To celebrate the Lenten season, the Thelonious Monk Institute Jazz Ensemble played a tribute to spirituality at Satchmo’s on March 4.

This event was the first in “Sacred Music and Sacred Words: A Lenten Series,” which will run every Wednesday until April 1. The Jesuit Center and the Alumni Association co-sponsor this series.  

The show included songs the ensemble members, most of whom are performance graduate seniors, arranged and composed, inspired by meditated thought and the poetry and prose of spiritual leaders like Han-Shan, Tu-Fu, Daisaku Ikeda and Thomas Merton. Singer Johnaye Kendrick included her own lyrics for some songs, and the written works for others.

Bassist Joe Johnson composed one of the songs in the show, “Adonai” — the Hebrew word for “Lord.” The piece started off with a piano solo by Vadim Neselovskyi, and  Jake Saslow came in later on saxophone, along with performance senior Colin Stranahan on drums.

A piece for piano and vocals donned “The Madeline” was inspired by, and includes the writing of prose by Pope John Paul II. The song is bittersweet and its message and praise is summed up in its last verse, “And always, the drought of the world is felt, not by me, but by him.”

Garrett Cleland can be reached at [email protected].