Jazz

The jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane playing at the Newport Jazz Festival. Newport, R.I. 1965. Photograph by Ted Williams. 

Jazz. That little word conjures up so much delight: grooving to the bewitching music in night clubs, savoring the honeyed taste of the eponymous apple, and improvising in “a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Phil. 1.27). “Jazz is freedom,” declared the great Duke Ellington. It is an exhalation of the human spirit, like all music, but uniquely textured by the African-American cry for freedom: long-suffering, exuberant, and sensuous. Since Jesus called himself “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14.6), if I pattern myself after the Pattern, which is not a matter of dutifully following the rules but faithfully creating from the original score, then I shall be set free to live and to love abundantly (John 8:32).