{"id":503,"date":"2006-12-04T15:42:12","date_gmt":"2006-12-04T15:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch.html"},"modified":"2006-12-04T15:42:12","modified_gmt":"2006-12-04T15:42:12","slug":"the-original-ch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch.html","title":{"rendered":"The Original Christmas Carols (p2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Magnificat in Jazz<\/p>\n

When I picture Mary singing the Magnificat I envision a smoke filled room, clanking glasses and the low hum of conversation that ceases when she begins to sing from her soul.  With the poise of a Billy Holiday, the prophetic pain of a Nina Simone and the voice of Sara Vaughn I hear her bringing forth her song.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"Jazz_singer2\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

The Blessed Virgin a jazz singer?  Yes, I think so.  <\/p>\n

For two reasons…the place from which she sings and her improvisational skills.<\/p>\n

Take a glance at the song of Mary (Luke 1.46-55) do you feel the groove?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

"Soul."  That is the place from which she sings and it is essential for a jazz shaped faith.  What ever you call it, the soul, spirit (v47), gut, heart or inmost being, it is that place where pain and joy blend to create a power that can only come from brokenness and hoped for redemption.<\/p>\n

\"Billyholiday2\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago I went to hear a local jazz singer–I was so disappointed.  She has a remarkable voice and a compelling stage presence but she was missing something.  Something intrinsic–soul.  At first, I thought it was because of her youth.  Perhaps she hasn’t lived long enough to gain this vital source of power.  Then I think of Mary, she was young and yet she had it.<\/p>\n

God had essentially ruined Mary’s life.  Her dreams of falling in love, getting married, 2.5 children and the white picked fence (all in that order) were gone.  In exchange, she surrenders to what God has for her life.  In the short run, she faces the difficulty of explaining her pregnancy to her parents and fiancee’.  Constant gossip and sideways glances await her.  All of that is compounded by a lifetime’s worth of rooms growing silent as she enters.  <\/p>\n

Yet she sings from her soul.  She Rejoices in the midst of her blues.  That’s the stuff, the source material, of and for jazz.<\/p>\n

Next we’ll look at her improvisational skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Magnificat in Jazz When I picture Mary singing the Magnificat I envision a smoke filled room, clanking glasses and the low hum of conversation that ceases when she begins to sing from her soul.  With the poise of a Billy Holiday, the prophetic pain of a Nina Simone and the voice of Sara Vaughn…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Original Christmas Carols (p2) - 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\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Original Christmas Carols (p2) - 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Robert Gelinas on Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01","name":"Robert Gelinas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","caption":"Robert Gelinas"},"description":"\"For more information visit: Jazztheologian.com Robert Gelinas is Lead-Pastor (and resident Jazz Theologian) of Colorado Community Church\u00e2\u20ac\u201da multi-cultural, interdenominational community of 3000+ followers of Christ in the Denver area. 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\/503","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=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}