Free concerts are held along the Chattanooga Riverfront — a few steps from my weekend abode — each Saturday evening in late summer. The artists range from country to jazz to less-clearly describable.
A band called “Stratospheerius” is set to perform at the weekly Riverfront Nights Festival on Sept. 11. I wondered what type of music to expect assuming the heat and humidity by then would permit for enjoyable outdoor entertainment.
According to an article at chattanoogan.com, Stratospheerius’ “musical range combines jam, fusion, rock, progressive, virtuoso, singer-songwriter, jazz and metal.”
As one who has a hard time expressing his theological and political orientations — or most anything else of substance — with bumper-sticker brevity, I can appreciate the complexity the band finds in describing its music. In fact, my curiosity is raised a bit.
While life and faith have their elements of simplicity — like love of God and neighbor — there are deep waters to explore as well. Learning to accept, even appreciate, the complexities or life can be enriching. We just don’t have it all figured out — and that’s OK.
So curiosity may lead me to walk over on that September Saturday for a dose of “psychojazz trip funk,” as they explain the band’s music in “simpler” terms to us commoners. Or I will probably be able to hear it just fine from my hotel room a couple of blocks away.
Director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and former executive editor and publisher at Good Faith Media.
