An interesting take on Kyrie IX
  • NihilNominisNihilNominis
    Posts: 1,023
    Vince Guaraldi's Jazz Mass

    I know what I think of this liturgically (please, no), but I think my jury's still out musically, as well.

    What do you think of it, as music qua music?

    I can see the modality of chant really appealing to a jazzman.
    Thanked by 1Chrism
  • francis
    Posts: 10,825
    I like jazz ... in the bar with a single malt scotch... please don’t bring the flask to mass
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Chrism
    Posts: 872
    Regarding your last line, having grown up with jazz, the first time I really listened to chant I thought it must be improvised. The note choices just seemed so, well, spirited. I assumed the chanters were using hand signals to call the notes. :-)

    As for the Guaraldi-- it stimulates and conflates my nostalgia for Peanuts with a similarly comfortable, fuzzy, nostalgic feeling for liturgical texts that hard experience has taught me is the wrong emotion for prayer. Nonetheless, it produces pleasant chemicals in the mind. Thanks for sharing.

    As we have already admitted that it is liturgically inappropriate, I suppose it is would be fair to evaluate Guaraldi against, for example, Beethoven or Mozart's non-liturgical Mass settings. A few surprising findings: The length of Guaraldi is more suitable for an actual Mass. The vocal part, also, is more chant-like, in some parts recto tono.

    The underlying blue note chords are, well, interesting - I don't know what I think.

    But the percussive piano and the drum are where the real action is taking place, and they steal the show from the vocals, whereas Beethoven and Mozart exalt the text with repetitions, etc., and the instruments build to the text. If you're going to write an artistic Mass, the words still need to be the focus. If there are examples of well-regarded orchestral or organ Masses where the instruments are the stars, I am unaware.

    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    I listened to a bit into Gloria. It wasn't as awful as I had expected - only utterly dumb and banal. I have, regrettably, heard what similar jazz people to 'to' Mozart, etc. If people would stay to their own genres instead of imposing it upon others it would be commendable. Though i never choose to listen to jazz there is some jazz that I enjoy if I happen to hear it because of its similarity to improvised baroque music. Other jazz is as disturbing as rock music.

    What makes this sort of thing an absurd appropriation and disfigurement of another (sacred at that!) genre by people who probably think they are being clever is its unbelievable lack of appreciation or respect for another spiritual genre for what it is, and the purposeful savaging of that sacred musical language.

    I also thought of the well-known Missa Luba, which is a really nice example of a native musical language admirably put to use in the expression of the mass ordinary. It would, though, be absolutely out of place anywhere but in its native culture. Nor does it disfigure ritual chant. Jazz people should take this to heart.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    If you're going to write an artistic Mass, the words still need to be the focus.


    Or an artistic anything else, for that matter.
  • LarsLars
    Posts: 127
    It's quite nice. Certainly not the worst I've heard in the church. Far better than most of modern sentimental 'Adele' type music you hear nowadays.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Certainly not the worst I've heard in the church


    Reason # 45678 for the existence of the CMAA.
    Thanked by 1Lars
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    What does this conjure up in the mind?
    1) The sacred precincts of a church?
    2) Or, perhaps, a dimly lit bar or tavern with maybe a disco thing twinkling as it whorls above while people enjoy their cocktails as the place is filled with a subdued murmur of conversation?
    No. 2 seems the obvious metier. This is the provenance of such a genre. Why would any sensitive or spiritually aware person think of this as mass music?
    Thanked by 1Schönbergian
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Why would any sensitive or spiritually aware person think of this as mass music?

    Because 1967. Perhaps the peak year of 1960s wishful thinking.

    In Guaraldi's favor, he was apparently a grateful Catholic.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
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