ImproviseThink in tonguesShe suggests what may be called a jazz cadence for Christian theology. Such a theological poetics and aesthetics would need to reimagine tradition (I would do this in the direction of a scriptural discourse of “covenant”), it would need to think in tongues, it would have to exist pentecostally in ways akin to what I’ve talked about here, and finally it would have be Christian in a way that drinks deeply from the wells of love and not from the the noxious waters of fear—fear of loosing “our” culture. It must be a Christianity that refuses mastery.
-- J. Kameron Carter, Duke Divinity School BreatheEsperanza’s music enacts or is predicated upon communion or the intimacy of languages and peoples. Her art suggests that predefined or predetermined cultural definition, that which we often imagine as preceding any social engagement, is an illusion or better a leap of faith, the leap needed for domination to work and for the oppressed to comply. Identity arises within the situation at hand. And so, Esperanza’s art (and we see this especially in Chamber Music Society) rests on the situation of love insofar as it rests on the “society” of intimates, those who gather together to breath in and breath into the music. In this sense, Esperanza offers us the art of inspiration and conspiracy (in-spiratio means breathe in and blow into, while con-spiratio means breath with or together) or the inspiring and conspiring of a new art, a new aesthetic, a new social form or reality.
-- J. Kameron Carter, Duke Divinity School Hence, the genius of Esperanza’s art and how it can help us reimagine theology’s art.In Esperanza’s art jazz, less as a “tradition” and more as a malleable idiom one lives within, means surprise, or the possibility of the unforeseen, that can arise because of deep commitment to the music, the art, and the craft.
-- J. Kameron Carter, Duke Divinity School |
Love peopleLove the EarthShe's in danger, too
Human danger Lone canary nesting near a runway whispers Earthly strangers Mighty jet planes fly you casually glancing O'er seas and mountains Too high to see this dying bird singing her swan song No one hears it through the din as engines burn Stars across the sky Watch the caveman fly Taking in the sights Breathing out things die Mother nature Dying to reach you hasn't heard from you in Ages since when her young children Listened to her songs with awe and reverence Now adolescents growing fast and eating her heart No more thank you's no good mornings Earthly dangers What was once your modest home now Swarms with cars and poison Brown skies noise and playing with toys that kill you family Blowing up the mountains foul oil fountains Watch the caveman burn through the sky The last canary screams her final song and dies while Towards her nest crawl more sprawling towns What burns up must come down Human nature Scrambling late to curb hard consequences Young mankind so much potential Time to heed Earth's guidance Though our science brought us to novel heights We must come back to mother First she'll ground us the she'll whisper You were my most endangered species She's in danger, too -- Esperanza Spalding Esperanza Spalding was born on October 18, 1984 in Portland, Oregon. Raised by her mom, Spalding was homeschooled for much of her childhood and, inspired by Yo-Yo Ma, taught herself how to play violin. She joined her home state’s Chamber Music Society as a youth, reaching a concertmaster position by her teens.
-- Esperanza Spalding biography |
Transcend GenresConnect with othersEsperanza Spalding’s intimate and passionate merger of instrument and song evokes a joining not unlike communion, becoming one body with musical forebears (Eddie Harris and Miles Davis), musical community in the present (Bobby McFerrin, the band, the audience) and the depth of her connection to God whose creative gifts overflow as healing and joy in the midst of it all.
-- Christian Scharen, "Secular Music in Sacramental Theology" in Secular Music and Sacred Theology (ed. Tom Beaudoin) PracticeThere’s a Mark Levine Book called Jazz Theory. It’s really just theory that most musical genres function off of. It’s fun to get a sense of what’s going on with music anyway. I would suggest getting it and doing two pages a day just to study it and learn to read some basic piano, even if you can only pick out one note at a time. I think it’s really important for all musicians to have a basic ability to read piano music, it’s not like you have to be able to sight read Bach inventions, but just to know where the notes are to pick them out on the piano. Start by reading two pages, then practice the two pages. The next day recap what you’ve done and do a page or two more. I think if you’re starting in middle school or high school just work your way through that book and as you work through it you’ll notice the way you hear and the way you sing, will automatically start to change. It’s like looking at the world and not knowing it’s all blurry. You can make your way through and then you get glasses and everything gets clearer and clearer. I think that’s really important.
-- Esperanza Spalding, Interview in Jazz Times |
Stand up for justiceLive simplyCoax new ideasAt the same time, Spalding acknowledges that the individual creative process also sustains her. How and when does inspiration strike? “Something new, a melodic idea, will come to you,” she says. “You wonder, ‘Wow, where’d that come from?’” That is the moment, she adds, when it’s important to “stop and take notice.”
It’s the music that Spalding thinks most about. “An idea announces itself and it seems like there’s something meaningful to be found by exploring that idea,” she says of the imaginative habits that underlie her creation of original material. “It’s a process of sitting down over days, or hours, months, sometimes years, and trying to coax that idea into its full state of beingness.” - Smithsonian Magazine Listen carefullyYou get together [with] like-minded individuals and choose a piece of music . . . You sit together with this music on the stand, and you have to listen so carefully, breathe and be connected so intimately with everyone around you to balance all of the parts involved in bringing this piece to life. Amazingly, I realized through the process of exploring this music, that’s exactly what any ensemble player does in the jazz idiom, too.
-- Esperanze Spalding, NPR interview |