When Jazz is Religion by Mark Anthony Neal

James Todd | Duke ChapelWhen Jazz is Religionby Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
From the adage “trying to make a way out of no way” to Al Green singing Thomas A. Dorsey’s “The Lord Will Make a Way Some How,”  Black religious vision in the United States found it's groundings in God’s caprice and the belief in individual agency, or what I’ll call social improvisation.  That so much of Black expressive culture is also informed by  the artistic practice of improvisation, most explicitly in Jazz, speaks to the agility and adaptivity for which Blackness is premised in the US.   
Jazz Vespers, a religious service-turned-performance piece held recently at Duke University Chapel, made explicit links between traditional Christian religious practices and musical improvisation, by wedding Vespers--an ancient Christian service of music, prayers and scripture--with Jazz improvisation.   
Luke A. Powery, the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University was joined by the John Brown (little) Big Band and vocalist Lois Deloatch in a performance that interspersed traditional Christian hymns like “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” Gospel originals like “Thank You, Lord” and classics such as “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The latter song opened the performance with the brass section marching to the front of the sanctuary, capturing the down-home spirit that Louis Armstrong brought to the song on his 1938 recording. James Todd | Duke Chapel
Throughout his career, Rev. Dr. Powery has been known for his integrating of the Black sermonic tradition and Black Spirituals--often breaking out in song during his own sermons--recalling a tradition, perhaps best exemplified by the late Rev. C.L. Franklin.  As Powery writes in his book Dem Dry Bones: Preaching, Death and Hope, “African American sermons have historically been known to be musical because music and speech are inseparable as African traditions treat songs like speech and speech like songs.” (23)
While  there are any number of ordained ministers who have successful singing careers contemporarily--think Donnie McClurkin--the linking of Black religious traditions to Jazz, is often forgotten.  The connection between the two traditions was, perhaps, most pronounced when Mahalia Jackson and Duke Ellington recorded Black, Brown, and Beige (1958).
It goes without saying the Jazz Vespers was intended to suggest the renewed possibilities of the marriage of Jazz and Black religious practice. As such the centerpiece of the evening was a recitation of “Premature Autopsies”--a secular sermon written by Stanley Crouch and commissioned by Wynton Marsalis for his 1989 recording Majesty of the Blues, which featured the oratory of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright.  
“Premature Autopsies”--written to reject the notion that “Jazz is Dead,” while establishing Duke Ellington as America’s most important composer--is a powerful reminder of the role of culture and music in Black resistance and survival. As Crouch writes, “It swung low and it swung upward and it wore wings. It knew that its shining armor would fit it well because it tried that armor on at the gate of slavery’s hell. It was the ethereal aerodynamics of musical art in America.” 
By the time Rev. Dr. Powery led the brass section out of the sanctuary with a rousing rendition of “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” it was clear that not only was Jazz alive and well but it still remains integral to Black religious practice.