Theology & Jazz

Progressive Jazz Pianist Dave Brubeck has always shown a streak of mysticism about his "far-out" music (TIME, Nov. 8). This week he gave it an airing on CBS-TV's Look Up and Live, where he played the piano and chatted with the Rev. Lawrence McMaster, 26, of the Oxford (Pa.) Presbyterian Church, jazz student and onetime disk jockey. Subject: the "theology of jazz." Excerpts:

McMaster: Dave, what's the secret?

We could use some of that magnetism to fill our churches.

Brubeck: There's no secret involved.

Today's jazz reflects the American scene, the hopes, dreams and frustrations of our generation . . . Our primary aim [is] not to play a standard, familiar piece but to convey a mood, a feeling which flows back and forth from the guy on the stand to the guy in the front row and the rows behind him. Do you catch?

McMaster: Yeah . . . Up to a point . . . We do something on that order in my line of work too.

Brubeck: There has got to be interplay [among the musicians]. A jazz group is simply no good unless everyone cooperates.

McMaster: That's a good maxim for all walks of life, a good way of running the world: freedom of individual interpretation accompanied by universal cooperation . . . This is progress: learning by past experiences and applying the knowledge toward a fuller life ... a greater tolerance for others who may arrive at their conceptions of God and truth in regions different from our own. The past is like a rear-view mirror of a car. If you drive carefully, observing safety rules, you must refer to it . . To insure [progress, we must insure] the freedom to explore, create, originate and improvise . . . This is why we've coupled religion and jazz, two of the mediums of communication which speak a universal language, and need no interpreters to touch the soul of man.

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