In 1960, Miles Davis recorded an album titled “Sketches of Spain.” The album won the 1961 Grammy Award for “Best Jazz Composition” and is heralded as perhaps the 20th century’s most important musical work.
On a recent Sunday at Waikiki Beach, I experienced one of the precious few things in life more beautiful than the swoops and dives of the improvisational jazz solos recorded on that album: the luminous colors of the sky over Waikiki at sunset and other wondrous gifts of the Pacific. If you’re wondering how Miles Davis and Waikiki could possibly have anything in common, you are probably not alone.
There is something unmistakably religious, sacred in the vivid orange, pink and purple colors across the sky of Waikiki at sunset, and the riffs and breaks of a Miles Davis trumpet solo, and the music still played on stage at the Blue Note Hawaii. That is the bond.
Ironically, the Blue Note Hawaii, a world-class jazz club, sits perched on the second floor of the brownstone building called the Outrigger Hotel across the street from the spectacular sunsets on Kalakaua Avenue.
Arguably, the sounds on the stage at the Blue Note are analogous to the gifts of the Pacific. The comparison between Miles Davis, jazz music in general, and Hawaiian sunsets is not merely a coincidence or the warped perceptions of a love-struck traveler from a faraway place. The bond is real.
As sunset progresses, the color pink, dreamlike and divine, begins to dominate a sky that only moments ago was completely orange as the sun eases away, and while the sky refuses to yield quickly to darkness, and the ephemeral colors in the sky remain brilliant to the naked eye for those final breathtaking instants, we are reminded that we are merely visitors here, all of us, trustees privileged to behold this beautiful sacred moment. We are reminded that none of us own nature. We are all really only travelers in this beautiful place called Waikiki.
If we see 1 million sunsets anywhere else in the world, none will ever quite match those at Waikiki. Sunset is much more than spectacle. It is a religion. It is church music in the sky. The colors changing from orange to pink and finally to purple are ephemeral. The improvisational character of jazz is ephemeral, too.
In the “Dynamics of Faith,” a slim but powerful book published in 1957, the bond between Hawaiian sunsets, jazz music and religion is exactly what philosopher Paul Tillich sets out to prove. Simply put, Tillich contends that traditional religion does not enjoy a monopoly over religious experience or symbolism.
On the contrary, faith, or the state of being religious or ultimately concerned, the adjective, stands apart from the rituals of traditional religion, the noun, raising the endless possibilities of the dynamics of faith.
In other words, there are all sorts of living symbols capable of depicting religious experiences and meaning, including the beauty of Waikiki at sunset or a Miles Davis trumpet solo.
The timeless and universal brilliance of Waikiki, and the headlong jazz played nightly at the Blue Note, make clear that Tillich’s argument applies with equal force today.
