this augmented space." 19 While they discuss case studies which include specifically political aspects as one of the wider frameworks where the artistic research is placed, they clarify:
Political art has some problematic connotations, but what we are discussing here is a development beyond any specific modelling of the artistic output along political lines. The contextualization of art as artistic research is in itself a politicization, but it is also the placing of the artistic work in the light of a particular social, theoretical, cultural, or philosophical framework that makes the political dimension surface. 20
In the light of my research, how does this broadening of the context appear? Perhaps the reason that there is no textbook written on how to make religiously inspired jazz, despite a rich legacy of recordings, is that this investigation requires knowledge production from an artistic practice that, at its heart, engages with religious practices within liturgies. My own artistic practice is situated within these different musical and spiritual worlds as a performer and composer of Liturgical and Sacred Jazz in churches and as a soloist on the jazz stage with Spiritual Jazz. It appeared crucial to position all of these together in the center of my research inquiry, which would have to be of a transdisciplinary nature.
16
Frisk and Östersjö, “Beyond Validity,” 46.
17
Frisk and Östersjö, “Beyond Validity,” 47.
18
Frisk and Östersjö, “Beyond Validity,” 48–49.
19
Frisk and Östersjö, “Beyond Validity,” 59.
20
Frisk and Östersjö, “Beyond Validity,” 59.
Introduction: Listen 7 Borgdorff defines this as a “type of artistic research that combines the aesthetic project and the creative process with questions and topics from broader areas of life... if the synthesis achieved in the artwork has something additional (or different) to offer, both conceptually and perceptually, as compared to the outcome that would have resulted from a disciplinary approach.” 21 Borgdorff proposes that the artistic researcher renounces “one´s own (epistemological or aesthetic) disciplinary ground,” in my case jazz composition and performance, and follows “a continual adaptation of the recursive research process based on the input from the various fields of endeavour”
coupled with “a certain pragmatism and diversity in the choice of concepts and methods.” 22
Now that the field of artistic research has matured due to the efforts of Borgdorff and others, this exploration of religiously inspired jazz is able to employ Practice as Research (PaR) as a key method. Robin Nelson describes it as “theory imbricated within practice” 23 in his 2013 study on practices of artistic research in academia.
Imbrication occurs when patterns are made using overlapping tiles, like roof tiles, or scales, like fishskin. Nelson uses imbrication to describe integrating streams of knowledge that can be assembled in overlapping patterns. These patterns create a mosaic that reveals new knowledge while respecting and preserving the discrete elements.
In this study, jazz music history, specifically tailored to the sections of my inquiry will be imbricated with relevant theories and musical interventions from my own artistic practice in composition and performance. In addition to artistic research through my own practice as a performer and composer, transdisciplinarity, as described by Borgdorff, in the fields of musicology, music theory, neurology, history of religion and theology, will provide further critical tiles in the knowledge mosaic constructed by this study.
Religiously inspired jazz is found in a broad spectrum of performance spaces, from worship services to concert stages. My inquiry centers on a cluster of research questions in this field:
• What are the differences among musical expressions of belief in religiously inspired jazz depending on the performance context?
• What are specific elements – if any – that constitute a musical language of religious jazz? Is it possible to define the “sacred” musical side of jazz?
• What are the distinct musical elements that can be used to distinguish categories of religiously inspired jazz?
21
Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties, 92.
22
Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties, 92.
23
Robin Nelson, Practice as Research in the Arts: Principles, Protocols, Pedagogies, Resistances (London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013), 33.
In order to structure this cluster of questions that made up the landscape of my research inquiry, I created a typology of religiously inspired jazz: liturgical; sacred;
and spiritual. These terms have strong roots in previous discussions of “church music” (Kirchenmusik) versus “spiritual music” (Geistliche Musik). 24 As an overarching structure of this thesis, I define these three streams of religiously inspired jazz, create a history and theory for each, and actively compose and perform within each of them.
