FRANCIS SCHAEFFER, THE ARTS, AND MORE ABOUT JAZZ

Two major forces of change began to overlap around the beginning of the 16th century - the Renaissance and the Reformation.  The first to develop, the Renaissance, in the south, centered on humanism; the Reformation, in the north, countered with theism.  Despite their obviously opposing motives - 

“The men of the Reformation did learn from the new knowledge and attitudes brought forth by the Renaissance.  A Critical outlook, for example, toward what had previously been accepted without question was helpful. . . .  However, in contrast to the Renaissance humanists, they refused to accept the autonomy of human reason, which acts as though the human mind is infinite, with all knowledge within its realm.” ¹⁵⁷

This, of course, was due to Thomas Aquinas’s work, Summa Theologica (1267-73), which was to syncretize science with theology, thereby making reason supreme, despite what his intentions might otherwise have been.  Equating reasoning with intellectualism, this fundamental division between the Protestant development in the north and the then-center of Christianity, the Papacy, in the south contributed to attitudes, still with us today in America.  This lapped over into, among other things, the arts - causing music to suffer as an art among Protestants bent on distinguishing themselves from “culture-loving” Catholic intellectuals of the Renaissance.  Equating all with a God who always spoke to common understanding, a doctrine of commonness was imposed on music; that music, like democracy, must be common for the common.  This was, of course, based on a presupposition. 

“By presuppositions we mean. . . . the grid through which [an individual] sees the world. . . .  Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measles.” ¹⁵⁸

The presupposition in this case, and I am speaking now of extreme music-denigrators, is that everyone is common, i.e., unstudied; and that all music that is uncommon is manufactured without God’s authority.  What this does, as culture of the lowest common denominator inevitably gets lower, is to push creative, innovative musicians out of the Christian community, as is mostly the case. 

“Luther said in the preface to the Wittenberg Gesangbuch [songbook], ‘I wish that the young men might have something to rid them of their love ditties and wanton songs and might instead of these learn wholesome things and thus yield willingly to the good; also, because I am not of the opinion that all the arts shall be crushed to earth and perish through the Gospel, as some bigoted persons pretend, but would willingly see them all, and especially music, servants of Him who gave and created them.’” ¹⁵⁹

But, where are these young men of today to get that something  from inside the Christian community, to counteract that which attracts them outside it? 

“[C]reativeness . . . . is a part of the unique mannishness of man [whether Christian or not] as made in the image of God.  Man, in contrast to non-man, is creative.  A person’s world view, however, does show through . . . .  The world view determines the direction such creative stirrings will take, and how.” ¹⁶⁰

 “Music was not incidental to the Reformation’s return to biblical teaching; it was a natural outcome, a unity with what the Bible taught.  What the Reformation produced musically gives us a clear affirmation that the Reformation was indeed interested in culture.” ¹⁶¹

That is, living culture. 

“I am not at all saying that the art which the Reformation produced was in every case greater as art than the art of the south.  The point is that to say that the Reformation depreciated art and culture or that it did not produce art and culture is either nonsense or dishonest.” ¹⁶²

So, what happened?  Why am I having to write this book? 

Discussing modern music in his book How Should We Then Live?, Mr. Schaeffer gives short shrift to jazz, except to lament the influence of Debussy’s “fragmentation in music,” on “popular music and rock. . . . Even the music which is one of the glories of America - black jazz. . . . “ ¹⁶³ [my emphasis]. 

Several things in that perfunctory statement causes a deep reaction in me.  I respect Mr. Schaeffer, and remind myself that he is a philosophical theologian, a Christian teacher who has spent a major portion of his life in Switzerland, leaving the United States to go there in 1948; that he is a music fan, probably, and removed from its creative process; and that his special outreach has been to counsel the “disillusioned and puzzled young,” whose anthem music was usually rock and “folk” music.  But, also, that he is indebted to his “chief music researcher and her knowledge on the subject was invaluable.”  So, there is much that was not been brought to his attention.  That is why I am writing this book.  Francis Schaeffer is a voice of substance in a part of the world I am trying to reach.  So, I must address what he has written, and its implications. 

Now, that about “black jazz.”  It seems you never hear of “white classical.”  There seems to be a need among white society unaccustomed to black society to give an extra edge, a leg up to black accomplishment as though they needed it by being “naturally not too capable” in the first place.  You see an awards show on television for achievement; not just achievement, though, but “black” achievement - whoa!  And the show proceeds with a ninety-minute or two-hour presentation of racial exclusiveness.  It is on a par with that subtle, usually unwitting, kind of racism that pats black people on the head for doing unexpectedly well; benevolent, patronizing praise, that the African-American society itself evidently is carrying on.  Perhaps there could be a show specifically for “white” achievement.  What do you think?  How about one for white achievements in jazz?  And those once very popular dance party shows put on by Dick Clark - the white only and the black only.  Come on!  And the entertaining encouragement of color separation that occurred on the Dating Game.  Isn’t anybody going to say anything? 

