Podcast Episode: Ten Years of Jazz Vespers' Inspiration and Improvisation
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A man in a white shirt sits on a stool playing electric bass.
John Brown plays bass during a Duke Chapel Jazz Vespers service.
Ten years ago, musicians marched down the center aisle of Duke Chapel to open the Chapel’s first service of Jazz Vespers. The service combines the ancient Christian tradition of evening prayer, or Vespers, with the American musical tradition of jazz. Since it began a decade ago, Jazz Vespers has developed a kind of “congregation” of hundreds of people coming from on campus and the surrounding community for an evening—once a semester—of prayer, music, and improvisation. The service is a collaboration between ministers led by Chapel Dean Luke Powery and musicians led by John Brown, Duke’s vice provost for the arts and also director of the university’s Jazz Program and a professor of the practice of music.
A GRAMMY- and Emmy-nominated bassist, composer, educator, and actor who has served on the Pulitzer Prize jury, Brown talks in the latest episode of Sounds of Faith about the evolution and inspiration of Jazz Vespers at Duke Chapel.