Jazz in Adventist Schools?
The following introduction along with a reprinted article from Adventist Today were published in the summer/Autumn 2008 issue of Notes, a publication of the International Adventist Musicians Association.
The introduction and proliferation of jazz ensembles in Adventist schools in the last two decades has generated intense debate at all levels within the church. While for some incorporating it into school music programs in Adventist schools represents a delayed acknowledgement of an important and uniquely American music, for others it represents a final and total abrogation of responsibility in upholding music standards that have prevailed for decades. While some enjoy listening to and playing its driving and syncopated rhythms and spirited melodies, others are deeply troubled by its past associations and impact on morals and behavior.
Starting with its tawdry origins as music associated with immorality, and continuing with its introduction to the U.S. public by dance bands in about 1912, jazz became the rage of the country and eventually was the engine that drove the Roaring Twenties. Adventist schools from the 1920s and on struggled with student interest in this type of music and its successor, swing band music. The experience of one school, Walla Walla College, now University, was typical of that of other Adventist colleges. While the school band had been in trouble at the turn of the century for playing ragtime music along with its marches, jazz became an even more troubling challenge.
In 1923, the college yearbook, The Mountain Ash, entered the fray with an extended story by Evelyn Parr James about Marie, an imaginary student who had come to the campus with "questionable" interests in music. Over the course of the year and experiences in the school orchestra and choir, her tastes were changed. The final paragraph reads as follows:
The day after the last orchestra concert, Louise found her roommate seated on the campus looking dreamily away toward the distant mountains which lay mistily blue in the afternoon sunshine. Marie caught her breath with something like a sob. "I don't want to leave here!" she said huskily. "At first it seemed almost like a prison. I longed for the amusements I had left, and what I would have given for some real jazz music. Then I joined the orchestra and chorus. You know how I love music, but I never before appreciated anything worthwhile. Now it seems to me that I never want to hear jazz again. I have learned to recognize the beautiful in good music, and somehow it changed my life, so I want, - well," she gave an embarrassed laugh, "I want my life to be a - a - symphony instead of a ragtime tune."
By the late 1930s, a number of student groups had been formed and disbanded. One group survived the 1938-1939 school year, an orchestra led by F.E.J. Harder, later an educator at the General Conference level. In a photo of the group, it looks like a 1930s swing band, its members attired in white dinner jackets and seated behind dance band music stands. He later described its music as "semi-popular." Another student group, similar to others on campus euphemistically called "pep bands," was the Associated Student Band that existed in the late 1940s, only to end in 1950 with an ultimatum from the president to one its leaders, a theology major, to disband the group or be expelled.
And other student groups continued for the rest of the century. Today, WWU has a jazz band, a department sponsored group that is now in its second year. It has been controversial, even becoming a story on the front page of the local newspaper.
Several Adventist colleges and universities as well as academies now offer jazz/swing band ensembles as part of their music curriculum. The following article from Adventist Today talks about the current controversy and how it is part of a larger historical and present-day issue that affects not only campus life but the church at large. Like the issue of worship music, the trend is a difficult one to discuss and resolve, particularly during an era of rapidly evolving changes in society and music.
One of IAMA's purposes is to be a forum in which issues like these can be discussed. We invite you to share with readers your thoughts about the offering of jazz in Adventist schools.
Dan Shultz, Editor
Mad About MUSIC ~ What Else Is New?
Vanessa Sanders
A current clash over jazz bands is the latest in a long line of Adventist music controversies.
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oma Linda Academy Principal Brent Baldwin feels caught in the middle of an age-old controversy. "I’m in a sticky situation," he said. "I have a very conservative base to work with and a very liberal base to work with."It’s nothing new. Baldwin is fielding opposing views regarding the Loma Linda Academy jazz band. Although Baldwin says only one person, retired Adventist educator Lyle Hamel, has complained to him directly about the band, several people have expressed their negative input indirectly.
Hamel and others blame the initiation of jazz bands at campuses like Loma Linda Academy on university jazz bands— specifically Southern Jazz Ensemble of Southern Adventist University—for recruiting academy students to play jazz. "Why does Southern have such a program, and why are they permitted to bring reproach to all of us who have served this fine university?" said Hamel, who taught and directed music at Southern from 1959-1964.
K
en Parsons, director of Southern Jazz, doesn’t take responsibility for the recruitment of academy performers. "To say that ‘SAU made us start this group’ is absurd," Parsons said. "Every academy principal is the captain of his ship, and if he feels an ensemble such as this is contrary to the mission and standards of the school, he’s certainly within his rights and powers to prevent one. Whenever we perform for a school, I make sure the principal understands ahead of time the nature of our presentation. I’ve never had one refuse us."Baldwin didn’t refuse. He welcomed Southern Jazz with open arms, and so did his students.
"When they saw [Southern Jazz], the kids got really excited," Baldwin said. "They were saying, ‘We want one, Mr. Baldwin!’" Baldwin saw a need for a small band that would easily fit into smaller churches and would have more flexibility for community performances, so he gave his permission for such a band to form; however, he points out that calling the group a "jazz band" is a misnomer.
"When they go to churches and play, do you think they play jazz music? No," Baldwin said. The band plays worship music for church services and a mix of jazz music and big band for community performances.
"If it was strictly a jazz band," Baldwin said, "I would have an issue because the older generation in the Adventist Church views jazz as negative."
