Edgar Eugene Summerlin (September 1, 1928 – October 10, 2006) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and educator known for pioneering Liturgical jazz, avant-garde jazz, and free jazz.
Early life and career Born on September 1, 1928 in Marianna, Florida, and raised primarily in Missouri (in the towns of Gasconade, Brunswick, and Lexington, respectively"St. Andrews". Pensacola News Journal. March 20, 1932. p. 14. Retrieved June 23, 2025. "Mrs. W. E. Summerlin and children of Gasconade, Missouri, after a visit here with her sister, Mrs. J. S. Warren, left for Jacksonville Sunday to visit relatives and friends."), Summerlin was the second of four children born to Velma and William Edgar Summerlin."United States, Census, 1930", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SPYV-LPZ : Sun Jan 19 17:32:08 UTC 2025), Entry for W Edcar Summerlin and Velma E Summerlin, 1930."United States, Census, 1940", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K779-C2H : Fri Jan 17 17:14:00 UTC 2025), Entry for William Summerland and Velma Summerland, 1940."Deaths: William E. Summerlin, Sr.". The Kansas City Star. May 23, 1970. p. 2. Retrieved June 24, 2025. "William Edgar Summerlin, 72, of Lexington, Mo., died yesterday at the Lexington Memorial hospital. He was born at Kynesville, Fla., and had lived in Lexington 22 years.[...] He was a member of the First Baptist church in Lexington. He leaves his wife, Mrs. Velma Summerlin of the home; three sons, Ed Summerlin, Pleasant Valley. N. Y.; Lee Summerlin, 5113 Lowell, Shawnee; William Summerlin, Jr., Lexington; a daughter. Mrs. Jonnie Peek, Urbana, Ill." In 1940, he began attending Lexington Junior-Senior High School, and was promptly elected president of the 7th grade."Officers are Named by Various Classes; John Young Klapp Heads Seniors and Ralph Reavis, Juniors, in Election". The Lexington Intelligencer. September 19, 1940. p. 6. Retrieved June 24, 2025. "Seventh grade — Edgar Eugene Summerlin, president;" Summerlin graduated from Central Missouri State University in 1951 with a Bachelor of Music Education (alongside his then wife, Virginia, receiving her bachelor of science);"Twelve From County To Get CMSC Degrees". The Lexington Advertiser-News. July 25, 1951. p. 1. Retrieved June 24, 2025. "Graduates living in Lexington and the degrees for which they are candidates, include: Edgar E. Summerlin, bachelor of music education; Mrs. Virginia Allen Summerlin, bachelor of science in education;" the following year, he earned a Master of Music from the Eastman School. He subsequently free-lanced for approximately half a decade, including stints with bandleaders Sonny Dunham, Ted Weems, and Tony Pastor. In 1958, after learning about the University of North Texas College of Music while performing with the Johnny Long Band, Summerlin enrolled as a graduate student and became a member of Lab Band and also assisted Gene Hall in teaching jazz composition, theory, and saxophone."Jazz Enthusiasts From All Over the County Flock to NT", Denton Record-Chronicle, Sect. 1, p. 1, Jan 19, 1958
Liturgical works On January 27, 1959, while a graduate student at the University of North Texas College of Music, Summerlin, along with his then wife, Mary Elizabeth, suffered the horribly untimely, but evidently not unforeseen passing of their less-than-10-month-old daughter, attributed by attending physician Thomas V. Patterson to "congestive heart failure due to congenital heart disease." Shortly thereafter, acting on the suggestion of Bill Slack, Jr., Assistant Pastor of the First Methodist Church of Denton (who had been a great comfort to the Summerlins in the weeks leading up to their daughter's death), Summerlin composed Requiem for Mary Jo,Porter, Bob (May 3, 1959). "Are Jazz and the Sacred Confines of a Church Compatible? Denton Musician Says 'Yes'; To Prove It, He's Written Whole Church Service". Denton Record-Chronicle. p. . Retrieved June 24, 2025. "In fact, Summerlin credits the inspiration for beginning his project to Bill Slack Jr., assistant pastor of Denton's First Methodist Church. [...] 'We hadn't been going to church since we had been in Denlon,' says Summerlin frankly, 'but when little Mary Jo got sick just before she died, Bill Slack Jr. was very thoughtful and helpful. He was a real comfort to us.' Out of the acquaintance between Slack and Summerlin grew the idea for the composition by Summerlin. [...] Slack says, "I hear in jazz a very creative and good music, filled with seriousness of purpose, with free movement and creativeness. "I don't believe church music need be limited in form. Jazz is a fluid music. It reaches many people. This idea is an academic experiment, not an attempt at a musical revolt in church music.'" which has long been regarded as one of the first significant uses of jazz in a liturgical service."Jazz Goes to Church". Ebony. April 1966. pp. 77, 78. Retrieved June 24, 2025. "Joyful noises were made unto the Lord when jazz giant Duke Ellington presented 'a concert of sacred music' at leading churches here and abroad. Below, Duke listens to singer Lena Horne during New York concert. Left, is Ed Summerlin, jazz liturgy pioneer [...] One notable effort in this vein was a jazz mass composed in 1958 by the Rev. Geoffrey Beaumont, vicar of a London church. During this period, Edgar Summerlin, teacher of arranging at a Texas college, wrote a jazz requiem to assuage his grief over his small daughter's fatal illness and later composed several jazz liturgies."Miller, William Robert (1965). The World Of Pop Music And Jazz. