Body, Soul and Spirit

In May 2022 a large conference organised by the Protestant Church took place in Bonn on the theme “Harmony of difference – The Spirituality of Jazz”. For four days, theologians, musicologists, pastors, church musicians and jazz musicians met to exchange ideas, hear lectures and, of course, experience improvised music. Among the musicians were Joachim Kühn, Simin Tander and Tord Gustavsen, with concerts and workshops, and I too was able to contribute some of my Franziskusinventionen (Francis Inventions) together with the guitarist Andi Reisner.

Following the conference, the organisers Uwe Steinmetz and Gotthard Fermor put together a book of texts by various authors, to be published in autumn 2024. They asked me to write a contribution too.

That text is now available for download here on my website. “Body, Soul and Spirit – Jazz Improvisation, the Human Person and Our Relationship with God” is about how the practice of jazz improvisation gives rise to a particular idea of what it means to be human, above all in the interplay of physicality, emotion and reason – or, put differently, of body, soul and spirit. Building on this, it then asks how this image of the human being affects our capacity for a relationship with God, and what role improvisation can play in an experience of Christian faith.

The text is meant as an invitation to think further, but also as a plea to make the cultural wealth of jazz fruitful as an expression of Christian faith in the 21st century.