Jazz music is not sacred music

[Sarabande]

Japhy – You had a question of what a chord progression is and what it means for a piece of music to resolve. Basically a chord progression is what the term implies. There are a series of chords, within the same scale and they “progress” or move from one chord to another within that scale. There are various chord progressions. In my last post, I mentioned Follia, which is a well-known chord progression. I wish we had a piano on line because it’s easier to explain it, at least for me, by the hearing it. When I have time, I will provide a couple examples of the Follia progression.

In terms of resolving a piece of music… again it’s something that is easier to explain by displaying. Basically, it’s that need in music to end or complete a composition – making a cadence. If a piece ends dissonantly, atonally, the ear will automatically have this need to want to hear it end tonally. The easiest example I can think of is to think of a normal scale, sing only these notes (think Sound of Music) “Do – re – mi - fa – so – la – ti ……” uh…uh – don’t sing that last note. Do you feel how it just seems open and unfinished? Your mind wants to go back to Do… it wants to “resolve”.

Anyway, I hope that explains it a little bit more for you.

 

[japhy]

There are various chord progressions. In my last post, I mentioned Follia, which is a well-known chord progression. I wish we had a piano on line because it’s easier to explain it, at least for me, by the hearing it.

I know of Follia (not by name, but by sound). The chord progression in Pachabel’s Canon in D is very popular too.

If a piece ends dissonantly, atonally, the ear will automatically have this need to want to hear it end tonally. The easiest example I can think of is to think of a normal scale, sing only these notes (think Sound of Music) “Do – re – mi - fa – so – la – ti ……” uh…uh – don’t sing that last note. Do you feel how it just seems open and unfinished? Your mind wants to go back to Do… it wants to “resolve”.

Gotchya.

 

[agapewolf]

Follia is barely resembling canon. Not the same thing

 

[japhy]

Follia is barely resembling canon. Not the same thing

Um, I didn’t say they were… I mentioned TWO DISTINCT patterns.

 

[Sarabande]

Hi Japhy - Here are two very different examples of the use of Follia.
youtube.com/watch?v=atGnTJM1HWg&feature=related

The first part of the Vivaldi trio sonata is naked enough without the variations so that you can use it to hear the same progression in this next example. You can really hear it in the refrain. You can play the chord progression on the piano to the song and it is definitely Follia. I was teaching music at a grade school when this song came out and was constantly hearing this song at the time (little 8-year-olds trying to dance and dress like her is another thread), so my husband and I spent time just deconstructing it for fun. It helped ground our belief that just because music has the same basic ingredients doesn’t make all compositions equal in quality or ability. hmmm… Sorry, I just got into my head trying to put religious text to the Spears song and then singing and playing it in that style. It would be like me singing Verdi’s Recordare duet from his Requiem for an actual mass. Not appropriate for liturgy no matter how well it is composed or “performed”. But I went off in a tangent. This is about jazz music, not about pop or classical singing in a more secular style (ie operatic). haha! So back on topic

1. youtube.com/watch?v=3Syoq3GZkMs

Anyway, I promised you the examples, so here they are.

 

[Sarabande]

Um, I didn’t say they were… I mentioned TWO DISTINCT patterns.

That’s fine, Japhy. Actually, although the Canon in D does not have the Follia chord progression, it does have its own chordal progression in the ground bass - which is also another well-used progression used often in other various works. So, you are correct in detecting the distinct pattern which is continuously played in sequence throughout the piece.

And again, to tie it into jazz, you could probably hear that same progression in other pieces of jazz composition. Does it make it legit enough to be played in liturgy? For me, just having the basic ingredients doesn’t make it legit. It needs to have the innate and intangible to go along with it. Or, how much can a jazz composition be refined or adapted and still be considered a jazz work without it sounding too much like a classical work? Once it crosses the line, it is no longer jazz, since you can also hear the syncopated rhythms in Bach which would be found in Jazz, but it is very much distinguished between each form. I’ve heard some very talented jazz musicians take classical works and turn them into jazz works. Although the melody and structure of the classical piece is still there, it is no longer in the classical form, but now in the jazz form. Thus, it would not be performed in a concert or recital for just classical music as it would envoke and a totally different “feeling” with the piece.

 

[japhy]

although the Canon in D does not have the Follia chord progression, it does have its own chordal progression in the ground bass - which is also another well-used progression used often in other various works.

Yes, that’s the reason I brought up the Canon: because the progression is used in a number of popular songs. The link was to a YouTube video about that.

Anyway, let’s move on.

