In defense of secular art

To the pure all things are pure

I notice when I improvise on jazz chord changes, the experience I have while soloing is quite different
from that of listening to myself later. The experiences contrast dramatically from a musical perspective:
Later, I can often see what I was trying to do lyrically and artisticallyduring the time when Im soloing a
lot of that is obscured. My feeling about the playback is often, hey, thats not half bad, or I can see the
art Ive created more objectively, almost as though someone other than me created it.
Maybe this sounds kind of spooky; Im not suggesting that this someone else is God or even His enemy.
But who is it? Before we think about and try to answer that question, lets deal with this one: Is there
really some aspect of our creativity that is fleeting and somewhat otherworldly, and that is notat least
a lot of the time, even during the direct act of creationdistinctly connected to our conscious minds?
I was listening to a teaching session on YouTube by the late jazz guitarist Jimmy Raney when I heard him
say something that especially caught my attention. He was explaining how he developed his signature
bebop-influenced sound. He made the case that it happened as a synthesis of several things, some of
which he didnt have any control over. What he did have control over was choosing, listening to, and
allowing himself to become enthused about the music he loved and wanted to learn how to play.
Raney: I did it [played bebop music] without thinking. [] Your ear and your brain,
and your fingers and your hands, theyre all run by part of your mind thats much
more advanced than your conscious mind, you know, or much more subtle.
Heard that! He went on.
So I decided to turn it over to him, *laughs+ and not think about it. *+ I was just
going to listen to it and play it.
In agreement with Mr. Raneys notion, I often center myself while improvisingand more importantly,
make it my goalto try to mimic that wondrous music that I hear playing in my head with my brain and
hands and instrument. First I have to listen for this internal music, and forget for a moment about the
next chord coming up, or a jazz lick, or an arpeggio or scale that Ive studied. Those things are important,
but they are not as important as connecting to that inner music and allowing it to incorporate them into
its music; they are the cart and must not precede the horse that is leading and using them to create my
work of art.
I used to play music with a man named Jeff. He listened to this inner music, and was really skillful on his
cornet in bringing it into our world. He was a great artist, and very spontaneous. However, as deftly as
he played his instrument, at times during a solo he would grow frustrated with his technical skills on his
horn and would burst into scat singing (where one voices the notes with inarticulate syllables) because
he could more easily voice his burning musical ideas than figure out how to manipulate his mechanical
device (horn) to do it.
I have no trouble in believing that this innate world of iconic, lyrical musical phrases exists, something
like Aristotles concept of ideal forms (or was it Platos?). It is my belief that these lyrical ideas are
created by a part of us that all of us have, synthesized by and shaped by what we as individuals listen to
and are influenced by. In that sense, listening to good music and playing it are directly and deeply
connected, and all of us to some extent can recognize and appreciate art and poetry.
I think that this part of us as humans is some mix of our emotions and minds and spirits.
But here is the tricky part. That part of each of us can be influenced by spirits. Powerfully.
I remember listening to Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison of the Doors during the time in my life before I
accepted Christ when I took drugs. I have no difficulty in believing that the source of the great power in
those and other artists music and poetry was in fact the enemy of our souls. These artists incorporated
Satans power through ignorance or denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and drug use.
For the person who has accepted Christ and is filled with His spirit, however, I believe that this part of a
human being is largely free of demonic influence, and especially that such a person, who the Bible terms
a new creation, no longer wants to be influenced by these things that cause death. This facet of the
person has been cleansed, freed, and made pure. As the late preacher Jerry Cook used to say, When
you get saved, your huncher is saved also. (Huncher was a word he coined to describe the part of a
person that gets hunches, in short, the same part of us that Ive been describing in this paper.)
To the pure, all things are puresports, music, drinking coffee, having fun, enjoying a good play or
movie. That saying (to the pure, all things are pure) is from the Bible. Pure people are those who have
received the cleansing by Jesus that He paid for by His substitutionary death on the cross.
I was thinking this morning of the song Insensatez (Brazilian bossa nova known in English as How
Insensitive). I love this song. It has a sadness that powerfully grabs my emotions akin to other torchy
laments like Besame Mucho or This Masquerade. Ostensibly it is about a failed love affair. To me, it
simply conveys the frequent feeling of loss we have living in this present dark world. It is cathartic for
me to hear or play this song. My emotions relate to it, because, like the writers of the Psalms, I often
find myself in trouble or difficulties that intrude unexpectedly into my life. I often awaken in a
troublesome world. As David said, Trouble found me. Giving vent to that pain through artistic
expression helps.
So when you hear me or another believer play secular music, dont taze us, bro. Dont judge us. Lean
heavily on your freedom in Christ, listen to Insensatez as played by Wes Montgomery, and get back to
me in the morning. If you want to. I guess.