The very act of playing music can be seen as a spiritual act, and the way in which one sees it helps define the music itself. There is spirituality in almost every genre of music. Classical music has its gorgeous cathedrals of harmony and counterpoint in the works of Bach and Mozart and and brooding, meditative work of Beethoven. The connection between the spirituality of Africans transported to the United States as slaves and the musical traditions they brought with them is very clear, and worked its way into blues, gospel, jazz, and eventually R&B and soul. Folk, country, and bluegrass in this country all have a deep-seated spiritual component, an awe for the mysteries of life and death. Even popular music aspires to incorporate spiritual elements, from rock’s incorporation of both Christian and exotic, mostly Indian and Asian elements, to the meditative aspect of electronica’s driving, physical beat and ambient music’s chill out room, somehow reminiscent of the final half hour of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Jazz sometimes seems to have a particularly large spiritual vocabulary and a tradition that goes back far into the music’s past. Jazz probably inherited much of its spiritual content from the blues and from gospel, which were themselves the result of the combination of Christo-European elements and a variety of religious traditions from Africa by way of the Carribean and Cuba. Arguments about the purity of jazz always seem somehow to come from off the mark considering the music’s bastardized beginnings. In addition, jazz was originally party music, dance music, and therefore considered immoral. So jazz managed to extricate itself from the dogmatic underpinnings of religion per se, and that made it in many ways the perfect medium for those searching spiritually and for secular humanism as well.

A deep spiritual element was certainly present in jazz as it emerged from New Orleans. One expression of it was the jazz funeral. Some believe that the tradition of the jazz funeral is the result of two traditions—the marching French brass bands that would play processionals for dignitaries and politicians and the ring dances honoring spirits of ancestors practiced by slaves in Congo Square. In the words of present day New Orleans jazz musician Dr. Michael White: “People come to jazz funerals in New Orleans because it's part of the spiritual celebration. We celebrate and laugh at life. We celebrate and laugh at death. We dance at the occasion. We're happy because you're going to a better reward. We're sad because you're not here anymore. We're sad because we're going to miss you. We're happy because you're going to a better place, permanently.” Or, in the colorful words of Jelly Roll Morton: “Rejoice at the death and cry at the birth: New Orleans sticks close to the scriptures.”

Louis Armstrong, of course, grew up in New Orleans and the spiritual elements of the musical tradition there never left him or his music. Armstrong’s approach to the music and to life was one of inclusion, which is in itself a sign of the seeker. Armstrong had religious convictions, but he preached the gospel of secular humanism, of respect for one’s fellow man and of compassion. According to an essay Armstrong himself wrote, he was disturbed by the treatment of the Karnofskys, a family of New Orleans Jews who he worked for. They treated him in a humane manner and helped feed and clothe him as well as lending him the money to purchase his first instrument, a cornet. He noted that the family was treated poorly by the Christian society of New Orleans; in fact they were treated every bit as harshly as African-Americans. Armstrong always displayed an affinity with Judaism, often wearing a star of David as well as a crucifix. And there is the spiritual element to Armstrong’s 1969 recording of the song “What a Wonderful World.” The song is like a God’s-eye view of the world, one that acknowledges God in each person and sees the potential in every living being. That’s different than the Pollyanna viewpoint many have attributed to the song over the years. The very act of singing the song is, for Armstrong, an affirmation of the existence of God. With his weathered voice betraying the world-weariness of one who has seen the many horrible things that human beings can do to one another, Armstrong chooses instead to affirm the beauty in life.

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