RockOm

The dictionary definitions are not enough for those of us who are alive to the sense of the sacred which we find in so many unexpected places ... and are often disappointed not to find in so many expected places.

Perhaps a better question is: what is the sense of the sacred? What does this word mean to us in a universal sense, in the context of our contemporary world of pluralism and multiculturalism, a world in unprecedented evolutionary crisis?

It is my belief, based on travel, research, and the experience of performing sacred music for people of radically different worldviews and religions, that religious tolerance, like interfaith dialogue, is growing by leaps and bounds, far outstripping the old intolerances and insularities we are all too familiar with. The mass media might make it seem otherwise --- but as we know, they thrive on bad news, and are parsimonious in reporting the good news which is happening right under their noses.

The best short response to this question I've heard is from Pierre Rabhi, founder of agro-ecology, and author of the book As in the Heart, So in the Earth : "The sense of the sacred is a sense of humility, where gratitude, knowledge, wonder, respect, and mystery all come together to inspire and enlighten our actions."

This would have seemed pretty obvious to people of ancient times. Only in the last few centuries of modernism and postmodernism has it become fashionable to ignore and disdain the sacred, much as it has become fashionable to ignore and disdain beauty, and to revere irony.

But for those who will not allow this sense to wither in them, listening to sacred music can be a heart-opening experience, even when it comes from a tradition or a culture which is strange or bizarre to them, even if they disagree with certain doctrines of that tradition, even if they reject all religion, and even if the music itself has no formal connection to any sacred tradition.

The awakening of this sense, at least in listening to music, does not depend on having specific beliefs, or even on knowing the meaning of the texts that are being sung or chanted (though it can of course be infinitely deepened by knowing and studying their meaning).

Music can be an ambassador for peace where other embassies have failed. I first learned about this power of music over twenty-five years ago, when I participated in a two-day conference at an American university, which sought to bring Jewish, Christian, and Muslim (mostly Arab, but a few Persian) students together in dialogue concerning the Palestinian problem. This was in the days of the Carter administration, when such hopeful attempts were more common. I was part of a small student musical group (oud, santur, percussion, guitar, and a male and female vocalist) thrown together at the last minute, and our job was to offer a short concert of a mixture of Arab and Jewish songs at the close of each session. The first day was very difficult, because we had to play after a stormy session with several shouting matches, much anger in the air, and little if any real dialogue. On the second day, we asked the directors to let us open the program instead of closing it. We had to beg, then insist, and they reluctantly agreed. What a difference it made! Not only was there no shouting during that conference, people really listened to each other --- and there were even some friendships made! I can't attribute it to the quality of our music (my oud-playing was pretty amateurish in those days), but I did learn something important about the power of the intent of music. Whatever our shortcomings as an ad-hoc musical group with too little rehearsal together, our individual and collective intent was so strong on that second day, that it communicated a message of peace which words alone could not have done. Last, but far from least, our motivation, on that day at least, was for our music to serve --- to serve something higher than the usual desire to shine, to thrill, or entertain, that had previously motivated us.

This was also my first inkling that the influential modernist doctrine of l'art pour l'art --- art for art's sake --- is a fatuous dead end. From the earliest times of performance art, all the way back to its beginnings in shamanism, authentic performers have always known that they are at their best when their art serves something higher than art. Individually and collectively, we are beginning to rediscover this ancient truth, but in new and mysterious ways...

By Joseph Rowe
http://www.naturalchant.com

also, see my significant other's site:
http://www.myspace.com/catherinebraslavsky

and my memoir of my teacher, Hamza El Din:
http://www.naturalchant.com/hamza.htm

"[Music] symbolizes the yearning for harmony, with oneself and others, with nature and the spiritual and the sacred within us and around us. There is something in music that transcends and unites. This is evident in the sacred music of every community - music that expresses the universal yearning that is shared by people all over the globe."
[Dalai Lama]

RockOm Round-up is a quick glance at what's going on around the world in the areas of music and spirituality...

• Love me true: The spiritual quest of Elvis Presley - "Although Elvis' kingdom was very much of this world, he was also an ongoing seeker of those Kingdoms that aren't." (examiner.com)
• 40 years later, Woodstock’s spiritual vibes still resonate - "'A community grew out of Woodstock,' says organizer Michael Lang in his new book, The Road to Woodstock. 'A sense of possibility and hope was born and spread around the globe.' ... Rock historian Pete Fornatale goes further. 'I wanted to make the case that Woodstock was a spiritual experience." (religionnews.com)
• Is Music Sacred? - "As the most immaterial art, music is often thought to be the most spiritual. By its nature, is music sacred? If so, what is sacred about it? These might seem strange questions to ask in a secular age, but the presumption that there is something special about music pervades even our culture." (insidecatholic.com)

