By the Rev. Nathan Empsall, priest-in-charge

January 2011

At the end of today's worship service, our dear friend Will Cleary announced that after 15 years in the St. PJ's jazz ensemble -- including roughly 10 years as our music director -- he will be stepping down after the Christmas Eve service. His comments, including his reasons in his own words and his gratitude to St. PJ's, are transcribed below.

Few, if any, understand the spiritual connections between Episcopal liturgy and the soul of jazz as well as Will Cleary. He has also continued to level up our tech set-up and livestream year after year, and puts in far more hours than we could ever ask or expect from him. He is a talented saxophone player and a visionary in his director role, yet perhaps his greatest gift is that of teacher: teacher to musical students, teacher to future music leaders, and teacher to us all about the Christian spiritual experience of jazz. I have greatly appreciated our conversations about religion, music, culture, race, and more. I wish he could stay in his role for many more years to come, but I deeply respect and understand his reasons as he looks to spend more time with his family, and I am delighted for him personally that he is in a position to do what is right for himself and his family.

Will will be deeply missed, but there is also good news: He isn't going far. We look forward to seeing Will on the other side of the altar rail from time to time, holding a new place in our worshipping community and church family.

Meanwhile, Dylan Rowland, our pianist and assistant music director, has agreed to serve as interim music director, and we will hear much more from Dontae James on the sax. We've all seen how these two can play, and after speaking with Dylan, I have a good feeling about the days ahead.

There are six more chances to gather with Will as our music director: Sundays the 14th and 21st, Blue Christmas on Dec. 18, the hymn sing on Dec. 22, Christmas Eve, and of course, tomorrow/Monday evening's jazz ensemble Christmas concert at 7 p.m. If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, you can do so online now.

We will find a time in the future to fully celebrate and appreciate Will Cleary. Here now is a rough transcript of his remarks from today's service:

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Announcement by Will Cleary

Whenever I get a microphone, before I do anything, I just have to take a moment to show a little bit of gratitude for my team here because they support me in so many ways. And, of course, that's, Dylan Rowland here and Dontae James up there. And I really mean that in the musician's world: We play, obviously, but we are comrades in so many ways.

Another big thing: Some of you know my life outside of church. I play with a group, the Theodicy Jazz Collective. We go on the road all the time, and we're doing more and more work these days, in many places. I'm also a teacher, and recently I was appointed as a full time professor at Southern Connecticut State University. They're looking to renew that, and hopefully this could become tenure track as we move forward.

With all this work, it means that I'm away quite a bit and many weekends. And so, I'm going to be stepping down as Director of Music after this season at PJ’s.

And, that's a very hard thing for me.

I wanted to talk a little bit about that history very quickly. Some of you, I’ve known you since the beginning, but I came here in 2010 with Andy Barnett. We were playing with Theodicy back then, and we were having a margarita, and Andy said, “Hey, Will, you should move to New Haven.” And I told Andy, “Well, you get me a steady gig, and I think I can work from there and make it work.” And he did just that.

He brought me here to PJ's as the saxophonist, we call that a “hired gun” in that world. So, of course, as Andy moved on to bigger and better things for him, I served as interim director several times. And every time I did that, I said, “I won't be doing this very long, guys. I'll be moving on quick.” And we went through several directors. And I kept saying that. And eventually, I became the regular director for a number of years now -- I don't even know how many it's been.

I really want to take this chance to talk about my gratitude, something maybe you don't always hear me say, but that is that I really didn’t have a very strong spiritual connection before coming to PJ's. Not that I wasn't about Jesus -- I think I just moved very far away from it. In the world I'm in music, it's kind of a dog-eat-dog world, and there's a lot of stress and anxiety around it.

Then being in this community, I really found a place with so much love for the world and for others, and it was very inspiring, something I had really forgotten. These guys hear me talk about it all the time as a teacher, what it's meant to me here.

On another level, just being a musician again in this world, we try to play everything perfectly and get all the notes right, and we forget why we do it. And what PJ’s did for me was build context for my music. I realized that music can serve in so many ways, and that forms every note I play now. And I think that's true of some of these guys too. We have that same connection. If you ever get involved with music, sometimes we get lost in it and our notes don't mean a lot [anymore] and we can get very frustrated. But this has been a place that's really grounded my soul.

Moving forward, what really motivates me in this transition is that I've been doing this a long time, and I haven't had a weekend in fifteen years. I'm in church, or if I'm taking a day off, I'm on a gig or I'm teaching or doing something. I've had only a handful of weekends with my family, and what kind of locked in this decision for me is that I just want to be on the other side of these candles right here, and that is being in church, bringing my kids, and serving in different ways -- maybe with the saxophone, of course, playing some notes. But there's so much more I want to do, and I hope that I could be on the other side with you every once in a while. Sit with Harlon out there -- I don't think we ever sat on that side together, you know?

So, I'm really grateful for your support. It means a lot. I hope in these past fifteen years, I was able to return what you've given me through the music and my leadership. And I'm really excited to see where we go from here.