Anyway, getting back to the issue.  This is not at all to say Mr. Schaeffer is a racist.  Quite the contrary.  He takes Christianity itself to task for having been so silent far too long on that issue.  But, it is in the attitude of Affirmative Action.  Certainly there is jazz that has a “black” stamp to it.  But, do they say, “Italian” classical?  No, they say classical music, and name the composer.  If jazz is “black” music, that is, an ethnic music, then why has it not developed independently in other places in the world where descendants of Africans are dominant?  It was forged in the cauldron that is America.  The black contribution is a major ingredient.  It is American music.  It is music.  It is music as made by jazz musicians. 

The “Even” in that sentence of Mr. Schaeffer’s - jazz to be fixed in time, forever childlike.  Simple music from simple people.  The fieldhands are in the field, the king is on his throne, and God is in His heaven - and don’t bother, the most excellent that music can hope to be has already been covered.  We know God’s plan, there will be no surprises for us.  Just give us what we are used to. 

This is not Mr. Schaeffer’s intent, I am certain.  But, there is a tendency among well meaning white Americans to throw anything into the guilt-pot in the way of compensation.  Of course, this is taken full advantage of, especially where suggestions of “superiority” might be forthcoming.  Unfortunately, and more often than not, where blacks are readily held to be superior, it is where it is either entertaining or where it does not matter - like in jazz, for example.  It is a modern variation of Rousseau’s “noble savage, as superior to civilized man.  If man is good by nature . . . . it follows that he stays like that as long as nothing foreign to him corrupts him.” ¹⁶⁴  So, let’s keep the jazz simple. 

Mr. Schaeffer seems also to include jazz as one of the vernacular popular musics.  His book was published in 1976.  If it had been written and published sometime in the 1950s, say, I could understand that developments occurring in the music might not have reached him in Switzerland.  But, in 1976 - well, that is simply ignorance.  Art is never ahead of its time; people are merely behind in their perceptions. 

In the 50s I was having to defend black genius.  Now I find myself defending white.  Unacknowledged or forgotten musical genius.  John Coltrane, an African-American, saxophonist much emulated, said how he had wanted to play like Stan Getz, a de-ethnicized Jewish-American.  Bill Evans, an Irish-American, influenced many African-American jazz musicians - Herbie Hancock of African descent, for one.  Other white innovators and remarkable performers in jazz are Lennie Tristano, an Italian-American pianist remarked as an important figure by Charlie Parker, the African-American innovator who established Bebop.  George Wallington, an Anglo-Saxon-American innovative pianist.  Herbie Nichols, a pianist with a personal artistic stamp.  Oscar Pettiford, an African-American who also claimed Indian ancestry, one of the most prominent contra-bassists in his time, the first to introduce the jazz use of cello, and to whom has been credited the introduction of steady, pizzicato 4/4 time on a single note (innovative for the period), said he got the idea from his American Indian heritage.  White and non-African genius has been given short shrift by black colleagues, and by white liberals, ostensibly, with no stake in the matter, bending themselves into strange shapes to establish their black-consciousness credentials. 

Jazz means different things to different people.  This can range from jazz in its popular forms to its more serious.  “Serious” means to characterize jazz which advances the form’s musical possibilities, market economics not being the first thing considered in the creation. 

Jazz, as with most of the arts, is a process of working from the sensory to the mind and back again.  It’s a visceral technique of producing notes, which entails the eliding of metric time.  All jazz does this, and the better jazz does it with greater harmonic complexity.  Harmony gives depth to music.  Greater musical depth allows for greater expression of the human condition. 

Thought derived from the sensory.  For instance, most popular forms of jazz rely on “groove” playing, riding without a lot of thought on simple chord changes over a steadily repeated rhythmic figuration. 

Working from the sensory to mind is likely to be disquieting to a conservative Christian.  In the modern western world, we are accustomed to idealize mind over matter.  The reverse seems counter-productive for “progress.”  Matter has been viewed as evil.  Ironically, the western world strives to control that “evil” for what  it can get us, through rational intelligence. 

“We are nature’s unique experiment to make the rational intelligence prove itself sounder than the reflex.  Knowledge is our destiny.  Self-knowledge, at last bringing together the experience of the arts and the explanation of science, waits ahead of us.” ¹⁶⁵

Written by a Darwinian scientist, Jacob Bronowski, it suggests that to know oneself is entirely of the mind.   Which is to separate one’s self from feeling, the sensory, which would include the “reflex,” that is, automatic response.  One’s self is an entirety of being, not just mind.  Being includes spirit as well, which often indicates itself through the sensory - feeling at a supraliminal level - just the sort of thing pooh-poohed by rationalists.  It is interesting that the initial stimulus of reflex is never dealt with by rationalists, except, perhaps, to refer to its spontaneousness, as in abiogenesis - the animate originating from the inanimate. 