By Eric Reed at Allaboutjazz.com

Generally, the idea of "sacred jazz" either brings to mind Duke Ellington's three sacred concerts or causes confusion in the minds of those who are not cognizant of what is "sacred" or "jazz". Is it John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Mary Lou Williams' Black Christ of the Andes or Ahmad Jamal's After Fajr? In all these cases, yes. In the broad sense of what is "sacred," the common thread that exists among the aforementioned references pays respect to the devotion to a supernatural being, considered to be higher than us. As for jazz, of course, you gotta swing, but so many people want to make jazz so many things. (Really, must we?) My search for clarification in this field was prompted by my recent participation in a jazz series that focused on "The Sacred Side of Jazz," where I demonstrated the connection between jazz and gospel music via hymns, Negro spirituals and the blues.

When you get right down to it, the term "sacred jazz" becomes somewhat redundant because the nascence of jazz is in sacred music! Do you think Jelly Roll Morton (who probably did invent piano jazz) simply stumbled upon "Wild Man Blues" without ever hearing a gospel blues? It's doubtful he could have spent five years in Chicago and not have ever crossed paths with Rev. Thomas Dorsey or Mahalia Jackson. The stamp of "sacred jazz" is actually rather generic, mainly because it covers such a wide array of artistic concepts. As a child, "jazz" and "sacred" had always intersected in my playing: from bluesy treatments of hymns like "Amazing Grace" or "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior" in my father's Baptist church to Charles Brown's "Merry Christmas, Baby" while entertaining family friends.

For me, there was never a conscious aesthetic separation of gospel and secular music, but I had enough good sense not to subject the congregation to "Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On" during the offering. Thomas Dorsey and Rosetta Tharpe met with much angst from church folks who insisted they perform on "one side of the fence or the other." Fortunately, my parents never vexed me in that area, so I was free to explore and develop my own farrago of diverse musical worlds, leaning towards a sound influenced by musical and personal experiences, biblical teachings, Negro spirituals, the blues, swing and a heavy groove.

My music is influenced by a spiritual foundation (specifically, God's spirit, in this case), which encourages me to remain focused on the reason I was born with the gift He gave me—to praise Him. In addition, I share that love and desire with the audience, with the hope that they can be reeled into my spiritual space, to be entertained and blessed by the experience.

For years, my notion was to learn and perform the 'standard' jazz repertoire, composing songs that sounded like standards and generally to honor the brilliant creators—from Armstrong to Waller—that laid it all out before me, while offering the occasional 'tribute' to my spiritual background. Fortunately (and hopefully for most of us) life changes force us to be wisely flexible; as brilliant artists-to-be, we learn that the music doesn't end with the lessons of our youth. On the contrary, it only begins there, laying the groundwork and leading us down the paths we trod towards the excellence of our more mature years in the arts. Merging my personal life with my music has become more than merely composing some swing ditty and pasting God's name in the title. Boldly and unabashedly, I put my love, honor and thanks to God at the forefront of my music—before the transcribed solos, Hanon exercises, repertoire—even the commitment to swinging.

Many jazz artists encountered a "spiritual awakening" on personal and musical planes later in life: Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, John Coltrane as referenced earlier. For others, the awareness was apparent earlier on: Yusef Lateef, Ahmad Jamal. Even though all don't pay tribute to the same deity, the vibration in the music of an individual genuinely connected to his faith cannot be ignored—even if you don't identify with his spiritual philosophy. There is music for music's sake and then there is music that encompasses a deeper purpose.

Of a somewhat less "faith-based" intent, is what has been referred to as "funky jazz" or "soul-jazz". This would be jazz that parrots the sound of Black church music and is more contrived than reverent. Popular jazz hits like Horace Silver's "The Preacher," Billy Page's "The In Crowd" (as performed by Ramsey Lewis) or Bobby Timmons' "This Here" were mostly funneled through artists' impressions of gospel music. It's much like listening to dyed-in-the-wool jazz musicians play Latin or funk—without a full immersion in the experience. Perhaps, this is where the divide begins with regard to sacred versus secular; whereas one implies an honoring and worshiping, the other has a slightly exploitive dynamic that, over the years, has continued to nosedive into poor imitations, the end result being some minstrel-type exhibition by individuals who have no real clue of the value and essence of a spiritual experience.

My recent challenge to connect gospel music with jazz music effectively has ignited a brushfire that sweeps through my bones. Early on, I heeded the jazz curriculum to the letter. As I continue to move through life, my purpose becomes much clearer and now I am moved to invoke the sentiments of Duke Ellington, expressed before he performed his first sacred concert: "Now, I can say openly and loudly what I have been saying to myself on knees."

