When I Realized How She Can Improv…

When I listened to this song with my son, heard this version with the guitar solo, and realized how she can improv, it took me back. This is how one of grandpa’s solos would emerge. It’s not far off from his style.

I heard this song on a random playlist. It was one of those tunes that I couldn’t get out of my head, so I put it on one of my playlists.

“Out of the Blue”

I don’t know anything about this artist. I believe she has a really great voice.

Yesterday (Sunday) my youngest son and I found the above link where she shares the backstory of the song.

She also plays a throwback style of jazz guitar I really haven’t heard in a while, and it’s so smooth.

Two things, and I really do not want to upset people who are steeped in hymnology, or those who use contemporary worship.

i. First, listen to the brief backstory and ask yourself this question

If this is where our young people are living from Sunday to Sunday, how is our worship music assisting them or even connecting with them on Sunday? Do we have music that is real?

I know we want to praise the Lord and we should. However, do our hymns tie them into a relationship with the Lord anymore? Do our current songs offer anything better, especially choruses that repeat the same phrase over and over again?

Can we offer one song a week that is real, that our younger people can grasp onto, one song which offers help for relationships and other important matters of life?

After all, our current “shiny, happy people” choruses on Sunday morning are falling short of the raw heart of the Psalms, the greatest hymnbook of all time.

ii. Secondly, listen to the improv guitar solo she eventually delivers

Anybody on Sunday morning can add guitar distortion and make everybody think he/she is rocking the place. Anybody can shred a little bit and fool the congregation into thinking he/she is a virtuoso. It takes real rhythm and a magnificent sense of timing to play like she’s doing.

I had the honor of playing saxophone on many stages over the years (from local to international meetings) but none better than my grandpa’s church, less than an hour north of San Francisco. He assembled a team of professional musicians, and he sat right in the middle of them, playing one of his three electric guitars that I could probably retire by selling if I had them now.

Many of them were professional artists who played around the Bay Area. My grandpa was professional as well in the years before he came to Christ. When I listened to this song with my son, heard this version with the guitar solo, and realized how she can improv, it took me back.