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In  “Concerto for Cootie” later named “Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me” listen for the diverse style and range of trumpeter Cootie (Charles Melvin) Williams.  This piece was created specifically for Cootie by Duke Ellington.  Never before had a trumpeter played with such a diverse style and range, from mute to blaring high notes.  Rather than forcing Cootie Williams to conform to an “Ellington sound,”  Ellington created a vehicle for Williams to branch out and discover his own voice.…

John Wesley is known to have said we are to “Preach the faith until you have it and then by having it you will preach faith.” We continue our worship series, Yes to the Mess: Surprising Lessons from Jazz & Acts, this Sunday with emphasis on the double vision that is required to develop new visions while simultaneously understanding that the complete story underneath those visions does not yet fully exist.   This week’s worship will be rooted in  Acts 2.1-21, the story…

“..the simple practice of taking turns leading and supporting might be the single practice most responsible for relational breakthroughs.  Here again jazz provides a ready model.  Jazz bands routinely rotate the ‘leadership’ of the band:  that is, they take turns soloing and supporting other solecists by providing rhythmic and harmonic background.  Each player has an opportunity to develop a musical idea, while others create space for this development to occur.  In order to guarantee these patterns of mutuality and symmetry, players alternate…

Some words about the Martin Committee Trumpet (the premiere jazz trumpet for musicians such as Miles Davis) and how this horn likes to be played: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw_iuEQD-Fc]   And a short clip on another historic Martin Committee trumpet: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk-hnhXcv0I]

We continue our worship series, Yes to the Mess: Surprising Lessons from Jazz & Acts, this Sunday with emphasis on soloing and supporting.   This week’s worship will be rooted in Acts 6.1-7. A biblical scholar named Robert Wall writes, “Growth requires change, and change comes slowly to any culture, but especially to a religious movement that is indebted to past memories and ancestral traditions, preserved and transmitted to others. To change with the times is a function of an agile leadership team. The…

Isaac played his harmonica at home but never with others.  In this video watch how he uses his ears to listen to the notes and attempts to match those notes with his own instrument.  When we take time to hang out and jam with other musicians we learn more about the music and ourselves.  (Keith Little on Mandolin, Suzanne Little on Guitar, Tamara Little on Guitar, Kathy Barwick on bass (I think!) and everyone on vocals!) [wpvideo pnVg1dUi]

“That’s what hanging around is really about:  finding not only shared interests but the common groove that will bring people together so they can learn from each other and share the stories and experience that lead to meaningful breakthroughs.” (from Yes to the Mess by Frank J. Barreett 103.) A blessing in my life came early.  My parents moved from Kentucky to California when I was 6 months old.  They met and became friends with a family that already had…

What is a jam session?  This short video tells the story: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2rNUWAx-O0]     2 great trumpeters; Sean Jones and Marcus Printup caught on video in a trumpet “fight”.  Watch how 2 musicians come together, connect, challenge, enjoy and celebrate each other and the music they so obviously love:   [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfTmB_PLx0I]  

We continue with week 5 of our worship series:  Yes to the Mess: Surprising Lessons from Jazz & Acts.  This series is structured around a book called Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz by Frank J. Barrett.  Throughout this worship series we will hold Barrett’s reflections on jazz in creative tension with the development of the earliest church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.    This weeks worship will explore jamming and hanging out.  Worship will be…

“Jazz players look for and notice instability, disorder, novelty, emergence, and self-organization for their innovative potential rather than as something to be avoided, eliminated, or controlled.  Indeed, jazz bands are very much human systems living at the edge of chaos.  To understand their social complexity requires cultivating an aesthetic that values surrender and wonderment over certainty, appreciation over problem solving, listening and attunement over individual isolation.” (From Frank J. Barrett in Yes to the Mess, 68) Look at the photo…

  Frank Barrett (Yes to the Mess, 73-74) outlines three components of minimal structure that allow jazz players to coordinate… Jazz musicians work within clear constraints…they know that they need to orient their choices within a certain range of notes that fit within the chord or the scale, but they don’t have to stop and negotiate or debate which constraints are worth attending to. They simply trust that all the players will adjust to the patterns. In effect, they employ…

“I wish there were some way we could understand how important dietary law has been to the people of Israel. Most of us have eaten bacon all our lives,  and we do not think twice about combining milk and meat, but if we were first  century Jews, the very thought would make us break out in a cold sweat.  It would be like coming to church one morning to find pork chops and whiskey on the altar instead of bread and wine.”  Acts 11:1-18…