Are the Jazz Masses, like the ones Mary Lou Williams and Joe Masters composed still licit forms of the Mass or have they been officially suppressed at some point in the last 50-60 years?
asked Jun 14 at 18:16
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2This is one of the weirdest topics I’ve ever seen. Super interesting question though!– Luke HillJun 14 at 20:28
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2It's unclear that they were ever able to be licitly used in for the Mass in the first place.– SupportiveDanteJun 15 at 18:03
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1 Answer
The 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram stated
In permitting and using musical instruments, the culture and traditions of individual peoples must be taken into account. However, those instruments which are, by common opinion and use, suitable for secular music only, are to be altogether prohibited from every liturgical celebration and from popular devotions.
Note that this was written 8 years before Mary Lou's Mass, and the same year as Masters' The Jazz Mass.
In the 2003 Chirograph for the Centenary of the Motu Proprio "Tra le Sollecitudini" On Sacred Music St John Paul II wrote:
With regard to compositions of liturgical music, I make my own the "general rule" that St Pius X formulated in these words: "The more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savour the Gregorian melodic form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple"
And so in 1903 the rules for church music had been thoroughly formulated by St Pius X in Tra Le Sollecitudini
Therefore, it seems any "jazz mass" could only take place either outside of a Catholic Mass, or in a Catholic Mass only illicitly.
