February 1, 2010 Not your father’s church music

For a long time, jazz was regarded by the church as the black sheep of the musical family. After all, didn’t it start in the honky-tonks of New Orleans? Didn’t all those ragtime piano players make their living in houses of ill repute? And what about the roaring ’20s? That’s when every illegal club that sold demon rum in coffee cups had a jazz band to entertain clients. Certainly not the kind of music you’d find in a church!

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December 1, 2009 One Voice CD speaks up loud and clear

THIS 33-SONG double CD is best understood as a sincere offering by Canadian musicians who support the broad goals of The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF).

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October 1, 2009 Dad a tough act to follow

JOHN COLTRANE towers in the jazz world; John Coltrane is “Trane.” His son, Ravi, also a jazz saxophonist whose Blending Times has been released is not—nor ever will be—simply “Trane.”

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October 1, 2009 One Voice for modern and choral music

What do you get when you mix the music of top Canadian musicians with a passion for social justice? You get One Voice, a double CD set created to raise money and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Primate’s World Relief and...

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September 1, 2009 Anglican values inform Lions and Werewolves

HOW DO YOU convince someone like Ken Nelson – a much respected and in-demand music producer – to leave his Liverpool recording studio and head for small town Manitoba?  When do you tell him that you want him to work his...

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June 1, 2009 Leonard Cohen points a way forward for the church

THERE ARE 6,000 of us gathered in this sterile gray sports arena. We are mostly in our 50s. We are drawn here to listen to a 74-year-old singer who has been part of our lives for the past 30 years.

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February 1, 2009 Praying with the stereo on, especially listening to Jarrett

SOMETIMES I PRAY with the stereo on. I suspect many readers might imagine that I’m referring either to sacred music or to that peculiar genre of ambient “music for meditation” so popular with massage therapists. I’m referring to neither.

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October 1, 2008 A Tale of God’s Will — New Orleans, the first time

I have never been to New Orleans, but I have known loss.  I have never had to confront what it might mean to have my city, my neighbourhood, my home, washed under an unstoppable wall of water, but I have known sadness of the...

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October 1, 2007 Complex rebel puts her faith in music

When I heard that the pop musician Sinéad O’Connor had released an album called Theology, it took me right back to my university days, when I used to comb through the lyrics of my rock records, searching for signs that at least a...

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September 4, 2007 Winning hymn inspired by Algoma diocese’s motto

Anglican musician Jane Best was a winner in a recent hymn competition centered on an unusual area – songs for congregation unaccompanied by instruments or choir.Pepperdine University, based in Malibu, Calif., chose to focus on...

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