WSJ article n the pastor to the jazz world

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This Pastor to the Jazz World

Tended Bar to Tend His Flock

By NAT HENTOFF

April 27, 2005; Page D10

For one hundred years, St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church -- founded in New York in 1862 -- has been at Lexington Avenue and 54th Street. Forty years ago, to the surprise and some concern of its congregants, St. Peter's created a full-time Pastor to the Jazz Community, the first post of its kind in the world.

The church's choice of the first jazz minister, John Gensel, immediately assured the trust of jazz musicians, who already knew him from his frequent attendance at jazz clubs. And once he could fully combine his love of the music with his religious calling, as I wrote in Jazz Times: "Pastor Gensel was seemingly everywhere in the jazz community. He conducted wedding services, and when some of the marriages hit clinkers, he was a patient, extraordinarily attentive family counselor and sometimes he paid a musician's rent."

Duke Ellington wrote a tone poem dedicated to John Gensel, "The Shepherd Who Watches Over the Night Flock," for his "Special Reverend." I've been to the church over the years for some of the jazz sessions there, but especially for a number of the memorial services. By now, nearly 500 of those memorials have been conducted for, among others, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins and Thelonious Monk. At the service for Count Basie's longtime resident drummer, Jo Jones (known as "the man who plays like the wind"), in the front rows was a galaxy of most of the leading jazz drummers.

St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church, which has been at Lexington Avenue and 54th Street for 100 years, has enjoyed a 40-year partnership with the jazz community.

Mr. Gensel was an extraordinary listener -- not only to the music. I once wrote that "I never had any doubt that if religion ever became central to my life, John would be my pastor. He was a Lutheran, but the denomination wouldn't matter to me."

At 80, Pastor Gensel died in 1998, and he was mourned by hundreds, maybe thousands, in the jazz family of which he had become a full-fledged member.

The jazz ministry at St. Peter's continued with the appointment of the Rev. Dale Lind, who had been a close friend and associate of Mr. Gensel for many years, and had often made the rounds of the jazz clubs with him. But Mr. Lind had already served an unusual apprenticeship for that singular ministry.

In 1964, he had become a full-time assistant pastor at St. Peter's, and three years later, he recalls, "I had an idea which would better enable me to reach out to young adults during their leisure time and on their own turf. I decided to get a job as a bartender, which was quite unconventional for a so-called man of the cloth."

The Lutheran hierarchy endorsed what Mr. Lind termed "a ministry of presence." Mr. Lind then became a nightclub owner in Greenwich Village as part of that "viable" ministry, and booked Stan Getz, Nat Adderley and other players. Eventually, he opened a restaurant, Preacher's Café, where, in addition to booking established musicians, Mr. Lind says he "gave many sidemen and -women their first opportunity to be a leader on a gig."

One of them was my daughter, Miranda Hentoff, a pianist, singer and composer. "I was at the Preacher's Café on Bleecker Street for at least two years," she told me. "He was the best boss I ever had. An amazing guy. We once had a reunion of all of us who'd played for him at Preacher's. It was a tribute to a lovely human being."

After 20 years in this "ministry of presence," Pastor Lind rejoined the staff at St. Peter's. But he feels that what he learned outside the church building "helped me to better relate to all kinds of people. Many people feel they have to be good to go to church, but all they need to go to a bar is the price of a drink."

At St. Peter's, "Midtown Jazz at Midday" is now in its 22nd season. The Jazz Vespers and Jazz Masses continue, as does the Annual Lester Young Memorial Tribute, which is held in mid-March every year. And this is the 35th year of the "All Nite Soul" concerts, which will be held on Oct. 9. Also, the third Wednesday of every month, the Duke Ellington Society meets at St. Peter's, and it presents several concerts a year there.

Pastor Lind has also been concerned with further expanding his ministry to women in jazz: "Soon after I took over the reins, I held a forum attended by more than 50 women. With the able leadership of Coba Narita, veteran and vital organizer of jazz events, we formed the International Women in Jazz, which is still going strong, meeting here on the first Monday of every month as well as regularly providing workshops and holding concerts"

Like the music itself, Pastor Lind keeps on improvising new dimensions of his jazz ministry. He has hired Ike Sturm, a young bassist and composer, to be a music director for jazz at the church, giving Pastor Lind more time for other activities. Among them: planning further seminars on the business of jazz; encouraging jazz programs in other churches and synagogues; holding sessions with jazz educators; and conducting his very important work with the Jazz Foundation of America, which helps provide medical care and otherwise renews the lives of musicians in need. He also supports Coba Narita's Jazz Center of New York.

Then there is the fifth annual Jazz and the Church Conference, which will take place at St. Peter's from Oct. 10 to 12 in conjunction with the Presbyterian Church USA. Musicians and pastors from a range of faiths will take part. "One aim of the conference," says Pastor Lind, "is to get more denominations to take the relationship between jazz and religion more seriously and not just have occasional jazz concerts and other gimmicks to get people to church. That was John Gensel's mission -- to bring the church to the musicians and thereby the musicians to the church."

The annual John Garcia Gensel Award will be presented at the October conference to a musician who has done notably creative work interconnecting religion and jazz.

In keeping with another pastoral responsibility, raising the funds to nurture his ministry, Mr. Lind hopes to "attract much needed financial grants or corporate sponsors to aid us in preserving and expanding this living legacy to John."

Like Mr. Gensel, Mr. Lind also spends essential time listening to musicians' needs as the continuing shepherd of the night flock. The "soul music" of jazz transcends denominations, but it often has its roots in a musician who was renewed in a session with a preacher who had the "soul" to know to listen. As master jazz vibraphonist Milt Jackson said: "What is soul in jazz? It's what comes from inside...In my case, I think it's what I heard and felt in the music of my church. That was the most important influence of my career. Everybody wants to know where I got my style. Well, it comes from the church."

Mr. Hentoff writes on jazz for the Journal.