I define and test the boundaries of this typology and the landscapes of each through my own artistic interventions, and the musical qualities that I identify generate new knowledge about each.
My artistic mentor and key reference in this work is the African American composer George Russell who wrote music that, he claimed, encompassed spiritual and religious meaning, as he was searching for a unity between his beliefs and musical expressions. Based on this approach to music making he contributed a musical theory to the genre of jazz which became modal jazz and inspired Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue.” 25 Today, Modal Jazz is the predominant harmonic element of many religiously inspired forms of jazz. Therefore, as a compositional method for musical works of all three sub-genres of religiously inspired jazz, I employed Russell´s musical philosophy of tonality and researched in how his theory encapsulates ways of embedding spiritual meaning in music. As a conclusion to this thesis, a theory of the elements of the musical language of religiously inspired jazz will be presented.
My inquiry generated explicit knowledge from objective data and theories and implicit knowledge (at least partially tacit knowledge) in composition and performance. 26 This twofold process is reflected in the structure of the thesis as well. I explore these theories and musical case studies through the lens of my own artistic practice. Implicit knowledge is gathered this way by imbricating my artistic practice within the theoretical framework of different traditions of religiously inspired jazz. The results lead to the compositions in each field of the three streams of religiously inspired jazz and represent what Nelson calls an act of doing-knowing (p. 40, p. 61). The case studies are reflected and analyzed in preliminary conclusions at the end of each chapter and observed in their connections to each other in the last chapter, which concludes with suggestions of further research based on my findings.
These imbricated patterns of explicit and implicit knowledge create a multi-mode epistemology. 27 Therefore, my knowledge production involves different artistic and research disciplines within clearly labelled fields of music production, music theory,
24
See, for instance, Oskar Söhngen, “Was heißt evangelische Kirchenmusik,” in Musica sacra zwischen gestern und morgen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979), 47-58.
25
Modal jazz integrates the church modes as tonal resources. For a brief historical overview see, for example:
Henry Martin and Keith Waters, Essential Jazz: The First 100 Years, 3rd edition (Boston: Schirmer Cengage Learning, 2011), 223–58; and Keith Waters, “What is Modal Jazz?” Jazz Educators’ Journal 33, no.1 (2000): 53–
55.
26
I refer to this term particularly in the way Michael Polanyi defined it and related to it in his later writings on religious knowledge. A reference work is: Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post Critical Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1998).
27
See Nelson, Practice as Research, figure 2.
Introduction: Listen 9 as well as music theology. This way of inquiry therefore seeks to reach beyond the
“know that” and the “know how” to the “know what” through the artistic practice as (established) theory imbricated within (experimental) practice with unknown or incalculable results. As Nelson points out, interwoven layers of knowledge that are situated between separate academic fields (theology and jazz studies, in this case) are characteristic for PaR.
Figure 2: Multi-mode epistemology after Nelson adapted for my research inquiry In comparison to Borgdorff, who acknowledges transdisciplinarity as one possibility of artistic research, 28 Nelson, Frisk and Östersjö propose that this is one of the central areas of new developments and contributions in artistic research. 29 While Borgdorff views the areas of knowledge production within the academy as opposing or at least discrete fields and artistic research as an alternative producing different results,
28
See Chapter 7 in Borgdorff, Conflict of the Faculties.
29
Frisk and Östersjö, “Beyond Validity,” 50.
Nelson instead suggests that the interplay between these areas of knowledge production inspire – through their imbrication in artistic practice – new knowledge which, I propose, affords a quality that creates a common ground between the academy and the arts world.
