Combining their love of jazz with their love of God, some Central Coast musicians are challenging the notion of traditional worship. Jazz Divine offers a monthly jazz worship service that serves up a non-denominational message with some traditional mainstream jazz performed by talented musicians.
Jazz Divine consists of Geoff Moran on drums, Ed Hite on guitar, Paul Barthel on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Brendan Statom on bass. The group got its start two years ago when Moran and Hite began discussing their affinity for jazz along with their individual faiths.
“It’s about the way we feel—for the passion for our music and the passion for our faith, to bring people in and offer them another way to get close or understand the Lord in a way that allows the music to open their hearts to do it,” Hite said.
The Santa Maria resident has built a reputation as a jazz guitarist with his own group Eloquent Quarter. He’s also a member of Central City Swing. He’s recorded for PCPA and the Santa Maria Civic Theatre and has played with the Santa Maria Symphony. A guitar and music theory teacher, Hite is also a solo jazz guitarist freelancing throughout the Central Coast.
Barthel was a member and leader of the Cal Poly Jazz Ensemble. After college, he continued playing jazz with various groups, including Central City Swing. Statom is a Solvang musician who plays in the Santa Barbara Symphony, for PCPA, and with several jazz groups.
Moran, who helped found the group, is a retired U.S. Army chaplain and Ordained Disciples of Christ minister. He’s played in jazz groups, big bands, and musical theater orchestras for most of his life.
Jazz Divine offers more of a traditional mainstream jazz with a lot of standards like Miles Davis or Duke Ellington rather than smooth jazz or the jazz-rock fusion of the ’70s and ’80s. Attendees can hear songs like “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” but there are also hymnals reworked in a jazz style. Jazz Divine often plays hymnal favorites like “Amazing Grace” or “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine” in a medium swing or at a bossa nova clip.
“We do ‘All Creations of Our God and King,’ and we do it as a samba,” Moran said. “We apply traditional elements of jazz to the hymnal, so people can be singing the words they probably grew up with but singing it in a new fresh way. Rhythmically and with the jazz chords, it just breathes new life into it.”
Hite said reharmonizing hymnals is a delicate process, but it’s not hard to do. Careful selection of songs matters.
“We really want to reharmonize what’s already there. There are some hymnals that have come down through the ages that are better left as they are,” Hite said. “So far, what we’ve been able to do has worked.”
Moran said he enjoys being able to combine his two passions. He’s always been a jazz enthusiast, having played in jazz groups since junior high school. Then, in 1968, he attended a jazz vespers service at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New York City. It was something that hit the right chord with Moran, bringing together his two favorite interests: Christianity and jazz music. The jazz vespers at St. Peter’s remains the oldest jazz vespers service. However, Moran surmised New York City could support it; it had the jazz musicians and enough people interested in such an event.
“Music is a motivator for a lot of people. Even people who are not musicians, they have the radio going or headphones on,” Moran said. “So this is a way to offer an opportunity for people to worship in another way.”
When he met with Hite a couple of years ago, they decided to give it a go here and see if they could spark some interest. So far, it has.
The service isn’t as liturgical as a Catholic one. Moran draws heavily on his military training as a chaplain, for which he often delivered a non-denominational service to a wide variety of congregants. For the Jazz Divine services, Moran said he tries to hit in the center of a wide variety of expressions. In fact, the various players themselves belong to different churches, with Moran an elder in First Christian Church of Lompoc and a frequent guest pastor at area churches, Hite an active member of the Orcutt Presbyterian Church, and Barthel an active member of Peace Lutheran Church in Lompoc.
Moran likens the Jazz Divine jazz worship service to talk radio using the songs as talking points for a spiritually based message.
“That’s not to say we’re just throwing God out the window and having a jazz concert,” he said. “We’re just making it more inviting to a wider variety of people.”
Hite described it as a way to introduce a wider generational range of people to worship.
“It’s not about us when we’re up there; we’re using our gifts to try to help people feel more comfortable when they walk into a church setting,” Hite said.
Though the service is spiritual, group members say the intent isn’t to compete with or replace other churches. Jazz Divine often “exports” its service to churches that want an occasional bit of jazz in their worship and welcomes invitations from churches of any denomination.
Arts Editor Shelly Cone wonders if any of the apostles were good at scatting. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 19-26, 2012.