Eric Reed at All About Jazz

Visit Eric Reed on the web

In RockOm's short existence on the web, we've posted a number of compelling articles and blog posts that have since found their way into the inner archives. There are many new readers and users since those "early days" (4 short months ago) and so occasionally we will pull out old posts for you to read (or re-read) and meditate upon. Here is an excellent article posted during RockOm's very first week by a musician in France named Joseph Rowe. Take a look and then head over to the forum to discuss.

The dictionary definitions are not enough for those of us who are alive to the sense of the sacred which we find in so many unexpected places ... and are often disappointed not to find in so many expected places.

Perhaps a better question is: what is the sense of the sacred? What does this word mean to us in a universal sense, in the context of our contemporary world of pluralism and multiculturalism, a world in unprecedented evolutionary crisis?

It is my belief, based on travel, research, and the experience of performing sacred music for people of radically different worldviews and religions, that religious tolerance, like interfaith dialogue, is growing by leaps and bounds, far outstripping the old intolerances and insularities we are all too familiar with. The mass media might make it seem otherwise --- but as we know, they thrive on bad news, and are parsimonious in reporting the good news which is happening right under their noses.

The best short response to this question I've heard is from Pierre Rabhi, founder of agro-ecology, and author of the book As in the Heart, So in the Earth : "The sense of the sacred is a sense of humility, where gratitude, knowledge, wonder, respect, and mystery all come together to inspire and enlighten our actions."

This would have seemed pretty obvious to people of ancient times. Only in the last few centuries of modernism and postmodernism has it become fashionable to ignore and disdain the sacred, much as it has become fashionable to ignore and disdain beauty, and to revere irony.

But for those who will not allow this sense to wither in them, listening to sacred music can be a heart-opening experience, even when it comes from a tradition or a culture which is strange or bizarre to them, even if they disagree with certain doctrines of that tradition, even if they reject all religion, and even if the music itself has no formal connection to any sacred tradition.

The awakening of this sense, at least in listening to music, does not depend on having specific beliefs, or even on knowing the meaning of the texts that are being sung or chanted (though it can of course be infinitely deepened by knowing and studying their meaning).

Music can be an ambassador for peace where other embassies have failed. I first learned about this power of music over twenty-five years ago, when I participated in a two-day conference at an American university, which sought to bring Jewish, Christian, and Muslim (mostly Arab, but a few Persian) students together in dialogue concerning the Palestinian problem. This was in the days of the Carter administration, when such hopeful attempts were more common. I was part of a small student musical group (oud, santur, percussion, guitar, and a male and female vocalist) thrown together at the last minute, and our job was to offer a short concert of a mixture of Arab and Jewish songs at the close of each session. The first day was very difficult, because we had to play after a stormy session with several shouting matches, much anger in the air, and little if any real dialogue. On the second day, we asked the directors to let us open the program instead of closing it. We had to beg, then insist, and they reluctantly agreed. What a difference it made! Not only was there no shouting during that conference, people really listened to each other --- and there were even some friendships made! I can't attribute it to the quality of our music (my oud-playing was pretty amateurish in those days), but I did learn something important about the power of the intent of music. Whatever our shortcomings as an ad-hoc musical group with too little rehearsal together, our individual and collective intent was so strong on that second day, that it communicated a message of peace which words alone could not have done. Last, but far from least, our motivation, on that day at least, was for our music to serve --- to serve something higher than the usual desire to shine, to thrill, or entertain, that had previously motivated us.

This was also my first inkling that the influential modernist doctrine of l'art pour l'art --- art for art's sake --- is a fatuous dead end. From the earliest times of performance art, all the way back to its beginnings in shamanism, authentic performers have always known that they are at their best when their art serves something higher than art. Individually and collectively, we are beginning to rediscover this ancient truth, but in new and mysterious ways...

By Joseph Rowe
http://www.naturalchant.com

also, see my significant other's site:
http://www.myspace.com/catherinebraslavsky

and my memoir of my teacher, Hamza El Din:
http://www.naturalchant.com/hamza.htm

Discuss this article

Somewhat unusually for me, I've been listening to a lot of "sacred" classical music lately. I'm not sure why. It started with remembering that the CD we had of Allegri's Miserere, which is a piece of music I do not wish to live without, was scratched up beyond all playability; so I looked on iTunes for a good recording. I ended up with the Tallis Scholars' 2007 recording, which also includes Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli. Our old recording of the Miserere also had some Palestrina on it, but at the time we bought it, which was several years ago, it didn't do much for me: it was pretty enough, but it didn't really hold my attention.

This time, however, the Palestrina just--opened up. I'm not quite sure how else to put it: like a flower, or like a good Scotch. It was suddenly deep and complex and beautiful, something to be savored and enjoyed and marveled at. You could use the word "spiritual."

