Martinis and Jazz-Mass, Perfect Together

By Tom Stoelker

I first heard of Martini Night at the Church of the Ascension, not surprisingly, over few beers with friends. The event is held on first Sunday of each month following the 6PM Jazz Mass. With the introduction of snazzy music at the evening service a parishioner complained to the pastor, Rev. John Duffell. She told him she felt as though she should “have a martini glass in her hand” and violá, a response to the traditional post-Mass coffee clutch was born.

“How could you have coffee at seven at night,” Father Duffell asked rhetorically.

A recent visit to the Upper West Side parish on an average Sunday night had an intimate atmosphere, filled with parishioners who sang along knowingly with music director Peter Hartmann’s original compositions. This was not what the British call a “happy-clappy” service. The music, while uplifting, is hardly evangelical. However, by comparison, the Jazz Mass that preceded the martini event was a standing room only crowd and a touch more jovial. After the service, the crowd overflowed onto 107^th Street and waited to enter the basement reception hall. Volunteers having anticipated the rush passed in the opposite direction with trays of martinis in little plastic tumblers, making the wait to get into the hall all the more bearable. Downstairs, a potluck dinner of hamburgers, chips, salads and soft drinks were also served. A church’s basement is often like a community rec room and this one is no exception: florescent lights, pale yellow walls, folding chairs and tables. The crowd looked much like the neighborhood, which is to say multiracial, multigenerational, some gay, mostly straight. While, I stood in line to get a refresher, little kids cut through to get to the burgers while their moms scolded them for not saying ‘excuse me.’ From a distance, I studied a chatty group of young men. I struck up a conversation with a music teacher from Jersey. We talked musical theater as my friend discussed Vatican politics with Father Duffell. Suddenly, it seemed, tables were being broken down and brooms were sweeping.

“God speaks in many different ways,” Duffell explained. “Some may say that I’m an incarnationalist­­––whatever that is. But in a city like this people are strangers and this is a good way to bring them together.”

Duffell’s liturgically nuanced riff deals with the incarnate, or the pleasures of the flesh, of which alcohol is one.

“Everything is basically good,” he said, “it just depends on how you use it. I’ve never seen anyone inebriated here.”

For many Americans the notion of having a drink after church is sacrilege, likely an outgrowth of a puritanical heritage. However, wine is a sacred element of each Catholic service. In Europe, where drinking alcohol is part of the culture there are no such concerns. For generations the Catholic Church has been an extension of that culture. But while the Martini Night may have some ties to the old country, outreach is more to the point. With concerts, cushy seating and me-centric sermons on offer at other churches, to say nothing of New York nightlife, Martini Night offers cultural significance, but instead of heading the bar, parishioners just go downstairs.