'Jazz Priest' Changed Attitudes on 'Devil's Music' (Boston Globe

Date: 16 Jul 2003 20:04:04 -0700
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Obituraries- Boston Globe, July 16,2003
Rev. Norman O'Connor, 81; helped shake attitudes on jazz
By Michael J. Bailey
The Rev. Norman J. O'Connor, a priest who in the 1950s became one of New
England's leading promoters of what some then still called "the devil's
music,'' died of a heart attack in his hometown of Wayne, N.J., on June 29.
Father O'Connor, known as the "Jazz Priest,'' was 81.
During that decade, Father O'Connor's pulpit was in St. Ann's Church in
Boston's Back Bay, and the chapel and classrooms on the campus of Boston
University, where he was chaplain. But in his free time, the Paulist priest
turned to the region's airwaves and stages to spread the joys of his second
love, jazz.
''Father O'Connor has devoted a good part of his priestly career to what is
possibly the most offbeat apostolate in his order's history - bringing
religion to what someone has called `the underworld of jazz,''' said the
Rev. James Finley in 1962, when he was vicar general of the Paulist Fathers.
Father O'Connor had jazz radio shows on WGBH and WBUR that were fed to a
New England regional network and a TV show, ''Father O'Connor's Jazz,'' on
WGBH. He also wrote a weekly jazz column for The Boston Sunday Globe.
Nationally, he contributed articles to the leading magazine of jazz music,
Downbeat, and to Metronome.
In 1954, Father O'Connor was named to the board of the first Newport Jazz
Festival. For many years, he was the public face of the annual event,
serving as the master of ceremonies for concerts and the moderator of panel
discussions.
For Father O'Connor, being a jazz advocate could be a complicated task. It
often meant more than changing a person's listening habits - it meant
changing mindsets. To many, including some of his parishioners, jazz music
was perceived as a conduit to drug addiction and delinquency, a device to
divide the generations.
''In Catholic Boston at that time, `jazz' was a dirty word. If you were a
jazz musician, you didn't have any respect,'' famed jazz promoter George
Wein said yesterday.
In the humble yet urbane Father O'Connor, Wein had a faithful ally. Whether
it was a concert at Wein's fabled nightclub Storyville, or a music
festival, or just a neighborhood meeting where the contentious topic of
jazz was on the agenda, Father O'Connor would offer his support.
''Father O'Connor never hesitated to lend his prestige, his collar, to help
us,'' said Wein, founder of the Newport jazz and folk festivals.
Father O'Connor found no contradiction in his promotion of jazz.
''Jazz has no morality,'' he once said. ''If a listener thinks jazz in
immoral, it's because he brings to it remembered associations, such as a
pretty girl in a slinky gown, undulating dancers, or people overindulging
in Prohibition-era speakeasies.''
''As far as I am concerned, jazz is healthy, good, and beautiful.''
Born in Detroit, Father O'Connor played piano for local jazz bands while
attending high school and the University of Detroit. One of his surviving
brothers, Patrick, still lives in Detroit. A second brother, James, lives
in Sebastopol, Calif.
Father O'Connor became a Paulist priest in 1948.
After serving in the Boston area, he moved to New York City in the 1960s
and was named director of a church training center in New Jersey. He
maintained his jazz ties, however, staying involved in the Newport festival
and hosting a New York television show called ''Dial M for Music'' along
with a syndicated radio show.
Father O'Connor became executive director of a drug and alcohol treatment
center in Paterson, N.J., in 1980. He retired last year.
Father O'Connor's influence extended well beyond New England and New York,
Wein said, relating a story of how the priest and Cardinal Cushing helped
persuade the archbishop of Paris to open the doors of the hallowed L'eglise
St.-Sulpice for Duke Ellington to play one of his ''Sacred Concerts,'' his
fusion of jazz and Christian devotion.
Like several jazz legends, Ellington considered Father O'Connor more than a
supporter. He was a friend.
''They weren't necessarily Catholic,'' Wein said of the musicians. ''It
made no difference to Father O'Connor, it made no difference to them.
''The scope of the man and his appeal was grander than being a priest; he
transcended the church. They loved him as a human being.''
This story ran on page F11 of the Boston Globe on 7/16/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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