Dear Friends,

Heaven and earth came together on the night of Jesus’ birth in a dramatic manner not experienced since the earliest days of recorded history. Shepherds tending their sheep in the fields outside of Bethlehem were confronted by q shining angel with a message that God the Messiah had come to earth as a baby born in a stable and lying in a manger down in the town. “The glory of the Lord shone around them”
— a light so intense that it had separated night from day on the first day of Creation. (Gen 1:1-5; Luke 2:8-9).

A heavenly choir appeared over the shepherds ascribing glory to God and announcing his intentions of peace and grace for humans. The simple men were terrified but transformed. They heeded the angel’s message and made a beeline for town to see Jesus Christ for themselves (Luke 2:13-16)  Ever since, the great songs of Christmas have inspired men and women to leave the darkness to seek Jesus for themselves.

On a too-busy Wednesday morning, I peel myself away from the phone and walk down to an unheated church fellowship hall. I am late. My buddy Mark Bussell is already in the room playing his soprano sax. We are going to practice my instrumental arrangement of “Sweet Little Jesus Boy” for a Christmas worship program.

My fingers feel like ice chunks as I play a run of chords on the battered upright piano that surprisingly has been tuned since I last played it. “Start out in Eb,” I tell Mark. “You’ll play alone until just before the chorus when I will come in with this two chord progression. Then I will follow through the chorus and the verse and chorus a second time. At the end, I will modulate up to F and play a solo on the verse and then we’ll finish together on the chorus, repeating the last line three times.”

We have no sheet music. What is sheet music between friends? Mark is a skillful player, but skill is not enough when it comes to music. He plays with his heart and soul and leaves nothing back in the his instrument case.

Mark starts out slow with gentle runs and riffs on the melody. I come in as promised with an Ab9th diminished chord sliding up to an Eb. I then follow his melodic lead for the rest of the song.

It is our first practice together of this season and this song. Mark is focused on getting things right and moving a bit fast for this reflective spiritual.

After we play it through a couple of times, Mark asks, “Am I sprinting?”

“A bit,” I reply. “You know how you told me once that  slow was sweet for  a  sax  player? Well, remember what you told me and just savor this.”

“OK,” Mark says and adjusts his reed. He starts to play again and we clicked. A couple of times through and we are feeling good about it.
He records us playing to help him in practice.

Mark stood by the piano and asks, “Do you think we could play a jazz version of “Silent Night?”

My heart takes a little leap of joy. I have practiced for years for this moment. “Of course,” I reply.

Silent Night is the greatest of the Christmas carols to me. It’s melody and words convey the quiet and calm of the Judean hill country on the night of Christ’s birth with purity and simplicity. The first verse centers on the birth of Jesus in the stable.

The second verse describes the disruption of the pastoral calm with the angel’s announcement of Christ’s birth to quaking shepherds tending their flocks on the hillside. The angel is backed by a heavenly choir singing praises to God and proclaiming God’s intentions of peace to the earth and grace to the humans who reside here.

The third verse has melted my heart and made me cry for as far back as I can remember. The meaning of the birth is explained. Jesus is the Son of God and the Light that reveals the purity of God’s love for us. He is beaming with joy as he comes to us with redeeming grace. In fact, I believe my first encounter with the word “grace”
was in this verse describing God’s plan to forgive and reconcile with his children who had rejected him. It is the ultimate love story.

The melody of Silent Night covers one and a half octaves. It is either too high or too low for comfortable singing in most keys.
After years of experimentation I have found that F or G are the best keys for a group singing Silent Night. The key of G makes sense because a guitarist wrote the carol. I have never known a guitarist who didn’t like playing in G.

I respond to Mark’s request by slowly playing a four chord gospel blues progression in F in 6/8 time.  Mark comes in after a few bars with a nice riff on the melody and we are off.

There are people who would think how we are playing is sacrilegious if they heard us. People of our faith who consider any variation on the original versions of hymns or anthems to be yielding to the wiles of the devil and the lusts of the flesh. Play with the lush modulation of fifth or seventh chords and they judge you lost to night clubs and dive bars.

Of course those who make such charges are speculating that’s how musicians really play in night clubs and dive bars. They’ve never been in one, but neither have Mark and I. We came by our love for jazz and gospel music honestly. In my case, my devout Christian family loved music, studied it and were open to a wide range of it if it was performed well and in the appropriate setting.

My Dad enjoyed Black gospel music and exposed us to it. My brother enjoyed jazz, listened to it often, and learned to play it on the piano. He explained the complexities and nuances of it to me in our family’s living room. One feature of jazz is the call and response style of African-American preaching.  It fascinated me to learn jazz has long roots in American history and the cultures of those who came to these shores by choice or in chains. Most of all I liked the rhythms and textures of the different styles which are both cerebral and emotional.