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ruce Ashton fits this category. A semi-retired associate professor of music at Southern, Ashton says, "Jazz was the 1920’s ‘F’ word. It was a street word for ‘dirty sex.’ There must have been something about the style of the music to make people think that way about it and call it that. Jazz is music with an attitude—with an ‘in your face’ style."But not everyone holds this view. Parsons says he established Southern Jazz at the request of Dr. Scott Ball, dean of the School of Music, and "with the blessing of the university administration."
"The group has been very positively received, in general," Parsons said. "I know there are those who do not enjoy jazz, and some that do not feel it appropriate music for a Christian group, but I have received very little negative input."
A History of Division
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hat is considered appropriate music has always been an issue in the Adventist Church. Some call certain music styles rebellion against Christian living and don’t believe they bring anyone closer to God. Others argue that performing such music is either neutral or a way of delivering the gospel message to those who don’t know Christ. Most Christian artists, such as the controversial Adventist jazz vocal group Take 6, claim this as the reason for their sound."We’ve accomplished what we set out to do, and that’s to reach people in all walks of life," Take 6 member Claude V. McKnight III told the New York Times. "It has never made sense to just sing in church or to people who supposedly already have the message. You take it out into the . . . streets to the people who really need it."
T
he Heritage Singers’ founders Max and Lucy Mace have a similar purpose and consider the contemporary-sounding group a ministry. But many Adventists didn’t view the group in the same way, criticizing them in the early 1970s."As in anything new, some people were not willing to accept change at first," Lucy Mace said. "Max had a dream to have a larger group with tight harmony and within the group have a quartet. We weren’t criticized so much for our music. It was more because we had a guitar and bass guitar on stage."
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roups like The Heritage Singers and Take 6 are a present-day reflection of groups past like The Wedgwood Trio, later called The Wedgwood after group member Don Vollmer quit because of his spiritual conviction when the group changed from offering a simple folk-gospel style to a more edgy, complex sound in 1969."To me, the new music compromised and betrayed its message. I had no doubt that many people would enjoy it, but I seriously wondered about its power to uplift and convert," Vollmer told Marilyn Thomsen in her book Wedgwood: Their Music, Their Journey.
Besides The Wedgwood’s intra-group struggles, the Adventist Church rejected the group’s music about 1973, closing doors to performances and putting an end to their career despite their large and mostly young fan base. Their last album, Dove, was recalled a month after its release when Adventist stores banned its sale.
"A longtime friend told us that years later he found Dove in the bargain bin at an Adventist Book Center," group member Bob Summerour told Thomsen.
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f course, today the Wedgwood music that was once banned is often considered harmless and innocent. That is, unless you’re in agreement with Louis Torres, vice president of Mission College of Evangelism.The lead bass player for Bill Haley and the Comets in 1967-68, the young Torres was convicted the music he was playing was not pleasing to God. "So I dropped [the Comets] in spite of the fact that my pastor tried to encourage me to just change the words," Torres said. He holds the same conviction today.
"What Bill Haley and the Comets began has contributed to regressing back to the primitive jungle beats utilized to incite war, sex, or ecstasy," he said. "It is sad the church forgets that God does not change just because the world changes."
Behind School and Conference Doors
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s new pop-culture sounds rise under a Christian label, and as old, classical jazz surfaces within the Adventist school system, about the only thing that doesn’t change is the disagreement. Music, not just love, has always been a battlefield.Even the music at the 2000 General Conference in Toronto was controversial; people who liked or disliked the use of drums, rhythms, and eclectic sounds were split seemingly down the middle. While some deemed the music cultural, others thought it an apostasy. Some walked out when certain music was played, according to Ruth Ann Wade, associate professor of music at Montemorelos University.
Some thought Adventist theologian Samuele Bacchiocchi was cleansing the sanctuary from rock music at the 2000 Toronto Session when, in the exhibit hall, he jumped onto the podium and ripped the microphone from a performing group, Valor. "He grabbed one of their mikes and began a tirade against ‘this rock music.’ The ABC manager had to come out and retrieve the microphone," attendee John McLarty said.
Although this may have been interpreted by some as Bacchiocchi’s scorn of rock music, Bacchiocchi said it had nothing to do with the style of music being played.
"The issue was not the kind of music that they were playing, but the fact that the band set up their platform and played full blast next to our booths where we were trying to communicate with our customers," Bacchiocchi said. "Three different booth owners asked them to turn down the volume, but nothing happened. Since they were stubborn . . . I walked onto the platform and told them to go elsewhere to play their music."
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ive years after that conference, new guidelines toward a Seventh-day Adventist Philosophy of Music were written and released by the Autumn Council of the General Conference Committee. Compared with preceding music guidelines released in 1972, the 2005 guidelines on music are less specific, more generalized, and suggest recognizing music from other cultures.One thing the 1972 guidelines include that the 2005 guidelines leave out is "Certain musical forms, such as jazz, rock, and their related hybrid forms, are considered by the Church as incompatible with these principles."
Instead, the latter guidelines say that "secular music is music composed for settings other than the worship service or private devotion. It speaks to the common issues of life and basic human emotions. It comes out of our very being, expressing the human spirit’s reaction to life, love, and the world in which the Lord has placed us. It can be morally uplifting or degrading. Although it does not directly praise and adore God . . . it could have a legitimate place in the life of the Christian."
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hat each individual considers "legitimate" secular music and how they define it, and which kinds of music should be allowed within Adventist schools and churches, is an issue that, no matter how fine-tuned our guidelines are, will always march to the beat of its own drummer.Reprinted with permission from the January/February 2008 issue of
Adventist Today