It got me to thinking about how with few, if any, exceptions, the music I love most, my "desert island music," has been music that I've had to grow into, to listen to multiple times, sometimes over the course of years, to really enjoy. From being a high schooler listening to my father's tape of Kate Bush's Hounds of Love to picking up The Essential Leonard Cohen out of a "free" bin at a yard sale to deciding to take the Cocteau Twins' Four Calendar Café out of a pile of CDs I was planning to sell even though I hadn't listened to it since buying it, the pattern seems to be the same, and I can identify four basic stages: First I was attracted to the music, allured by it. Then after a listen or two I was repelled by it, headed off by some "difficulty" or lack of accessibility in the music. Then the music lay dormant--or seemed to; it might be more accurate to say that it was taking root in me all along. Then, finally, through some happenstance or synchronicity, I rediscovered the music and it opened up to me.

Of course the music didn't change; the notes, the lyrics, the recordings were all the same.

Some music, I suppose, waits up ahead for us, until we catch up; and well it should.

[Andrew Hoogheem is a freelance writer and editor and an at-home dad based in Davenport, Iowa. He blogs sporadically at backstreetpetshop.blogspot.com.]

The dictionary definitions are not enough for those of us who are alive to the sense of the sacred which we find in so many unexpected places ... and are often disappointed not to find in so many expected places.

Perhaps a better question is: what is the sense of the sacred? What does this word mean to us in a universal sense, in the context of our contemporary world of pluralism and multiculturalism, a world in unprecedented evolutionary crisis?

It is my belief, based on travel, research, and the experience of performing sacred music for people of radically different worldviews and religions, that religious tolerance, like interfaith dialogue, is growing by leaps and bounds, far outstripping the old intolerances and insularities we are all too familiar with. The mass media might make it seem otherwise --- but as we know, they thrive on bad news, and are parsimonious in reporting the good news which is happening right under their noses.

The best short response to this question I've heard is from Pierre Rabhi, founder of agro-ecology, and author of the book As in the Heart, So in the Earth : "The sense of the sacred is a sense of humility, where gratitude, knowledge, wonder, respect, and mystery all come together to inspire and enlighten our actions."

This would have seemed pretty obvious to people of ancient times. Only in the last few centuries of modernism and postmodernism has it become fashionable to ignore and disdain the sacred, much as it has become fashionable to ignore and disdain beauty, and to revere irony.

But for those who will not allow this sense to wither in them, listening to sacred music can be a heart-opening experience, even when it comes from a tradition or a culture which is strange or bizarre to them, even if they disagree with certain doctrines of that tradition, even if they reject all religion, and even if the music itself has no formal connection to any sacred tradition.

The awakening of this sense, at least in listening to music, does not depend on having specific beliefs, or even on knowing the meaning of the texts that are being sung or chanted (though it can of course be infinitely deepened by knowing and studying their meaning).

Music can be an ambassador for peace where other embassies have failed. I first learned about this power of music over twenty-five years ago, when I participated in a two-day conference at an American university, which sought to bring Jewish, Christian, and Muslim (mostly Arab, but a few Persian) students together in dialogue concerning the Palestinian problem. This was in the days of the Carter administration, when such hopeful attempts were more common. I was part of a small student musical group (oud, santur, percussion, guitar, and a male and female vocalist) thrown together at the last minute, and our job was to offer a short concert of a mixture of Arab and Jewish songs at the close of each session. The first day was very difficult, because we had to play after a stormy session with several shouting matches, much anger in the air, and little if any real dialogue. On the second day, we asked the directors to let us open the program instead of closing it. We had to beg, then insist, and they reluctantly agreed. What a difference it made! Not only was there no shouting during that conference, people really listened to each other --- and there were even some friendships made! I can't attribute it to the quality of our music (my oud-playing was pretty amateurish in those days), but I did learn something important about the power of the intent of music. Whatever our shortcomings as an ad-hoc musical group with too little rehearsal together, our individual and collective intent was so strong on that second day, that it communicated a message of peace which words alone could not have done. Last, but far from least, our motivation, on that day at least, was for our music to serve --- to serve something higher than the usual desire to shine, to thrill, or entertain, that had previously motivated us.

This was also my first inkling that the influential modernist doctrine of l'art pour l'art --- art for art's sake --- is a fatuous dead end. From the earliest times of performance art, all the way back to its beginnings in shamanism, authentic performers have always known that they are at their best when their art serves something higher than art. Individually and collectively, we are beginning to rediscover this ancient truth, but in new and mysterious ways...

By Joseph Rowe

http://www.naturalchant.com

also, see my significant other's site:

http://www.myspace.com/catherinebraslavsky

and my memoir of my teacher, Hamza El Din:

http://www.naturalchant.com/hamza.htm