Ed Summerlin

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Edgar "Ed" Eugene Summerlin (born September 1, 1928 in Marianna (Florida) ; † October 10, 2006 in Rhinebeck ) was an American jazz musician ( tenor saxophone , clarinet , synthesizer ), composer and music teacher who wrote early jazz masses .

Live and act

Summerlin graduated from Central Missouri State University in 1951 and completed his master’s degree at the Eastman School of Music the following year, before pursuing private composition studies with Gunther Schuller and Hall Overton . After playing in the bands of Sonny Dunham , Ted Weems and Tony Pastor , he taught at the University of North Texas in the second half of the 1950s . There, on the occasion of the death of his nine-year-old daughter, he composed his Requiem for Mary Jo, which premiered at Southern Methodist University in the same year and is considered to be the first work to introduce elements of jazz into church music on a remarkable scale . In the same year he wrote a jazz mass on a text by John Wesley . Parts of these works were part of his debut album Liturgical Jazz (1959), which received four and a half stars on Down Beat and was presented on television in March 1960.

Summerlin returned to New York in the early 1960s, where he performed with Eric Dolphy , Pete LaRoca , Don Ellis and Sheila Jordan , and arranged and composed for Ron Carter , Steve Kuhn , Freddie Hubbard , Dave Liebman , Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lee Konitz . Summerlin later wrote numerous other church music works, often to texts by the Methodist theologian Roger Ortmayer. At the end of the 1960s he led the Improvisational Jazz Workshop together with the journalist and musician Don Heckman .

In 1971 Summerlin founded the jazz program at the City College of New York , which he directed until 1989. In 2006 he died of complications from cancer.

Discographic notes

  • Liturgical Jazz (Ecclesia Records) (1959)
  • Ring Out Joy (Avant-Garde Records) (1968)
  • Don Heckman / Ed Summerlin The Improvisational Jazz Workshop (Ictus 1967)
  • Sum of the Parts (Ictus)
  • Eye on the Future (Ictus, 2000)

Catalog of works (selection)

  • Requiem for Mary Jo
  • Episcopal Evensong
  • Jazz Vespers service
  • Liturgy of the Holy Spirit

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Don Heckman Edgar Summerlin, 78; Musician Wrote Jazz-Based Liturgical Works , Los Angeles Times , October 13, 2006
  2. ↑ Experimental Jazz Service Well Received at Premier In: Denton Record-Chronicle , May 21, 1959
  3. ^ A b Sacred Blue: Jazz Goes To Church In the 1960s
  4. ↑ a b Stuart Lavietes, Edgar Summerlin, 78, Composer Who Brought jazz to Church , The New York Times 24 October, 2006
  5. ↑ Meeting (JazzTimes)
personal data
SURNAME Summerlin, Ed
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Summerlin, Edgar Eugene (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician and composer
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Marianna (Florida)
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 2006
Place of death Rhinebeck