The Fermata Weekly: A New Announcement & A Roots Trip

JazzRx Release and Notes of Rest at St. Mark UMC

The Fermata Weekly is the weekly recap & preview of my artistic activity, with special attention given to Notes of Rest, my contemplative-musical retreat, and The JuJu Exchange, my jazz-electronic fusion band.

Upcoming Appearances:

• Aug 5 Notes of Rest for Back to School for Chicago Black Methodists for Church Renewal (virtual - email me for details)

• Aug 6 The JuJu Exchange at Dorian’s ($10, Sets at 9 and 11p)

• Aug 13 Playing with the Emma Dayhuff Ensemble at Kenwood Gardens (free, 6-8p)

• Aug 14 Notes of Rest at First UMC of Mendota

JazzRx Logo by Myron Laban

Hi everyone,

New project to share! My band The JuJu Exchange is releasing a new project called JazzRx. JazzRx is a project of sonic medicine that we make for our fans based on scenarios from your lives and from the life of the world around us. You share with us a prompt about the good, bad and ugly from your life, and we make a track in response. It’s the band’s form of music therapy. For the last few years we have been workshopping this idea with the subscribers to our Patreon community, and now we are taking the project to the world. Here’s how you can get involved:

1. Listen to a track that we created in response to the string of mass shootings the US has recently suffered.

2. Attend our show tomorrow night here in Chicago where we’ll be playing music from this project.

3. Stream the music when it’s released on streaming platforms. (I’ll let you know of the release date.)

4. Reply to this email with a prompt yourself. (It can be about anything - we’ve had prompts about new careers, miscarriages, the vaccines on the horizon, or the joy of the holiday season.)

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This past Sunday I brought Notes of Rest to my childhood church, St. Mark UMC in Chicago’s Chatham community on the South Side. (You can watch here. I start at 28:00.) It was a joy to be able to preach and play the music from my album Rest Assured for the congregation chiefly responsible for my rearing in the faith and in Black Church music.

One beautiful moment from our time was when a baby was crying while I was speaking. I took it as a beautiful invitation from God to honor the power and dynamism of this intergenerational community.

I decided to begin our contemplative reflection time by playing Jesus Loves the Little Children. As that song concluded, for some reason the Holy Spirit brought to mine Oh How I Love Jesus, which I launched into. The whole congregation then began joining in with the singing! In that moment, I was reminded of how contemplation in Black space often looks like singing, which is an important element of Notes of Rest that I love making space for. Contemplation can come through silence and solitude, but not only there. Barbara Holmes explains in Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church how Black contemplation is often communal. St. Mark embodied that deep contemplative tradition of Black life through the spontaneous chorus. Yes!

After our singing moment, I returned to the mic and commented to the congregation that the cry of the infant led to the cries of the adults. We were led to sing of our love for Jesus after meditating on Jesus’ love for the children who cry out. Moreover, we heard the cry because the congregation was otherwise still. It reminds me that as we gather ourselves towards stillness, towards the rest we were created to receive, the world opens up and we can hear more.

I pray that the cries of the infants around you informs you and your communities’ cries today. Lord hear our prayer and open our ears. Amen.

abundantly,

Julian

P.S. I had my first appearance at Lollapalooza on Sunday playing for Peter CottonTale and it was just a joy. Here are some highlights!