Jazz-Inspired Church Service

Anna Rydén – vocals
Kjell Dahl – double bass
Fredrik Erlandsson – piano and trumpet

The final note of the festival resonates in the medieval stone church of Jomala, where jazz meets spirituality in a moving jazz-infused church service. In collaboration with the Jomala Parish, Åland Sea Jazz invites you to a special service where all music – including hymns and liturgy – is performed in jazz arrangements. The concert is a tribute to the influence of church music on the birth and evolution of jazz.

The history of jazz is full of contrasts – the music has echoed in both sinful and sacred spaces. In New Orleans, brothels, underground nightclubs, and funeral parades all competed to hire the finest jazz musicians. Many of the great jazz pianists of the 20th century began their careers playing in churches, and Miles Davis once shared that he first heard swinging boogie-woogie during a Sunday church service.

Over the years, many jazz masses and spiritual works have been composed, with Duke Ellington’s two Sacred Concerts, featuring Alice Babs among others, standing as some of the most celebrated.

Åland Sea Jazz now highlights this rich heritage with what will be – for the first time on Åland – a full Sunday church service in a jazz setting. While themed services with jazz have been held occasionally, never has it been done at this scale. In the 13th-century St. Olaf’s Church, the old and the new come together in a poetic and heartfelt close to the festival.