{"id":50303,"date":"2022-08-02T11:41:47","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T15:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/?p=50303"},"modified":"2022-08-24T11:13:05","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T15:13:05","slug":"set-your-spirit-free-with-jazz-at-ems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/2022\/08\/set-your-spirit-free-with-jazz-at-ems\/","title":{"rendered":"Set Your Spirit Free With Jazz at EMS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Set My Spirit Free: Jazz Music\u2019s Soul Connection<\/em> is the title of a combination concert, worship service, story telling and poetry event at Eastern Mennonite School, Sunday, Sept. 25 at 4 p.m. The 90-minute program will contextualize the uniquely American art form of jazz music and celebrate its place in the worship traditions of the Black church.<\/p>\n

This \u201cmusical treat will lift your spirits and put a song in your heart!\u201d says Robert Mott, who spurred the vision for EMS to host the program after he played trombone in a un servicio de capilla de 20 minutos<\/a> last school year. That chapel came on the heels of a moving Martin Luther King Jr., Day chapel<\/a> by his pastor, the Rev. Edward Scott of Allen Chapel AME Church<\/a> in Staunton., the oldest church established by people of color west of the Blue Ridge in 1865.<\/p>\n

Mott and Scott first collaborated on a Jazz Worship service at Allen Chapel in May 2019 to an overwhelmingly positive response. The second Jazz Worship service was held in September 2021 and that service \u2014 with a sermon entitled \u201cA Love Supreme\u201d \u2014 was featured on a recent episode of WMRA\u2019s Folklife Fieldnotes, available\u00a0here<\/a>. Rev. Scott has been thrilled that Jazz Worship has been one of those events that has successfully crossed the racial barriers often seen on Sunday mornings, attracting a diversity of people into the church.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Joanne Gabbin<\/a>, a member of Allen Chapel, will share poetry written about jazz for the event. The poet, author and educator recently retired from James Madison University, where she founded the Furious Flower Poetry Center, America\u2019s first academic center dedicated to Black poetry. EMU\u2019s Dr. David Berry<\/a> will provide improvisational piano backing Dr. Gabbin\u2019s reading.
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Musicians featured in the professional jazz sextet include:<\/p>\n