The art of the improvisator can begin with the mind.  But, as the best jazz goes, though mind is often the initial stimulus, the jazz improvisating process is as response from the sensory through mind and shaped by the character and training of the improvisator.  This is also the experience of the better classical composers who, while not necessarily being improvisators, do improvise until they reach that “aha” moment (sensory satisfaction) and the work becomes fixed on the page.  The supraliminal, that is, existing or operating above the threshold of consciousness, is often where the greatest art is made, and probably explains how there can be such a gulf between an intimidated Western Christianity hungry for “scientific” verification and the immaterial “reasoning” of innovative art.  It takes them a century to finally accept a logical innovation that angered their progenitors of several removes.  It is the shock of the new, not the thing itself.  Creative artists are very much of their time, never ahead.  It is the thoughtless, those moving dreamily along fixed courses of living, who are not aware of their own time.  Observing the innovative arts is to see what future generations are going to accept as normal.  To ignore innovative art is to be always behind, unable to lead, to have little control. 

Religions throughout the world, east and west, feel threatened by artistic innovations.  The “Hare Krisnas” and Christian revivalists alike have that common ground between them.  It is not piety to God but piety to religion that underlies most antipathy to art. 

Believers in Christ understand that religious practice is an accommodation to faith, not an end in itself.  It is familiar form to invoke a congregational memory of what our faith is all about.  Our faith is in each having a personal relationship directly with God by way of the Son.  This is reflected in our relationships to one another.  Being offered the advantage of a direct connection to God, a believer in Christ has the additional responsibility of acting Godly to others.  In a sense, God exists in each of us only as we act towards another.  No priests, no “aids to worship,” no ritual, and no special arts.  Just what works by way of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  Thus the prohibition against making judgments. 

JOB’S PIANO - A PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

“Is it possible to enlist the fine arts on the side of truth, or virtue or piety, or even of honor? . . . From the dawn of history, they have been prostituted to the service of superstition and despotism.” ¹⁶⁶

And, since the Victorian period, to mercantilism.  Christian action has been reaction, looking to what is popular for its direction - the “Hit Parade” and award ceremonies - which has been to follow rather than to lead developments.  Francis Schaeffer points out how we exist in a post-Christian world, and to the need to be revolutionary. 

From all that’s been written in this lengthy treatise, it should be clear that there has long been need for performing arts centers in places throughout the United States that feature innovative works able to stand within the Christian ethos.  “Job’s Piano” is a working name given to this proposed performance art facility. 

Job’s Piano is a proposed network of secular, professionally run, multi-discipline centers for the performing arts and training, stressing the creatively innovative - especially in jazz and 20th century composition and their corollaries in dance and theatre - and allowing for Christian sensibility.

As a cultural sanctuary for the Christian innovator, it could serve as a catalyst within the general community for creative art and entertainment alternatives.  Initially, Job’s Piano would most likely need to receive its financial base through grants and donations, but would eventually be in a position to pay its own way.  

It’s important to understand how the Center should be secular - a performance venue for works of all sorts, as well as a training ground for developing artists, with classes, workshops, apprenticeships.  It’s administration and direction should be in the hands of persons qualified in the various disciplines.  Works to be presented need not be specifically or ostensibly Christian, either in theme or purport.  The only thing to be guarded against is work that mocks or denigrates or grossly mis-characterizes Jesus Christ and his teachings. 

Included in the format will be musics of pan-tonality and extended chromaticism - improvised (mainstream and neo-mainstream jazz), composed (20th-Century), and other innovative musics; spoken-word and new music (performance art); sung word (chant) or voice and new music (song); spoken word (in musical context); small musical theater (including dance). 

Now, it’s not to be expected that the more advanced music is to be part of every project or performance.  There are over 300 years of music still vital to us in this time, to be studied, utilized, and drawn upon.  It only matters that the more advanced musics be near or at the forefront of the Center’s activities.  Mozart et al have their venues in sufficient quantity.  The Center’s ideal is to introduce new music and related corollaries, as well as worthy music that’s been historically overlooked.  This will be its greatest service, one which will distinguish the Center. 

Besides having theater space, the center will offer a lending library and bookstore, a reading-room with tables for quiet social boardgames - chess, cards, scrabble, etc.  A coffeeshop. 

A project could be to try out afternoon performances for lunchtime audiences.  Live performing only, never any pre-recorded background music.  This serves a double purpose.  It affords low-stress performance opportunities for student players, and encourages live over canned music.  So spoiled are we with the quantity and availability of recorded music, our senses are become blasé from the steady drone of its presence.  The once special occasion of music is now common as air.  People are becoming unconsciously trained to not listen in order to get on with their business. 

