Jordan United Church of Christ, 1837 Church Road, South Whitehall Township, hosted Bill Carter and The Presbybop Quartet May 30 for a performance of Christian jazz music.

Carter, an ordained Presbyterian pastor and jazz pianist from Clarks Summit, was joined by his college music professor Al Hamme on saxophone and clarinet.

Hamme has taught jazz studies at Binghamton University, New York, for more than 30 years.

The other members of the quartet are good friends Tony Marino on bass; and Ron Vincent on drums.

Comprised mostly of original instrumental pieces based on the Biblical Psalms as well as new jazz arrangements of familiar hymns, the quartet opened the concert with an original piece called "How Good it is" based on Psalm 133:1: "How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity."

Carter said his philosophy is words are not always needed to pray, as he noted with another original composition titled "Let Them Go, Set Them Free" dedicated to the children of each group member and especially his own four kids entering college or finishing masters' degrees and launching post-graduate careers.

"I started playing trumpet and piano when I was younger," Carter said. "Even though I now exclusively play piano I ended up creating a lot of my own notes simply because I just wasn't happy with the notes already printed on the page.

"As a teen, I had been exposed to classic big band and jazz music, and Count Basie was one of my biggest influences when I was about 10 or 12 years old."

Carter also said his grandmother gave him several vinyl records as a gift, one of which was a Dave Brubeck recording of Disney songs with jazz arrangements.

"I listened to that record first, and I could hear the imagination in each song he played," Carter said.

As he was familiar with many of the songs on Brubeck's recording from the Disney songs, he immediately liked the jazz versions of the songs and dedicated a jazz version of Cinderella's "Someday My Prince Will Come" to his grandmother, Isabella Stewart, whom he and his family called Ebo.

"I thought 'Someday My Prince Will Come' was rather sappy in the movie, but Brubeck's recording syncopated its chords and inspired me to write the song for Ebo."

The quartet also performs at jazz worship services and played several tunes they've used in worship such as an original offertory piece called "Pass the Plate" used while passing an offering plate in worship, as well as a jazz arrangement of the tune, "Slane," that's used for the hymn, "Be Thou My Vision."

The concert ended with an arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" and a standing ovation.

"I served in a Presbyterian church in Catasauqua, for five years, but I didn't play any jazz in worship because it just didn't fit the personality of the congregation, even though I'd worked as a jazz pianist four nights a week to pay for seminary," Carter said in a telephone interview prior to the concert.

Carter is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J., and classmate of the Rev. Dr. David Charles Smith, Jordan's senior pastor.

"When I moved to the Scranton area in 1990 to serve a church there, a man stood up in the back pew of the sanctuary and asked me to play some jazz pieces, but I hesitated and said it wasn't what I had come for."

He said the man insisted, and Carter eventually substituted for the church's organist on a Labor Day weekend and played several jazz hymns.

"Unbeknownst to me, a press release had been sent out to local newspapers, and the church was packed that particular Sunday on a holiday weekend when attendance is lower than average."

Carter had been asked to do it the following year, and the request to play led to the formation of the quartet when he realized he'd have to come up with some newer arrangements and original songs.

"I spend a lot of time thinking about jazz. If there is a line between the sacred and the secular aspects of my ministry, for me, it's a dotted line," Carter said. "God is involved in what I do, and I encourage others by saying that God should not be detached from the lives we live outside of church on a Sunday morning."

He said while juggling schedules for everyone involved in the quartet can be tricky when scheduling concerts, their love of music and their faith allow them to have fun while traveling and while playing the music.

"We're all great friends, and have taken a week-long vacation to tour other states in the United States such as New York, Pennsylvania and Florida," Carter said. "We laugh the entire time we travel and play, we ignore the criticism of combining Christianity with jazz, and listen to other people around us [in the quartet and the audience] because we have a common beat and playfulness in our music."

For more information about the quartet, contact Bill Carter at 152 Edgewood Drive, South Abington Township, PA, 18411, call 570-586-6776 or email office@presbybop.com.

The quartet's website is presbybop.com.