Liner Notes

Trinity is a sacred concert for contemporary jazz ensemble that is my musical interpretation of our journey in God from the primordial to the eternal. I worked on the compositions between 2000 and 2005. Normally, musical ideas come to me and I play with them, while they evolve and then refine them. Trinity was no exception. However, the unusual aspect of the compositional process was that the overarching vision and sacred themes of the work preceded the composition of individual pieces and guided their creation. In view of this, several colleagues encouraged me to share the ideas that shaped Trinity and to identify the compositional ideas used to reflect sacred themes. I hesitated because it is usually my policy to let the music speak for itself. The less said the better. In this sense, it is my hope that these comments offer some insight into my process of composing, thereby enriching the interested listener’s understanding and appreciation of the work. 

Duke Ellington composed sacred concerts that he considered to be among his most important works. He was quoted as saying, “Every man prays in his own tongue and there is no language that God doesn’t understand.” Jazz (America’s original art form) was the language he used to pray. This impressed me about Ellington’s concerts and inspired me to compose my own. All too often people associate jazz exclusively with the secular, the earthy and some might say the sinful because jazz began and flourished in environments that were less than exemplary. However, the history of jazz reveals many illustrious moments where jazz also became an expressive vehicle for the sacred dimension of life. From New Orleans jazz funerals and jazz masses (e.g. Dave Brubeck’s) to inspired works like Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, jazz clearly has been used to invoke the sacred. Furthermore, many of its devotees and musicians understand jazz improvisation to be a spiritual enterprise. A thoroughgoing appraisal of this music reveals that jazz gives expression to the totality of life, both secular and sacred. The sacred and the sensual, the earthy and the sublime all find a place within this music. As Louis Armstrong once said, “What we play is life.”

Since I began composing Trinity in 2000, much has changed in our world: within politics, religion and society. My conception of the Trinity has not changed. I view the Trinity as a unique revelation that in its essence portrays God as a dynamism of love whose transforming grace allows us all to participate in the divine life. The structure of this work follows a progression of thematic moments from the primordial (from creation, or actually what preceded creation) to the eternal. Trinity is divided into three parts (each one dedicated to a person of the Trinity), with each containing three compositions. Intimations of the Trinity are found throughout. In Creation, the root movement of the chord changes is in third intervals (e.g. from E to C to Ab to F), and while Proclamation of the Unexpected is in 4/4, there are three measures of 3/4 near the beginning of the piece. Musical devices such as these are woven into the fabric of the work. Eight of the nine compositions have a piece that is its stylistic counterpart (i.e. Chaos and Sorrowful Mysteries, Creation and Resurrection, Exodus and Freedom, Incarnation and Pieta, with Proclamation of the Unexpected standing in the center on its own).

Part 1

 Chaos:  Three instruments (soprano saxophone, acoustic bass and piano) are assigned melodic fragments of the upcoming pieces  (all transposed to D minor), to play in the midst of what is largely a free piece. Having the fragments freely improvised suggests that the seeds of creation are within chaos. In many creation myths, chaos precedes creation. The piece is free of an established tempo or time signature, and is harmonically open to convey the mysterious expanse of the formless abyss referred to in the beginning of Genesis.

Creation:  Following the Genesis account of the seven days of creation, this composition was written in 7/4. Bonaventure wrote that creation is the imprint of the Trinity, such that the invisible features of God are made visible in creation. Therefore, the piece unfolds with bright (and exclusively) major sonorities that attempt to convey the shimmering luminescent quality of creation as it takes shape in the “hands” of the Creator. The sensuousness of the bass line (doubled by acoustic bass and piano) along with the varied timbres, colors and sonic splashes intend to depict God’s delight in creating the physical universe.

 Exodus: Moses guidance of former captives through the Red Sea to liberation is a story that resonates with jazz and its love of freedom. The unusually wide intervals and unexpected note choices were selected to surprise the listener and evoke a sense of the unexpected twists and turns of our spiritual path, as reflected in Exodus. The 11/4 time signature conveys a sense of the unsettledness of people on a journey. Finally, this piece utilizes a blues form (with alternating measures of 6/4 and 5/4), for the blues, unlike anything else, is able to capture emotions of those facing a hard life, with a mixture of anguish, playfulness and a thirst for freedom from forces of oppression.

Part 2

Incarnation: Traditionally, incarnation is depicted in terms of God’s descent from the heavens to the earth. The composition begins with a continuous descending bass line and attempts to steer a middle course between the tenderness of a lullaby and a more complex and cosmic understanding of the Incarnation. I empathize with the theologian Duns Scotus who was struck by the sheer beauty or “fit” of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is too wonderful to be credited simply to sin. Scotus thought that even if there wasn’t a Fall, there would be an Incarnation. Consequently, he saw it as the crown of God’s creation, as an act of divine love and not merely the remedy for sin.

Proclamation of the Unexpected: Like the prophets of old, Jesus of Nazareth delivered messages that were unanticipated. My vision of Jesus is one who is a bit of a wild card, proclaiming an unexpected message that while being good news, disorients his audience. For me the threefold message that he proclaimed, unprecedented or unexpected, was the unconditional love of God, the equality of persons and the proclamation that the kingdom of God is within. The composition is designed to explore the interplay of the expected and unexpected by means of the melody unfolding in a predictable manner with unpredictable harmonic accompaniment and rhythmic surprise. 

Sorrowful Mysteries: This composition is intensionally dark (utilizing polychords) with a blues melody, expressing pain and anguish. The sorrowful mysteries refer to Jesus Christ and the Way of the Cross, and yet the composition also gives expression to the suffering of the world and humanity, considering the mystery of why we suffer and pondering the weight and the meaning of it (with the consistent percussion being both the human heart and the Christic heart, which perseveres through suffering).

Part 3

 Pieta: . The third section which celebrates life in the Spirit, begins with Pieta. The combination of grief, loss and compassionate love portrayed in depictions of the Pieta has never ceased to touch me. This piece evolved from these sentiments with a trace of hope. For me, the Holy Spirit is present within hearts touched by compassion. Mary, whose loving arms embrace Jesus at birth and at death, demonstrates the type of unmistakable compassion that heals the world and brings peace.

Resurrection: Resurrection is said to be accomplished through the activity of the Spirit (“the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.”). The corresponding ascending bass line and harmonic movement seek to capture this sensibility, along with the escalating register of the horn section throughout the melody.  My view of the resurrection is as a trans-historical reality (happening beyond space and time). Through the composition I wish to suggest that resurrection starts subtly and quietly and builds momentum. As a gift of the Spirit, it is a pinnacle of the spiritual life, but in my humble estimation, it is not the end. That I reserve for Freedom, the delight of living fully and even ecstatically in God’s Spirit.

Freedom: The piece is propelled by a danceable New Orleans “second line” rhythm that signals a return to the beginning; a return to the beginnings of jazz as well as a return to the One from which we came. My conception of the return to the Eternal One is not that it is identical to pre-Creation (it does not erase history, does not nullify the world process or the unfolding of creation). What happens in time and space matters and has significance. Through the eyes of faith, the Spirit’s elevation of created reality into eternal life is a joyful mystery.  The composition is reminiscent of a Delta blues that is a joyous celebration of the delight of living in God’s Spirit.