As a magnet it will offer occasions for the creatively aspiring - usually young and having had little experience to the contrary - to see that art to be innovative need not be shocking, revolting, profane, or even secular - who, in order to develop, would otherwise have only the customary theaters, bars, and other milieus not so receptive to that notion. 

A place where tradition meets the unexpected, Job’s Piano will afford opportunity to broaden an artist’s musical horizons without need for the aspiring artist to leave the Christian environ in order to experience and learn from the innovative. 

The modern penchant is for result over process.  Sometimes that works.  But, it should not be the standard.  Mainly, because to only seek result is to forget process.  We see that in the electronic music environs, “whose aim is to secure the results without imposing the tasks of labor, to arrive at ends by a dexterous dodging of means . . . an outside remedy for an inward defect.” ¹⁶⁷

The quote, referring to the literary results to be gained of Roget’s Thesaurus, applies perfectly to what we see of the electronic music industry, where engineers, able to control the means, make the music.  Compare that to what Simon Winchester says Whipple implied, that “Roget never had an original thought in his life.  He was a mere classifier of the existing order . . . a noble dullard who should no more have been let loose on the language than a civil engineer should be let loose on the west door of Chartres, or an industrial chemist on the manufacture of Haut-Brion.”  And, 

“‘Dr. Peter Mark Roget, who never happened on a verbal felicity. . . rushes about, book in hand, to tempt unthinking and unimpassioned mediocrity into the delusion that its disconnected glimpses of truths never fairly grasped, and its faint movements of embryo aspiration which never broke their shell, can be worded by his specifics into creative thought and passion.’” ¹⁶⁸

Apply the above to electronic gadgetry in music, and we have our modern situation.  This is a result, perhaps, from the kind of virtuous materialism in America, as de Tocqueville said, which enervates the soul.  Passion for the thing, result over process. 

As a gathering place, Job’s Piano will also be where professionals can make critical contacts.  Professionals who are Christian often find themselves in a quandary and shut out from important contacts for failing to join in with inappropriate lifestyles all too common in the arts and entertainment worlds. Worth noting is “Queer As Folk,” Showtime’s at-the-time anticipated hit series.  The straight actors, to keep their jobs, were required in scenes to make out with gay actors. 

“Scott Lowell, who plays Ted, says his Pentecostal parents aren’t sure what to think.  ‘They ask about the show, but I don’t give specifics.’  Try as they might, some of the straight actors can’t get used to making out with men, even though it’s not PC to admit it. . . ‘What do you do?’ says Chris Potter, . . ‘Soon as they say cut, you spit.  You want to go to a strip bar or touch the makeup girls.  You feel dirty.  It’s a tough job,’ he says.” ¹⁶⁹

Homosexuality is not the issue, but the inappropriate force exerted upon the economically vulnerable, even if it were heterosexuality. 

Job’s Piano can also look into how it can assist qualified artists who, for no other reason than that of sociologic law and/or indexing, cannot get grants.  It can also book artists and projects developed at the Center into outside locations. 

Another activity is to produce audio and video tapes and CDs documenting live performances, for sale and broadcast, and for discussions among artists, churchmen, apologists, and others to study the relationship of innovative musical arts and corollaries to Christian faith.  Job’s Piano is home to music’s research and development. 

There are other needs the center could meet as well, such as publishing music literature.  Classical academia has a process and place by which unpublished intellectual work can receive a limited publishing, at least in part, in order to disseminate knowledge that may be new to the rigors of peer review.  There is no forum or journal for such in the jazz community.  A few years ago, for instance, I completed a treatise-length manuscript., one purpose of which was to show how it is possible to approach atonal improvisation in a scholarly way, which could not find a publisher, yet a subject asked of teachers, to which most could not satisfactorily give an answer.  Certainly, being able to offer what is not available anywhere else would help to distinguish the Center. 

America invented the teen, further spreading the contagion of its message of immediate gratification.  Great art may not always appeal on first hearing.  There are many, many outstanding examples of that.  Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, for instance.  The audience jeered and walked out at its premier.  Now, become the soundtrack for Disney’s Fantasia, it is loved worldwide, even in America. 

God, working through us, is here as we are here for each other.  This applies to the sort of stewardship necessary for the finer arts.  Youth, by its nature, cannot understand the province of stewardship.  Nor would its managers, agents, and entertainment attorneys.  And, as this treatise has been underscoring, neither do most American churches when it comes to the arts. 

The likes of Job’s Piano across the nation would help to foster leadership in the arts and their corollaries, to provide the paradigms that eventually influence all the arts, ultimately even those in the marketplace that affect the young.