Thriving on a Riff: Jazz and the
Spiritual Life
William G. Carter
(Broadleaf) $26.99
SALE PRICE = $21.59
I will commend to you this forthcoming one, one of my very favorite recent reads, a book that is due out in mid-April. You can send us a pre-order now and we will send it as soon as it arrives next month — which you’ll get at our 20% BookNotes discount.
I really think you should consider pre-ordering my friend Rev. William Carter’s forthcoming book which in his own way as a mainline preacher and jazz performer, digs deep into the soil of innovation and creativity, asking how jazz music can help us — literally, I think, but also as a metaphor — understand our life and times, maturing in a more faithful sort of improvisation of our faith and discipleship. I’ll bet you’ve rarely read anything like it
This excellent book uses in the title the language of spirituality but it is not mostly about prayer or solitude, quiet Christian disciplines of silence or fasting. Sure, as a pastor Bill knows well the practices explored and taught in books like Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline or Ruth Haley Barton’s Sacred Rhythms or Marjorie Thompson’s Soul Feast. But when this book invites us to a jazz-inspired spirituality it means a sort of living in the world, a way of life infused by the music of faith, an integral sort of daily discipleship. Bill admits in the opening pages that “spirituality is a slippery term.” Yes, our interior life where we have an intimate sort of relationship with God is part of this, but discipleship and Christian faithfulness is much, much more. For this author it is akin (as he beautifully describes) to the awakened sense of belonging experienced by Thomas Merton in his famous description of his experience at a busy intersection in Louisville, and a sense of being alive, “completely alive.”
And Thriving on a Riff helps open us up to this encounter with God and life and the world in entertaining, informative, and fascinating ways.
The music of jazz, Reverend Carter notes, is both intellectually complex and often deeply emotional. “Jazz connects the head and heart”, he says, “suggesting a more inclusive way to plumb the depths of heaven and earth. A creative imagination unites with tapping feet. It’s both-and.” I love that.
And, this:
“If jazz is spiritual, it does not lift us off the ground, detaching us from the hard realities of life. The music’s spiritual power is a holy animation in the thick of real life.”
Carter is right on, showing that he is reflecting on real life. (As Charlie Peacock, himself a jazz player, puts it, “a new way to be human.”) Carter writes that he is talking about:
“a spiritual life. Not merely faith. Neither is it religion, which suggests venerable altars with lots of behavioral rules. Faith and religion have shaped my identity and moral foundation, but music invites us to go deeper into the Mystery that we never quite capture in religious language.”
Let me tell you about three things this great new Thriving book does.
First it actually teaches — in a terrific, enthusiastic style that keeps you turning the pages to hear his next story — a whole lot about the history and importance of American jazz. There are several books like this, including the must-read 2022 release by William Edgar (another Reformed thinker who plays a mean bit of jazz on the keys) A Supreme Love: The Music of Jazz and the Hope of the Gospel, and, say, various theological studies of certain artists and their work, like the vivid book on Coltrane by Jamie Howison called God’s Mind in That Music: Theological Explorations Through the Music of John Coltrane. But Thriving on a Riff is the best I’ve read. It is simply a must for musicians or music fans, and jazz-lovers will surely dig it. A few of the characters and stories may be well known, but most of it was new to me, and really exciting. Even those of us who are not full fans, or who only dabble (or don’t at all!) in the genre, will find it really, really helpful.
I know this is sort of teacherly of me — remember that spiritual gift of bookselling? — but it seems to me that this is one of the topics where everybody should know something, and this is the most painless way to learn a bit about the roots and rise and philosophy of the art form. Jazz really is important, especially in American music, and you have surely heard bits and pieces here and there about how significant it all is. (Maybe you’ve appreciated Ken Burn’s 2021 documentary work on this, just like he did that amazingly compelling series on country music.) This book will help bring you up to speed. I promise you you won’t regret it.
