In responding to a statement from a theologian that, “Freedom was known in relief against the structure,” in jazz (in comparing jazz to the flexibility and improvisation within worship), I wrote the following:

I wonder what happens when we take that analogy and stretch it to its logical ends?… Both Parker and Gillespie, as well as Coltrane were strung out most of the time in their early years. They went all night long, and they DID stick to the ‘structures’ all the time, if you listen carefully. They all played within the scale. The bebop scale — an 8 note scale, instead of a 7 note scale.

That’s a simple trick that’s been employed by many composers over the last few hundred years, but these guys, starting with Parker, took it to a whole new level. They were able to play faster, more notes, more rhythms…

But, when you think about it — Parker died before he could change, Gillespie stuck with the same stuff, because he made a fortune at it, and Coltrane changed dramatically (I’ll say something about that in a second)… These were kids pushing the limits.

This is the movement I’m asking for. This is the movement that I would love to see in the church — of pushing the boundaries — a young elite rising up and challenging the body of the church with a blend of traditionalism and modernity that works!

Bebop became the style that everyone played, within a few years. Aggressive change could really make a churchwide revival of good liturgy possible!

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But what I’m coming around to, or trying to, is that John Coltrane was different. If you listen to his early records, he imitated Charlie Parker, he pushed Parker’s limits in terms of speed, and he had a tone that was all his own, which is why he got picked up by Miles Davis…

And at some point, Coltrane quit drugs. He quit the road. He quit the high life. And he started to pray, and changed his life completely. The records that were truly transcendent, and what turn this jazz analogy into the perfect metaphor for our discussion about the liturgy, are the late records Coltrane did.

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He brought jazz back to its roots, though he never lost sight of where he came from. He stood in front of an audience with his quartet, and they simply played from the heart. Nothing prepared, nothing planned. If anything, a few phrases… And they played muses. Emotions. Scriptural references…

If we can get to that level — take the traditional jazz we learn in seminary (for me in my music PhD program), and internalize it so much that, when called upon to sing with emotion, to pray with fervor, to shout with the angels, to suffer with the afflicted… We will push it out, and it will be good:)

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2 stories come to mind. The Velveteen Rabbit, and a Zen story that I learned in college. The Velveteen Rabbit, of course, is a story about a stuffed rabbit that is loved very much, and then discarded and forgotten… But it was so loved, and so ragged, that it became ‘real’… That is the way it is with our worship. We should never lose sight of ragged Paul, ragged Christ — people that suffer, people starving around the world, and in our own communities…

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The other story is a Zen story on the same lines. A boy learned to play the flute from a master teacher from a very young age. He studied with the old master for all of his life, until he turned 15. Then he was impatient. He said, “Master, when will I be able to play the flute like you? Like a master?” The master had never allowed him to play the melodies he wanted. Every time he had a lesson, he had to play one song over and over and over again…

Finally the boy gave up, and he went into manual labor. He got married, had a child. He worked every day, and his flute was sitting on a back shelf somewhere — he never played once since he was a boy…

And one day, a great tragedy ensued, and took the life of his wife and child. He turned to drinking, and slept in the streets, until one day, a man came to him and offered him a bite to eat, and place to sleep. The man told him he would help him.

The man said thank you, and didn’t know how to repay his friend, the Good Samaritan… (amusing cross-reference:)… One day, they were having dinner in the evening with many friends, and, in the corner was a small child playing the flute — a similar one to the flute this man had played as a boy.

The man crossed the room, and asked the child if he could play a tune or two on it. The boy, delighted, agreed, and asked the man if he was a master flute player — as he was very old and wrinkled in the face… “No,” the man replied… “I was once very good, but never a master…”

The man picked up the flute, and played the same melody he had played over and over all those years ago, and when it came through his fingers, everyone in the room stopped talking and turned to listen.

When he was finished, there was a hushed silence across the room, and the eldest man in the room finally said, “He is a master flute player…”

So are we in our faith, I think, and as pastors, as musicians, as vocational human beings… But we can’t lose sight of that flute… We have to keep an eye out for it when it crosses our path again.