{"id":152,"date":"2009-04-01T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2009\/04\/what-is-it.html"},"modified":"2009-04-01T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-01T14:00:00","slug":"what-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/04\/what-is-it.html","title":{"rendered":"What is IT?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grammy award winner, Wynton Marsalis tells the following story about discovering IT<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, my younger brother Ellis couldn\u2019t understand all this fuss about jazz.  <\/span>He wasn\u2019t a musician, and jazz just didn\u2019t speak to him.  <\/span>But he figured it might be worth it to learn to hear jazz.  <\/span>Some years later he called\u2026\u201cMan, I think I hear it.  <\/span>I can hear what y\u2019all are playing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew exactly what it was he was talking about.  <\/span>This hearing of it is the moment of revelation that leads you deeper into a love of jazz.  <\/span>All at once, the potential glories of interacting with this limitless music become evident and present, pressing.  <\/span>All the head-scratching and confusion are replaced with excitement and expectations.  <\/span>You are welcomed into a club that never dwindles\u2014the It club.<\/span><\/p>\n

After all, hearing jazz is not that difficult.  <\/span>Following jazz is where all the trouble begins.  <\/span>But when you begin to think of jazz in terms of language, you\u2019ll see how much you already know.  <\/span>We\u2019re all improvisers when we speak, making things up as we go along, using the base of our experience, education, and knowledge to communicate effectively.  <\/span>Jazz musicians improvise the same way.  <\/span>We try to express ourselves clearly, drawing on a mental database of melodies, rhythms, and textures.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026jazz is a language\u2014a language of words, beyond words.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

So what is IT?<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grammy award winner, Wynton Marsalis tells the following story about discovering IT. Now, my younger brother Ellis couldn\u2019t understand all this fuss about jazz.  He wasn\u2019t a musician, and jazz just didn\u2019t speak to him.  But he figured it might be worth it to learn to hear jazz.  Some years later he called\u2026\u201cMan, I think…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finding-the-groove"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat is IT? - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/04\/what-is-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is IT? - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Grammy award winner, Wynton Marsalis tells the following story about discovering IT. Now, my younger brother Ellis couldn\u2019t understand all this fuss about jazz.  He wasn\u2019t a musician, and jazz just didn\u2019t speak to him.  But he figured it might be worth it to learn to hear jazz.  Some years later he called\u2026\u201cMan, I think…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/04\/what-is-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-01T14:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What is IT? - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/04\/what-is-it.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What is IT? - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"Grammy award winner, Wynton Marsalis tells the following story about discovering IT. 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}