'It's the most fun I've ever had in church'The crease lines of neatly pressed trousers broke ever so slightly as their owners swayed forward during communion service at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. Syncopation has that effect on legs.
For the third year, the Valparaiso congregation has celebrated the last Sunday before Lent with a Jazz Mass.
Under the direction of guest music director J.D. Struckmann, people moved to off-beat renditions of their favorite hymns, while Struckmann, the Jeff Brown Trio and trumpet player Tom Reed wove in and out with jazz improvisations.
"It is the most fun I've ever had in church," said L.P. Manning of Valparaiso. "I knew the words to everything they played."
Not just the hymns, but some "adapted" standards played before and after mass, too. Struckmann, a specialist in liturgical jazz music, who studied under Valparaiso University Professor of Music Jeff Brown, now lives in Houston, Texas, where he teaches music at Lutheran High School North and jazz history at Concordia College.
http://www.post-trib.com/news/porter/1444183,vjazzmass.article
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