Music For February 15, 2015 + The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Vocal Music

• A Little Jazz Mass – Bob Chilcott (b. 1955)
• Be Thou My Vision – Bob Chilcott
• Swing Low, Sweet Chariot – arr. Harry T. Burleigh (Richard Murray, baritone)

Instrumental Music

• Lotus – Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967), arr. Alec Wyton (1921-2007)
• Come Sunday – Duke Ellington (1899-1974), arr. Craig Curry (21st c.)
• Processional – William Mathias (1934-1992)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn R201 - Be still, for the Spirit of the Lord (BE STILL)
• Hymn 7 - Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON)
• Hymn R247 - Lord, the light of your love is shining (SHINE, JESUS, SHINE)

"Every Man Prays In His Own Language" - Duke Ellington

It has been said that jazz is truly the most American of musical idioms. What originated in African American communities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries has spread throughout the world and over the years, evolving into a musical style that is as varied and hard to define as the Christian religion. This Sunday we will pray in the language of jazz, using a mass setting by an Englishman in the jazz idiom, and a couple of works by bona fide jazz musicians.

A Little Jazz Mass

First, let's talk about the jazz mass. The mass and the offertory anthem were written by Bob Chilcott, a British choral composer, conductor, and singer, based in Oxford, England. He started his music career as a boy, singing in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, then continuing as a university student.  In 1985 he joined the King's Singers, singing tenor for 12 years. He has been a composer since 1997.

Chilcott has always loved jazz. At the beginning of his composing career, he worked as an arranger for the BBC Radio Orchestra and, while a member of the King's Singers, performed with artists such as George Shearing, Richard Rodney Bennett, John Dankworth, Art Farmer and the WDR Big Band. These experiences and influences have had a major impact on the music he composes.

Chilcott's jazz influences truly come to the fore in A Little Jazz Mass: The Kyrie has real groove, the Gloria echos a 1960s Star Trek soundtrack, the Sanctus and Benedictus utilize "improvised" lines in the soprano parts, and the Agnus Dei draws inspiration from the Blues. The voices are underpinned by a characterful piano accompaniment which gives the flavor of an authentic improvising jazz pianist. (Of which Jackson is not!)

This highly effective setting of the Latin Missa brevis is one of Chilcott's most celebrated and popular choral works to date, and has received countless performances (both on the concert platform and as part of the sung liturgy in church services) across the world, perhaps most notably at St Paul's Cathedral, London.

A Little Jazz Mass was written for the massed choirs of the 2004 Crescent City Choral Festival, and received its premiere in St Louis Cathedral, New Orleans in June of that year.

Lotus and Come Sunday

Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington was an originator of Big Band Jazz in the 1930s. Born in Washington, D.C., he began taking piano lessons at 7, and started his own band in his 20s. He hit the top during the Forties with songs such as "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing," "Sophisticated Lady," "Prelude to a Kiss," "Solitude," and "Satin Doll."

Billy Strayhorn was a classically trained musician who joined the Duke Ellington organization in 1939. He'd written "Take the A Train" for Duke, who found it so thoroughly "Dukish" that he hired "Strays" on the spot. He was able to ease Ellington's burden as a composer and contribute many ideas, especially in harmony. The Strayhorn collaboration launched a productive recording period, regarded by many scholars to be the most significant and creative phase of Ellington's career. Strayhorn's training in long-form music became central to the orchestra. Together, the two composers teamed to write longer, more complex suites such as “Black, Brown and Beige,” an unprecedented 43-minute jazz work, which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1943.

When Strayhorn  died of esophageal cancer in 1967, a devastated Ellington went into the studio to record a memorial album, And His  Mother Called Him Bill. When the session was over, Ellington went back to the piano. As he sat there alone, he began to play "Lotus Blossom," a tune that Strayhorn wrote in the 1940s. The recording equipment was still on as he played. Two of his band members quietly unpacked their instruments and sat in with Ellington on the second chorus. This became the last track on the album.

The inspiration for the song may have come from a place important to Strayhorn long before he wrote the song. Perhaps as an escape from his alcoholic father, Strayhorn spent a great deal of time in his grandmother's garden, which may have inspired "Lotus Blossom. Fittingly, when Ellington died in 1974, Alec Wyton reworked the song for the organ and he played it at Ellington's funeral at St. John the Divine in New York. It is that version that will open our service.

In the last decade of his life, Duke Ellington turned his attention to sacred music. In October 1962, the Reverend John S. Yaryan approached Ellington about performing at the new Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. The cathedral was due to open in three to four years and all sorts of cultural events were to occur there in its first year. Ellington got to work, writing the music for the first concert, which premiered on September 16, 1965. One of those numbers was the song, "Come Sunday," which Jackson will play during communion.

The hymns for this Sunday reflect the readings for the last Sunday after the Epiphany.

Be still, for the Spirit of the Lord (BE STILL) This contemporary hymn, by the English composer/piano teacher David J. Evans, has made its way into nine hymnals since its publication in 1986. I chose it for this Sunday because its second stanza describes what the Apostles must have felt at the Transfiguration. (Mark 9:2-10)

Christ, whose glory fills the skies (RATISBON) Another hymn about the glory of Christ, written by the great hymn writer Charles Wesley. This text was published in Hymns and Sacred Poems, compiled in 1740 by Wesley and his brother John. James Montgomery called it "one of Charles Wesley's loveliest progeny.”

Lord, the light of your love is shining (SHINE, JESUS, SHINE) A year after our opening hymn was first published, English hymn writer Graham Kendrick published this hymn which is now in over 17 hymnals. I like to use it in conjunction with the Mark 9 Transfiguration reading for it's imagery of light and glory. 

As we gaze on your kingly brightness,
So our faces display your likeness,
ever changing from glory to glory.
Mirrored here, may our lives tell your story.