Swinging at St. Patrick's
COOK, BRUCE
On Music SWINGING AT ST PATRICK'S by bruce cook Because the first distinctly American music was the black sacred song, the spiritual, it has been argued that our entire musical idiom-blues, jazz,...
...But she was in New York for the bop revolution, and no swing-era musician made the transition to the radical style more gracefully...
...This lengthy preamble is intended to help you appreciate Mary Lou Williams' considerable achievement in having her jazz Mass, "For the Young and the Young Thinking," presented last month at St...
...And though the view is seldom so innocently articulated, a number of white churches in America have a similar attitude: At best, jazz, rock and the rest are tolerated as secular diversions, the sort of music people might listen to the other six days of the week...
...In fact, the hymn, a rollicking piece of praise, could be sung by Marion Williams or the Reverend James Cleveland at any church in Harlem and would have the congregation rocking by the second chorus...
...Although any liturgical work is best heard in a church, Mrs...
...Beginning with a long, improvised rideout on the piano that had her swinging as hard as she might at her regular stand at the Cookery down in the Village, they tore up St...
...Recorded in a studio with a very small choir but with the addition of French horn and flute parts, both played by David Amram, the album is well worth listening to, not least for the beautiful, rich voice of Carline Ray on the "Our Father" and "Lazarus...
...At one point, baritone saxist Harry Carney does warm things up to tepid, but as jazz it simply doesn't exist...
...Another interesting work was Marty Grebb's Rock 'n' Roll Mass...
...The two are backed by an English choir that sounds a little like Fred Waring's half-a-hun-dred Pennsylvanians, and swings just about as much...
...That afternoon, after the choir had finished singing the recessional and the priests had disappeared (it was a concelebrated service with no less than seven priests taking part), Mrs...
...the thought of all those screaming guitars probably sent the Vatican bureaucrats up the wall...
...That quality was much in evidence during St...
...Grebb, who is Jewish, wrote a powerful, lusty, electrified, and fully amplified score for rock group and chorus that deserved a better hearing than it got...
...as a trio they normally play dates at night clubs, colleges and universities around the country...
...On Music SWINGING AT ST PATRICK'S by bruce cook Because the first distinctly American music was the black sacred song, the spiritual, it has been argued that our entire musical idiom-blues, jazz, rock, everything-came out of the slave churches of the old plantation South...
...Catholics in particular conducted a variety of musical experiments during the early years of the last decade...
...Williams' fine melody, it made a memorable song-the kind, incidentally, that could and should be recorded independently by other singers...
...A soloist, composer and arranger, Mary Lou Williams is one of jazz's few surviving great talents, and the only woman who is the equal of a Dizzy Gillespie, Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, or Miles Davis...
...Also appearing with her that Tuesday was a choir of over a hundred New York City schoolchildren, well-rehearsed and obviously enthusiastic about the music they were singing...
...Williams, an ardent Catholic, and to her music...
...It was never, so far as I know, performed in a church...
...The most successful of them, it seems to me, was the gospel-style Mass of Clarence Rivers, a black priest...
...Alvin Ailey has also choreographed the music for his troupe...
...I emphasize this because not long after listening to Mary Lou Williams' very proud performance, I happened to hear a rather dismal posthumous album by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, Duke Ellington's Third Sacred Concert: The Majesty of God (RCA APL1-0785), that was recorded live at Westminster Abbey on October 24,1973, in honor of United Nations Day...
...Mary Lou Williams was at the piano, backed up by her regular bassist and drummer, Buster Williams (no relation) and Jerry Griffin...
...The so-called folk Mass-with its bits of pseudo-Bob Dylan played to unamplified guitar accompaniment-is about all that remains from the creative ferment of the '60s...
...In conception a mainstream work, with none of the discords, dubious harmonies and jagged rhythms of more avant-garde compositions, the Mass was nevertheless emphatically jazz- strong, driving and declarative in style...
...Unfortunately, it was never officially approved as a liturgy by the Church...
...And as sacred music the Ellington suite, after Mary Lou Williams' Mass, sounds like a liturgy for an Ethical Culture Society...
...But in the '60s, as a result of ecumenicalism, the winds of change blew lustily through the choirs...
...There is some irony in this, for many black churches today have their own music-gospel-and want nothing to do with the rest, which they consider the Devil's own invention...
...But Mrs...
...For the occasion, Ellington had composed a special suite, whose general nature can be summed up by quoting the tides of some of its sections: "Is God a Three-Letter Word for Love?," "Every Man Prays in His Own Language" and "Ain't Nobody Nowhere Without God...
...But the music-approved by the Church hierarchy and usually performed at a weekly Mass intended for young people-is totally bland and undistinguished...
...As for the recessional, "Praise the Lord," it was not so much a hymn as a musical figure, a riff sung in long chords against an extended rhythmic vamp...
...Patrick's Cathedral in New York City...
...It was real music that expressed passionate and complex feelings...
...Williams' Mass is also available in a recorded version on her own label, Mary Records, under the title, Mary Lou's Mass...
...It is almost impossible to remember from Sunday to Sunday...
...Both floated along on Latin rhythms, roughly of the bossa-nova sort, and were more subtle harmonically than the rest of the Mass...
...Williams' "Our Father'' was truly majestic, in many ways the most beautiful part of the entire work...
...Moreover, it confirmed triumphantly and unashamedly for the standing-room-only crowd of 3,000 and for whatever members of the hierarchy might have been present that this was jazz they were hearing...
...Very interesting and affecting music it was, too...
...It was a fine addition, lasting nearly 10 minutes after the last priest had left...
...Patrick's in a way one would not have thought possible...
...Williams is): The music is zealous and at the same time very swinging...
...It can be obtained by mail only from Mary Record Co., Box 32, Hamilton Grange, New York, New York 10031...
...Patrick's midday service on February 18, when her Mass was presented...
...Lazarus," a communion hymn that followed, with a text by jazz guitarist Sonny Henry, ran it a close second...
...To set things in proper perspective, I should point out that the work has been performed before-and had its premiere in 1969 at the Holy Family Church near the United Nations, at a memorial service for the assassinated Kenyan political leader Tom Mboya...
...This piece retold the story of the beggar and the rich man with such directness that, combined with Mrs...
...I even felt I could hear in it the sensibility of a convert to Catholicism (which Mrs...
...Still, this is the first time a jazz Mass, or anything like a jazz Mass, has been heard inside the great old cathedral on Fifth Avenue, and it means the Archdiocese of New York has granted recognition both to Mrs...
...The goal was to make Christianity "relevant" to the needs of modern man, and while much folly was perpetrated in the name of relevance, the liturgical fallout did at last permit music in the American idiom to be played inside the churches...
...Williams and her trio continued playing...
...She has been active ever since, performing with a constant melodic inventiveness...
...The Mass is, of course, an approved liturgy and has been given in a number of other churches as well...
...She started out in Kansas City, playing piano for 10 years with Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy...
...I can only conclude that the Duke (God rest his soul) was intimidated by the event and sought to present something acceptable for an audience that included Queen Elizabeth...
...The music is sticky, shapeless stuff sung by an overtrained soprano and a black baritone who articulates the very dickens out of the work's spoken texts...
...The "Credo" was a bit crowded and prolix, even though the Apostles Creed was employed rather than the longer Nicene Creed used in most sung Masses and in all spoken ones...
...In its early parts, specifically in the entrance hymn, "The Lord Says,' and in the "Kyrie,' there was a strong gospel feeling...
...The "Gloria," on the other hand, suggested jazz, as did the "Sanctus...
Vol. 58 • March 1975 • No. 7
