{"id":509,"date":"2006-07-14T10:20:10","date_gmt":"2006-07-14T10:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2006\/07\/jazzmore-than-m-2.html"},"modified":"2006-07-14T10:20:10","modified_gmt":"2006-07-14T10:20:10","slug":"jazzmore-than-m-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/07\/jazzmore-than-m-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Jazz–More than Music (p3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ralph Ellison shows us that jazz is more than music.  His novel, "Invisible Man," is a jazz text.  As a jazz musician, he decided to see if jazz could exist in another medium–Eureka!  <\/p>\n

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

Most jazz compositions begin with an opening set of notes that set the theme for the song.  This, Bass Line, serves as the guide to the song and the improvisers.  Know the Bass Line, know the song.  If you get lost, just find the Bass Line.  Just think of the theme song to the old sit-com, Barney Miller…can you hear it’s opening notes…that’s a classic Bass Line.<\/p>\n

Ellison does the same thing with literature.  <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the prologue to "Invisible Man," he sets up the Bass Line…Red, White and Blues.  That is his description of life in America.  He plays it as an opening chord–arpeggio style (where the notes are played one at a time instead of simultaneously).<\/p>\n

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

Since the chord was in his dessert, he then spends the next few scenes playing the notes one at a time…red…white…blues.  (If you are not fully tracking, you need to get a copy of this book and read this, for it is brilliant!)  Next, in chapter one, he plays the chord again as he describes a woman with red cheeks, white skin, blue eyes…to drive the point home she has an American flag tattooed on her stomach.  Then he begins to improvise.  The joy of the chapter is trying to figure out how he is going to play these notes.  He plays them forwards, backwards and forward…Red, white, blue, white, red white, blue.  Then on the last time through red, white and he leaves the blue note out.  You are left wondering where it is, is it in the next chapter?  No, its in your gut, for after reading chapter one, you feel, blue.  Like I said it is brilliant, and my description is so inadequate.  Once he sets the Bass Line, he is free to bring it back when needed but also free to improvise on the source of the blues in America–Black and White.<\/p>\n

All of this to say–Jazz is more than music!  This being the case, what would a jazz theology look like in America?  Before one can ask that question, we must first discover what the Bass Lines are…<\/strong><\/u><\/em><\/p>\n

(my friend, Pete Gall, once gave me some great advice–don’t just read this book, get the audio version–you can actually hear the jazz in the literature)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ralph Ellison shows us that jazz is more than music.  His novel, "Invisible Man," is a jazz text.  As a jazz musician, he decided to see if jazz could exist in another medium–Eureka!  Most jazz compositions begin with an opening set of notes that set the theme for the song.  This, Bass Line, serves as…<\/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-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"\nJazz-More than Music (p3) - 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\/07\/jazzmore-than-m-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jazz-More than Music (p3) - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ralph Ellison shows us that jazz is more than music.  His novel, "Invisible Man," is a jazz text.  As a jazz musician, he decided to see if jazz could exist in another medium–Eureka!  Most jazz compositions begin with an opening set of notes that set the theme for the song.  This, Bass Line, serves as…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/07\/jazzmore-than-m-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-07-14T10:20:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/ralpheli.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jazz-More than Music (p3) - 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\/2006\/07\/jazzmore-than-m-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jazz-More than Music (p3) - 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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\/509","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=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}