Articles

Ike Sturm + Evergreen: Shelter of Trees

By Mark F. Turner

Bassist/composer Ike Sturm has served as Director of Music for the Jazz Ministry at Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan since 2004 and presents a love offering of jazz and sacred music in Shelter of Trees. The set is elevating yet soothing, centered yet diverse as Sturm's band: Evergreen, stretches the boundaries of what might be confined to the label of consecrated music. The recording begins with the jubilant “Rejoice" with the perfect balance of music and vocals, ...

Ike Sturm: JazzMass

By Woodrow Wilkins

There are people who believe jazz, like the blues, is unholy or “devil's music." However, the spirituality of many jazz artists comes through in their writing, and bassist/composer/arranger Ike Sturm is one of them. Sturm is musical director for the jazz ministry at Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan. The institution has a tradition of weekly jazz services that memorialize such icons as Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. The church commissioned Sturm to compose a ...

Ike Sturm: JazzMass

By Mark Corroto

Because of its transcendent nature, listening to jazz is often considered to be a spiritual experience. Certainly listening to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1964) is a larger-than-life experience. Same can be said of bassist Ike Sturm's JazzMass, a 10-part construction for jazz septet, voices and strings that presents prayer and music as a sacrament.

Sturm, graduate of the Eastman School of Music and protégé of Dave Holland, is the music director for the jazz ministry at Saint Peter's ...

Ike Sturm: JazzMass

By Martin Gladu

Ike SturmJazzMassSelf Produced2009

Ask any jazz fans if he or she knows “When The Saints Go Marching In" or John Coltrane's anthem “A Love Supreme" and you will most probably get an affirmative nod. Those versed in the music's history might even know Duke Ellington's “Come Sunday" or his Grammy Award-winning piece “In The Beginning, God." Yet the idea of jazz as a sacred art form has not found a place in ...

Ike Sturm: Spirit

By Mark Sabbatini

Like a good house guest, Ike Sturm leaves you wanting more. The bassist and composer puts together an impressive contemporary jazz orchestra effort on his debut album, Spirit, but with four songs totaling 32 minutes, one wishes he'd share more ideas from his ten-member ensemble.

Strum composes pieces weekly as musical director for jazz ministry at Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, which his bio says is “internationally regarded as the 'jazz church.' Now in his mid-20s, he's also ...