Secondly, it shows just how jazz works, and this is really interesting and really, really valuable. Others have said it, but Bill knows this stuff in his gut, in his bones, and plays it regularly as a working musician; jazz does things like celebrating improvisation. It is exceptionally collaborative. It often works in the minor key. If the book was only about those three practices, so to speak, habits that have to be learned and lived, it would make Thriving on a Riff a great and beneficial read, but he covers more. That he explores these sorts of jazz-stylings, and applies them to living in God’s good but broken world, well, it’s nearly genius. It would be a good book if it was only to hear Bill explain how these things are invaluable for healthy and effective living, but he helps Christians, especially, embrace these kinds of things we get from jazz, as keys to our discipleship.
(I do think, by the way, that even though this is an overtly Christian book with overtly theological themes — Bill is a Presbyterian (USA) pastor and really good preacher — it would be appreciated by nearly any sort of reader, of those with other faiths or no faith. Geesh — this is, again, about being human, awake, alive. It is a warm and interesting book and even in those parts where he relates jazz to Christian growth, he is, like the best jazz musicians, open-minded and open-hearted not always on the nose, but telling it slant.
So, yes, this is about Christian formation, but the book is for anyone even vaguely interested in a creative exploration of how jazz can help us live a more intense and creative life. For instance, there is an excellent chapter called “Broken But Beautiful — What It Means to Be Human” that, well, is pretty darn universal, starting off as it does, with a certain song that pierced his heart after having broken up with a young woman in college. He has a lovely little section about friendship and generosity with a beautiful story of Wynton Marsalis’s band going out of their way to visit an older jazz hero (Clark Terry) in the hospital. Nobody is going to forget that story or fail to be touched by it.
Thirdly, besides Thriving on a Riff, being a fine introduction to the history and philosophy of jazz in it various sub-genres and styles, and besides being a guide to seeing how their beloved themes of things like improvisation can be harnessed for fruitful, faithful living, there is another layer of stuff happening here. Like most jazz, I gather, not unlike the best classical music or the best prog rock, there is often more going on than the immediate melody. So, like most generative and creative authors, there are more than one or two simple “lessons” of this book. Hooray!
It becomes obvious that Bill knows that for a follower of Jesus, who himself stood in a long line of Hebrew prophets, there is no authentic Christian life that doesn’t involve in some way standing for justice, for mercy, for social and cultural reformation. We are in a world in need of repair and while this book is what Don Saliers calls “a love song to the art and genius of improvisation” and it invites us to ponder about how we can be inspired by music, it also shows that a life that comes alive is also a life that wants to make a difference, to help heal the wounds of our world. Is it an accident that much of this jazz genre, and some of the vivid stories told in this book, are about the black experience in America?
One doesn’t have to study Howard Thurman or Martin King or Cornel West to appreciate that there is something important about race and justice that black artists have to tell us. (Do you recall the book we highlighted a while back by Claude Atcho called Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just?) Bill does that for us here, explaining powerful songs, from the moving pages (“Lamenting on the Horn”) about Coltrane’s 1961 composition “Alabama” about the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham to the importance of the 1939 song “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday. And, man, I was glad to learn about Charles Mingus’s “Fables of Faubus”, which was a critique of the shameful racism of the then-governor of Arkansas who was famously holding up integration in a high school in Little Rock. I didn’t know that.
I think Thriving on a Riff can help you find your purpose, your place in God’s choir, and hopefully inspire you to be more deeply aware of — and perhaps feel — the sorrows and injustices in our world. Want to make the world a better place? This book, perhaps surprisingly to some, can help. Carter tells us early in the book that “the dissonant tones offer a prophetic judge toward justice.”
There is even more here in this page-turner of a fabulous book. Bill talks about his friendship with jazz legend Dave Brubeck. He tells of clubs and bars in which he and his Presbybop band have played. He talks about being a preacher and pastor, telling stories of some wild innovations using jazz in churches. He writes about King David, about Vince Guaraldi, about a working jazz musician (who played in the band of Harry Connick, Jr.) whose child was murdered at Sandy Hook and some fun stories of his own music ministry. He even has some free verse poetry which works very well between the chapters. Thriving on a Riff is the real deal, learned and passionate, hard-hitting and uplifting from a guy born to “pray the piano.”
Thanks, Byron. You can order the book for a 20% discount directly from Hearts and Minds Bookstore, our preferred bookseller. Order here:
https://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/order/
