Black Theology and the Beginnings of Jazz

The Origins of Jazz

Here is a neat lecture on the Christian foundations of jazz.

We came across it posted on Justin Taylor's website.  

In the video below Dr. William Edgar, Professor of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, gives a combination of piano concert and historical-theological lecture on the African-American musical heritage of pain and joy expressed through spirituals, jazz, ragtime, gospel, and blues. It was delivered at the Gordon College Convocation on February 20, 2009.

You can listen to an audio version of the same lecture delivered at the Chesterton House in 2007. In that version he plays with his quartet.

For a CD of the full concert, go here.

For related materials, see also Edgar’s essay “The Deep Joy of Jazz” and Stephen Nichols’s Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation.