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I first heard Robert Glasper when we were both students at Houston's High School for Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA) about ten years ago.

Since then, he's gone on to make a name for himself and was the subject of this article in the Washington Post in 2012: "Pianist finds the right notes between hip-hop and jazz".

This article is the source of the quotation that appeared in my post from yesterday ("Glasper, Robert - music in the present"). Here it is in full:

“I think everybody stopped trying to outdo each other and everybody started paying homage,” he says. “I love all my jazz masters and my elders that came before me, but I always say that people have killed the living to praise the dead. It’s like, ‘Yo, I’m here.’”

Reading it in full gave me more food for thought, especially about music in the church.

It's very easy to "pay homage" to all the great music of the past. And in fact I think many music lists of many churches fail to move past the expected and the very familiar.

While the "Yo, I'm here" sentiment has limited value in the liturgy, there is something to be said for forging a way ahead that pays homage to the past but also moves the conversation forward.

Music can't remain static. The repertoire should not remain the same. If the Holy Spirit is still in operation today then fresh voices must be given airtime.

Finding a balance between the established canon and new voices should be a struggle in jazz just as it should be in church music. The two should be held in creative tension.

We in the church can learn a lot from jazz, a form of music whose very being thrives on fast-paced real-time creativity, conversation, and improvisation.

The modern "symphonic" approach to church music, first found in the music of Charles Villiers Stanford and then redefined by Herbert Howells, continues to provide a foundation for much of the sacred music being written now.

So, the ultimate tension is that "paying homage" is itself a way forward.

Labels: Howells, HSPVA, improvisation, Jazz, Robert Glasper, Stanford