Living with the Psalms - Part 1

As I mentioned in the last post, the Psalms of scripture will be a central resource for this time of renewal and rest. In anticipation of the downtime next summer, I've begun to amass a lot of information and material on the psalms.

One of the most stirring resources is a series of three CDs of the psalms, as sung by a Presbyterian congregation in the Hebrides Islands off the northwestern coast of Scotland. They are sung without accompaniment, in a call and response style, as a "presenter" lines out a phrase and the congregation echoes back. They use a limited number of tunes which are in the shared memory of the congregation. And the congregation freely harmonizes -- and reharmonizes -- the tunes. If you want to explore some of this, check it out at www.gaelicpsalmsinging.com


Now here's the really wild thing: these psalms found their way to the coast of North Carolina, where African American slaves heard them in balconies of Scottish Presbyterian churches. There is a direct relationship between these psalms and the spirituals that began to evolve from the African American communities. Both the psalms (as sung by the peat farmers and fishermen off the coast of Scotland) and the spirituals (as sung by oppressed slaves) developed among marginalized communities. And - are you ready for this? - this stewpot of music became a clear foundation of jazz.

The theory was developed by Willie Ruff, a bassist who played French horn with Miles Davis, and now teaches at Yale. He says Dizzy Gillespie used to tell him tales of childhood music from the Carolinas, and how it was connected to jazz. Willie forgot about this, until some work in musicology pointed him toward this connection. It's a fascinating story, and you can read more about it at http://www.willieruff.com

These texts and their tunes have shaped the faith and holy imagination of Jews and Christians. In future posts, I will reflect on the Psalms that have been sung in Benedictine monasteries and Jewish synagogues. There is something in the lived experience of praying the Psalms that is tugging me pretty strongly, and I'd like to explore it more deeply.