Damn it! He'd muttered under his breath. Then he'd muttered an apology to God for his oath but added that it was enough to make a saint swear and the Lord knew he was no saint. No, he was no saint, but he was a good man, a man of God. Paul Ringer had been organist at St Giles’ for five years and had worked hard to improve the worship on a Sunday with his selection of suitable music before the service and a rousing piece at the close. The little church choir, whose numbers ebbed and flowed according to work and family commitments, was beginning to make an important contribution to worship. Since Fred had joined and brought a good tenor voice, he could now depend on three-part harmony. John had a nice bass voice but couldn't be guaranteed to hold his part and Joe and Pete were only good for belting out the melody and Pete only came when he wasn't playing football in the Sunday league.
He had his stalwart ladies but none of them would see fifty again and there was some shaky vibrato coming through. He could do with a few young lads but where did you get them these days? All in all, he was fairly happy with the progress of the music in St Giles. At least he was until Jones & Pepper, organ builders and repairers, told him that there was no way they could have the organ repaired in time for the St Giles’ day celebration on 1st September.
It had been his idea.
‘Let's have a celebration of our saint's day;’ he'd suggested to Reverend Mike. The rector had been very keen. There would be a special service and a tea in the church hall. The mayor was coming and even the press had been invited. Now there would be no music. He could play the hymns on his laptop and pump them through the amplifier but that wasn't the same as having live music. Franz Gruber, he remembered had had a similar problem in a little church in the Austrian mountains, or so it was said, and had written a guitar tune for Joseph Mohr's words, saving the day and giving the world ‘Silent Night’. Paul could barely string two chords together on the guitar. His instrument had been the saxophone. He'd made a bit of a name for himself in the distant past with that alto sax. His rendition of ‘Take Five’ had been the talk of the jazz club, but that was forty years ago and the sax was hardly an instrument for church worship. He'd have to speak to Reverend Mike and bring a keyboard in.
Reverend Mike had been disappointed about the organ but had smiled at Paul and said something about God moving in mysterious ways. That was all he had said except that the keyboard was a good idea and he'd see what he could do. Paul had been surprised when the phone had rung and Reverend Mike had told him to get himself down to the church an hour early for choir practice. He was even more surprised to be told to bring his saxophone. He had never told the rector that he played the sax. He hadn't told anyone at St Giles’ that he played any instrument other than the organ.
The Rector had been as good as his word about the keyboard. A rather smart Roland stood to the right of the altar rail and the Reverend Mike was picking out a tune with one finger. What was more surprising was that just behind the altar rail was a gleaming drum kit with Father O'Shea, the priest at St Benedict's, grinning behind it.
‘You brought the instrument I see,’ the Rector had said, ‘You know Father Pat?’ Paul knew Father Pat as a rather serious cleric who occasionally engaged in heated discussions with the Reverend Mike over some point of doctrine. This impish figure perched behind a high-hat was something altogether new. Before he could comment, the church door flew open and a figure struggled in dragging a large metal edged case behind him. David Priestman was the minister of the local Methodist church and Paul had never seen him red faced and panting even after delivering one of his fieriest sermons.
‘I’m getting too old to be dragging this thing around;’ he'd said and called Paul to give him a hand. The double bass had stood two inches higher than he and Paul could not believe he would ever play it.
‘Come on now, Bluey,’ Reverend Mike had said, ‘Close your mouth and get that sax out of its case, we don't have all night. Paul's mouth had, if anything dropped even further open. How did the Rector know about the nickname that had followed him through college and in the jazz circles he had moved in before he'd found God? Reverend Mike picked out the first few bars of ‘Trust and Obey’ with one finger and had then swung into a dazzling jazz version. Father Pat had joined in halfway through the verse and David had worked his way in with the bass. They were halfway through the chorus before Paul had breathlessly added his sax to the mix.
Paul had felt rather rusty. It had been some time since he had played the sax, let alone joined in a jam session. His mind had whirled as he played but he found the memories of his youth came flooding back and his fingers found their way to places they had been years before.
Over a quiet cup of tea at the Rectory Reverend Mike had explained how he had known that Paul played sax in his youth. In fact, Mike had been the son of the chaplain of Paul's university and had regularly crept into the back of the jazz club to hear the music that he had begun to love, listening to ‘Bluey Ringer and the Jazz Four’. He had been overjoyed when Paul had become the church organist but hadn't mentioned anything of his past recollections. He thought that something might happen if he was patient and it had.
The St Giles’ Day celebrations had ‘gone down a storm’, as they say and, at the mayor's suggestion, plans were under way for a full-scale Jazz Festival the following September. Father Pat had been only half-hearted in his argument when they called it the ‘St Giles’ Festival’. Of course, there were often other occasions through the year when the ‘Churchmen Jazz Quartet’ was called upon to perform, for the best ecumenical reasons. God had, in truth, moved in a mysterious way and Paul, for one, was very grateful.