Mark has his own story, but it is similar to mine. Music allows us to tell the stories of our souls. Humans typically learn language in early childhood, and it enables us to express our experiences. Music is a language — a communication device. It can express thoughts and feelings that mere words can never suffice to tell.

For me, playing the piano is prayer and worship. Often I play for God alone, telling him about my happiness and turning over my troubles to him. One friend observes, “Kent, you are your most natural self when you are playing the piano.” I agree.

Mark and I have both experienced heartache and suffering. Mark is a cancer survivor. When he completed his chemotherapy, Rachelle, his wife, gave him a gift of advanced lessons with a noted woodwinds professor at the University of South Carolina. Rachelle knew what Mark’s heart needed.

I have experienced much joy, but a good deal of grief as well Family joys and sorrows have enlarged our understanding of life. We know what it is like to fall in love and know the ache of broken hearts.
We share a passionate love for our Lord. All of these things rise from our souls and into our music.

Sometimes at lunch time in our hot summers, Mark leaves his physical therapy practice and sits in the parking lot with his car running and the air conditioning on playing until his soul is content. My favorite time to play is the middle of the night, my fingers finding the familiar keys by touch and sound in the darkness.

Mark and I reach the turn of direction in Silent Night where the melody carries the lyrics “round yon virgin, mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild.” Mark soars, bending a few notes, and I match him with a counterpoint of chords. I see people in the courtyard outside the glass doors stopping to listen to us.

There is a phrase “lost in the music,” that describes what it is like to listen or perform in complete surrender to the sound and rhythm.
It is a poet’s phrase, not a musician’s.

To play by ear is a distinct talent from sight-reading music with technical ability or to play from memorization. Sight reading and memorization arise in the left -side of the brain where rational and language skills originate. Playing by ear and improvising involves the right-side of the brain where mathematic and artistic skills arise. An inner instinct and the progress of the story being told in the notes means the player is exploring, not lost.

In truth, it is not so simple. The ability to translate thought into coherent notes played with technical skills usually has to be learned before being able to improvise or simply hear and play. When it comes to music, it is a rare genius who can say truthfully, “I never had a formal lesson in my life.” To play well, even by ear, requires a passion for music and countless hours of practice.

The melody of Silent Night climbs up with the words “sleep in heavenly peace,” with its one surprising chord resolution at the word “peace.” Mark’s playing is clean and bright like the clarity of the winter moon in the night sky. He holds the top note and then we entreat the Lord together to “sleep in heavenly peace.”

Our harmony subsides and then we begin again as one. We walk the lines of the carol, taking separate but complimentary paths, as if we have been here together many times before.  Yet, our playing speaks a wonder at discovering new places with great views.

I play the same gospel-blues chord progression at the end as I did at the beginning and Mark’s last note trails into the hushed room. Our playing has been neither fast nor embellished. It was a reverent offering to the Christ child in whom we both fervently believe with conviction too deep for words.

Finally, I turn away from the keys to Mark. “Oh, man!” he says with feeling.

“That was beautiful beyond words,” I barely croak out.

We say “thank you” to each other and the God who blessed those three and one-half minutes with grace and leave for our next appointments.
I have contracts to review and a full afternoon schedule of meetings.
Mark has patients.

You may say, “This is really interesting, Kent. We’re glad Mark and you had the time and ability to make beautiful music together,  but I can’t play a note, and you should see my packed schedule.”

We all are fond of protesting that we never have time to do what we want to do. But year-after-year we keep the same schedules and priorities. What kind of time are you carving out for your loved ones this Christmas season? Where does Jesus Christ rate among your loved ones? Love lives as it is expressed.

Looking at our schedules, Mark and I didn’t have the time either, but there are choices to be made. I rescheduled two business meetings to practice with Mark. Mark made space in his schedule as well.

It is the call of Holy Scripture to offer God the best of who we are and what we possess in gratitude. Mark and I have come a long ways because of God’s grace and mercy. Knowing and loving Jesus on a personal basis, we want to give him our best which is our time, our talents, and our hearts in praise and worship on a Wednesday morning.
I’ve never regretted giving time to Jesus any day of the week.

This will end as an ordinary Wednesday for us, but we will never be the same. When you have visited a place where you know you’ve always belonged, it expands the vistas of your heart and you will never forget what you heard and saw there. This day it was love’s pure light” that Mark and I experienced. Our Lord reached us in ways we didn’t know were possible.

In a cold church fellowship hall we joined the “heavenly hosts singing ‘hallelujah.'” And like the shepherds, we glorified and praised God for all we saw and heard (Luke 2:17).

Christ the Savior is born!
Christ the Savior is Born!

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent