I have a hunch that the Holy Spirit plays jazz trombone. After thirty years of creating jazz for the church, I’ve noticed how syncopated music thaws frozen hearts, unites fractured communities, and invites dead bones to dance. As a working pastor, I have discovered from both pulpit and piano bench how this musical art form can renew Christian faith, spark creativity, open us to the life-giving work of God, and engage us in a life of justice.

I intend to create a coherent and substantive book that explores the deep connections between jazz and the spiritual life. The research plan is to dive deeply into musicians’ archives, interview working musicians and sensitive theologians, read extensively, and visit sites where music is in the air and communities are being renewed. The project will build upon years of study and research, lecturing and teaching, recording and performing, all in service to the church.

It is a critically important time to explore the connections between jazz and the life of the Spirit. Congregations are withering from cultural frostbite. American life bears the unhealed wounds of racial injustice. Hope seems tenuous. Yet jazz is rigorously alive. I want to name this vitality as a sign of God’s ongoing Pentecost and explicate some ways that the soul of church and culture can be empowered and renewed through theological reflection on the living tradition of jazz.