Bishop Says Let There be Jazz

[Randy Twizzle]

Two news stories, the first from Aug 4 and the second from Aug 16 both from The Chichester (UK) Observer

Protest to Vatican over jazz concert

A Petworth Festival jazz concert is to go ahead in a Roman Catholic church despite an appeal to the Vatican to intervene on the grounds that its sacredness will be violated.

Campbell Burnap and his All-Star Jazz Band have been booked to give the lunchtime concert at the Church of St Anthony and St George, Duncton, and every £8 ticket has already been snapped up.

But Christopher Savage, a worshipper, part-time organist and a member of the choir at the parent Sacred Heart Church in Petworth, has vowed to work to the last minute to get it moved to another venue. He says he has the support of other Roman Catholics in the area.

Mr Savage said: "I do not object to jazz in the right setting. It is the fact that it is not suitable there, in a very precious, small church which is almost a cemetery chapel.

"It is in a graveyard and Anthony Wright-Biddulph of Burton Park, who had it built, and other family members are buried in the crypt."

The church, which was consecrated by Cardinal Manning in 1869, has been the venue for Petworth Festival performers in the past but Mr Savage said they were 'genteel' string quartets or classical singers.

Bishop stops ban on jazz in church

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Arundel and Brighton has intervened in the row over a Petworth Festival jazz concert held at a church in Duncton last Saturday.

Bishop Kieran Conry, who has just returned from a pilgrimage to Lourdes, said he had no intention of stopping the show going ahead, despite pleas from a Petworth parishioner, Christopher Savage, a worshipper at the parent church in Petworth, the Sacred Heart.

Mr Savage, who had also written to the Vatican, had claimed that the sacredness of the Church of St Anthony and St George would be violated by the concert, given at lunchtime by Campbell Burnap and his All-Star Jazz Band.

Mgr Conry told the Midhurst and Petworth Observer this week: "I had no intention of blocking the performance because that would have been disruptive. The church cannot be seen acting in such a heavy-handed and insensitive manner."

And he said that, technically, the ruling from Rome under which Mr Savage had made his challenge, would bar any secular music from being performed in a Roman Catholic church.

"There would be no difference between a Beethoven quartet and jazz. You cannot make a judgement on the style of the music," the bishop said.

[JSngry]

In-DEED!

[Michael Fitzgerald]

First you get down on your knees......

[JSngry]

Mr Savage said: "I do not object to jazz in the right setting. It is the fact that it is not suitable there, in a very precious, small church which is almost a cemetery chapel.

"It is in a graveyard...

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Well, so is jazz. So what's the problem?

[Jim Alfredson]

He's just jealous because he's an organist but he could never play like Jimmy Smith, no matter how hard he tried.

[RDK]

I dunno. I can understand the banning of secular music - not just jazz - in church. That just seems wrong.

Like booking Kenny G into Birdland, another sacred institution...