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing. p. 87. . "Perhaps the earliest use of jazz in a worship service dates back not much more than a dozen years, when the Rev. A. L. Kershaw, pastor of Trinity Episcopal Church in Oxford, Ohio, invited George Lewis and his Dixieland jazz band to play for his congregation. Rather than a structured liturgy, however, the Lewis band played classic blues such as 'St. James Infirmary' and ragtime versions of spirituals. [...] It remained for Edgar Summerlin to make the creative breakthrough. Summerlin grew up in Lexington, Mo., near Kansas City, and as a boy listened to the big swing bands. But it was the advent of Parker and Gillespie that really awakened him. Although he pursued conventional studies leading to a master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, and showed ability as a composer in the classical idiom, jazz predominated in his thinking. When his 9-month-old daughter died in 1958, he wrote 'Requiem for Mary Jo' in jazz idiom as the most natural way of expressing his grief."Schneider, Kent E. (1976). The Creative Musician in the Church. West Lafayette, IN: The Center for Contemporary Celebration. . "The first major use of liturgical jazz was developed by Ed Summerlin, a saxophonist and composer. In 1958 [sic], he wrote 'Requiem For Mary Jo' — an expression of his feelings over the death of his nine-month-old daughter. In 1959, working with Roger Ortmayer, professor of Christianity and the Arts at Perkins Sc hool of Theology in Dallas, Ed composed a jazz setting of John Wesley's 'Order of Morning Prayer,' recorded as Liturgical Jazz (Ecclesia, EP 101)."Ellsworth, Donald Paul (1979). Christian Music in Contemporary Witness : Historical Antecedents and Contemporary Practices. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House. p. 117. . "Ed Summerlin, known for his Requiem for Mary Jo and his work on contemporary religious television programs, has spoken for the cause of jazz idioms in the church. He reveals, 'I felt for years that bringing jazz into the church was a kind of end in itself, and that the reflective qualities of jazz improvisation were especially suited for the church.' Erik Routley supports this view when he writes: 'Church music is not concert music; it is, or ought to be, much more a music of personal involvement. Jazz is this and it can at least invite us to question our ghastly Protestant silence.'"Partridge, Christopher; Moberg, Marcus, ed. (2023). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music. London: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 291. . "Predating this [i.e. the first of Mary Lou Williams's mid-1960s sacred works] was the perhaps even more haunting work of Ed Summerlin, whose Liturgical Jazz was written for his dying infant daughter Mary Jo, especially the 'Requiem for Mary Jo' that is at its heart. Similarly, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (1964) is widely acknowledged as one of the finest examples of jazz used to express faith."
He performed Requiem for Mary Jo May 20, 1959, during a service in the chapel at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.Associated Press (May 17, 1959). "Jazz Music Planned For Worship Service ". The Austin American p. 8. Retrieved June 24, 2025. "A personable young Denton composer will premier his new creation—jazz music for a protestant worship service—at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Southern Methodist University's Perkins Chapel. Ed Summerlin, 30, has just finished what may be the first musical order of worship ever fashioned out of jazz harmonics and idiom. [...] He will reverently dedicate it to the memory of his baby daughter, Mary Jo, who died in February." Dr. Roger Ellwood Ortmayer (1916–1984), then of the Perkins School, had commissioned the work."Experimental Jazz Service Well Received at Premier", Denton Record-Chronicle, May 21, 1959
That same year, still studying and teaching at North Texas, Summerlin recorded his debut LP, Liturgical Jazz, on which "Requiem for Mary Jo," was the heartbreaking centerpiece.
Saturday night, February 13, 1960, NBC's World Wide 60 (hosted by Chet Huntley) visited Denton to air the story of Ed Summerlin's liturgical jazz (national broadcast, NBC, Friday, February 19, 1960)."Jazz Church Service, NBC Tells Story of Ed Summerlin", Denton Record-Chronicle, February 21, 1960
Summerlin's grieving and spiritual creativity inspired him to compose other liturgical jazz pieces, including
Episcopal Evensong Jazz Vespers ServiceSimosko, Vladimir; Tepperman, Barry (1971, 1996). "His Musical Biography". Eric Dolphy: A Musical Biography and Discography. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. p. 69. . Liturgy of the Holy Spirit
TV and film work At the same time, his well-publicized prime time television debut was followed by several Sunday morning appearances throughout the 1960s on the long-running CBS series, Look Up and Live,"TV Programs for the Week of December 4-10". The Palm Beach Post. December 4, 1960."Sunday TV Programs". The St. Petersburg Evening Independent. January 28, 1962. Retrieved 2013-04-07."The Celebrations". WorldCat. Retrieved 2013-04-01. collaborating with musicians such as Freddie Hubbard,Feather, Leonard.Liner notes for Hub Cap . Blogspot. Retrieved 2013-04-01. "Freddie was featured on the Look Up and Live CBS telecasts with Summerlin, whose jazz-oriented writing for a Methodist Sunday church service created a sensation in 1959." Eric Dolphy, Don Ellis, Slide Hampton, and Ron Carter, as well as choreographer Anna Sokolow. During this decade, Summerlin also scored two feature films, the little-known 1963 Bay of Pigs-inspired drama, We Shall Return (which, coincidentally, featured the first and only original screenplay by oft-adapted novelist Pat Frank) and the even lesser known 1967 film Ciao (written and directed by the earlier film's editor, David Tucker),Feather, Leonard; Gitler, Ira (1976). "Summerlin, Edgar". The Encyclopedia of Jazz of the Seventies. New York Press: Horizon Press. p. 319. Retrieved 2013-04-15."1967 Films". Bianco e Nero. Volume 29. 1968. Retrieved 2013-04-15. which, after becoming the only U.S. feature film to be entered in that year's Venice Film Festival,Special to The New York Times. "No U.S. Film Entered for Top Venice Prize". The New York Times. August 13, 1967. Retrieved 2013-04-15. failed to find a distributor and quickly disappeared from view.
New York