Therefore, results from these transdisciplinary inquiries are naturally not located only in one area of knowledge and so present a form of “liquid knowledge” (Nelson, chapter 3) as they combine insights that come from personal experience outside of the academy within spiritual practice and performance on the band stand, or they draw from conceptualizations of established musical or theological theories. The cyclical nature of this process also informs and ultimately changes the "know that," "know how," and "know what," similar to a mosaic which contains tiles of different colors and in which suddenly, through a fresh light, new designs become visible. A great effort is spent from my side to define these tiles, the imbricated layers of knowledge and practice clearly. Instead of deconstructing knowledge-fields, I am weaving them together in order to create new patterns of knowledge and create new connections between different knowledge domains.
In the following section I would like to briefly unpack the research areas that were explored to generate new explicit knowledge for the thesis. The core challenge of my inquiry was to find a conceptual common ground for my gathered knowledge in the fields of theology and music (highlighted in the middle of figure 3).
Figure 3: Fields of research and their common ground
This conceptual common ground has been developing and growing over the last
decades. A Google search on documents comparing the number of hits for Jazz with
writings on Spiritual Jazz, Church Jazz, and Liturgical Jazz demonstrated the small
field of my inquiry in comparison to jazz research as a whole: JSTOR provides for the
keyword Jazz 79,542 results of printed media altogether, for Liturgical Jazz 2,433
Introduction: Listen 11 (3,1%), for Jazz and Church 22,200 (28%) and for a search on Spiritual Jazz 13,756 (17,2%). 30
There is a notable increase in works on jazz and theology, improvisation in liturgy and religious meaning in jazz from various perspectives. The earliest document I found dates back to 1929 and is a report of a speech to the Church and Organ Congress in Hull (UK), where Hamilton Harty, president of the Incorporated Association of Organists, spoke on 'some problems of modern music' and warned that “Jazz Barbarians were permitted to debase our music.” 31 In recent years a growing acceptance of the religious dimension of jazz and its potential for church worship can be observed. A recent DMA dissertation by Derick Cordoba on the musical work of the liturgical jazz pioneer Ed Summerlin provided a very valuable resource, 32 as well as the 2015 publication of “Spirits rejoice” by Jason Bivins on the spiritual worlds of North American jazz musicians, both of which I will touch upon in this thesis. 33 It is the importance of listening within jazz which also inspired theologians to draw parallels between (jazz-)improvisation and the spiritual and liturgical practices of the early church. Oxford theologian and avid jazz fan Carol Harrison gives in The Art of Listening in the Early Church a fascinating account of the liturgical practices of early Christianity in creating and taking part in an auditory culture, as she calls it. 34 She emphasizes the importance of how listening has shaped knowledge, faith, and cultural identities. Biblical scriptures were not seen as being on the same poetical level as other antique literature. It became common practice that they were performed with improvisatory additions. Sermons and prayers instead lived to a large extent from artful vocalizations and improvisations in the momentary interplay with the listening congregation, not unlike jazz improvisations.
B. The brain on jazz and prayer: perspectives of neuroscience
In her insights, Carol Harrison scores the importance of listening within liturgy with the recent discoveries in Neuroscience, particularly with the findings of Iain McGilchrist as presented in his book The Master and his Emissary. 35 McGilchrist argues that the creative and emotional side of the brain, the right, has progressively lost in the history of our Western culture to a dominance of the “emissary” side, the rational, left hemisphere. He concludes that this causes a state of disconnect between rational and intuitive knowledge and most often, a silenced right side of the brain:
Today all the available sources of intuitive life—cultural tradition, the natural world, the body, religion and art—have been so conceptualized, de-vitalized and “deconstructed” (ironized) by the world of words, mechanistic systems
30
JSTOR search results, accessed October 15, 2015.
31
Hamilton Harty, “Some Problems of Modern Music,” The Musical Times 70, no. 1040 (October, 1929): 919–22.
32
Derick Cordoba, “Liturgical Jazz: the Lineage of the Subgenre in the Music of Edgar E. Summerlin” (DMA diss., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2017).
33
Jason Bivins, Spirits Rejoice! Jazz and American Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
34
Carol Harrison, The Art of Listening in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
35