 

[brotherhrolf]

I am a native New Orleanian so I think I know something of Jazz. When I was in the 8th grade of my Catholic boy’s high school back in the 60s, we were housed three blocks away from the high school at St. Augustine’s parish. There was an African American funeral parlor about ten houses down from the church. The Brothers let us out of class to witness this part of our New Orleans culture. I saw many caskets brought down the street on the shoulders of the pall bearers with a brass band playing “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”. They (the band) never, ever entered the church.

Recently, there was a concert performance of a Jazz Mass at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. “Jazz” in that case is something of a misnomer since it included rhythms and instrumentation that Louis Moreau Gottschalk might have used. There was Ragtime, Dixieland, and modern jazz included. I liked it but as I said, it was a concert performance.

St. Augustine came very close to being shut down after Katrina. It seems that they do indeed have a jazz Mass. We have African American parishes here in Baton Rouge and down in New Orleans that have gospel choirs. Jazz goes across cultures and races.

I’m normally very conservative. But I recognize that Gabrielli and Monteverdi (to name a few) used Renaissance dance motifs in their compositions.As an anthropologist, a jazz Mass reflects a cultural identity. I don’t think you could make the same argument for the “folk” Masses of the 1970s or the banal OCP peices of today.

The jazz Mass concert on PBS was reverent until the woman with the umbrella “second lined” at the recessional. One does not open umbrellas indoors in New Orleans. Bad gris-gris.

 

[Sarabande]

Recently, there was a concert performance of a Jazz Mass at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. “Jazz” in that case is something of a misnomer since it included rhythms and instrumentation that Louis Moreau Gottschalk might have used. There was Ragtime, Dixieland, and modern jazz included. I liked it but as I said, it was a concert performance.

That must have been interesting to see and hear. Sort of like seeing Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” or Brahms “Requiem Mass”. Both “masses”, but written for concert performance, not for a mass.

I’m normally very conservative. But I recognize that Gabrielli and Monteverdi (to name a few) used Renaissance dance motifs in their compositions.

That is true, but again, although they used those dance motifs, they had to refine and modify them in order to be acceptable for mass so that it actually no longer sounded like a “dance”. Can a jazz composition be modified enough to be acceptable for mass and yet still sound like and represent what “Jazz” was supposed to evoke in the music? We can take the rhythms from Jazz and modify them, but then the music will sound more on the classical side. If it keeps to the spirit of jazz, I think it stays within the secular connotation.

As an anthropologist, a jazz Mass reflects a cultural identity. I don’t think you could make the same argument for the “folk” Masses of the 1970s or the banal OCP peices of today.

Now that is an interesting outlook. So, would you say that it would be ok for certain cultures to use jazz music at mass and that it would fall under what the Church says is ok, such as music used at masses in Africa, South American, etc.?

I could see people of a more European background use that argument for composing liturgical music using a large symphonic form or even operatic form. When I studied music in Italy, I was fortunate to really experience the culture and knew that opera is certainly part of the Italians’ souls. And at the height of operatic form, composers did do that and you would hear music and the “performing” style of the singers like that at mass for a number of decades - until the Church actually reigned them all in. But again, I could see people saying that since opera (a secular form just like Jazz music and just as sophisticated in composition) is so much part of certain people’s culture that the form and style of singing should be used at mass. I’m a classical singer who also sings the operatic style among other styles within the classical form, but I certainly wouldn’t sing like an opera singer while cantoring. If I was performing a concert in a church using religious music that calls for operatic singing - such as “Pieta Signore” or Gounod’s “O Divine Redeemer” etc., that’s a different story.

 

[KenEOTE]

All I am going to say is that there are no musical instruments that are entirely secular. Any musical instrument that exists can be used to praise God. Any form of music can be used to praise God. Do all styles of music belong in a church service? I guess it would depend on the service.

 

[Sarabande]

All I am going to say is that there are no musical instruments that are entirely secular. Any musical instrument that exists can be used to praise God. Any form of music can be used to praise God. Do all styles of music belong in a church service? I guess it would depend on the service.

That’s true - any style or instrument can be used to praise God as religious music. But not all styles or instruments can be used as sacred music within the Liturgy. Some styles and many instruments can be adapted and refined to be used for sacred music within the Liturgy, but others are too enmeshed within the secular to be appropriate for liturgy. Operatic singing and the operatic style of composing that kind of vocal music have produced many pieces of religious music praising God, but they are not appropriate for the sacred music within the Mass. The same would go with various other styles.