St. Louis Jesuits
| St. Louis Jesuits | |
|---|---|
| Origin | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Genres | Contemporary Catholic liturgical music |
| Years active | 1970–85, 2005 |
| Labels | NALR, OCP |
| Past members |
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The St. Louis Jesuits, a group of Catholic composers who popularized an easy Listening/folk music style of church music through their compositions and recordings, mainly from their heyday in the `70s through the mid `80s. The group, made up of Jesuit scholastics at St. Louis University, originally used acoustic guitars and contemporary-style melodies and rhythms to set biblical and other religious texts to music sung in English in response to the liturgical reforms of Vatican II.
Without intent, a groundswell of popularity took place when college students, scholastics, and women religious took mimeoed or dittoed copies of their new music back to their communities where it became known as music by "The St. Louis Jesuits."
In a situation similar to that which involved The Singing Nun some ten years earlier, the scholastics' intent was to collect and make a recording of their music, in this case before finishing their studies at St. Louis University so that it would be available to others after their graduation. Some of the music was recorded in the basement of Fusz Memorial Chapel, the rest at a local studio. This first collection of 58 songs, some dating back as early as 1964, was called Neither Silver nor Gold. Later, this recording was issued as a four-cassette/LP set in 1974 by North American Liturgy Resources. It has since been remastered into a two-CD set by OCP Publications with about a half a dozen songs left off the LP/cassette version due to space limitations.
Over time, Bob Dufford, S.J., John Foley, S.J., Tim Manion, Roc O'Connor, S.J., Dan Schutte, and their music became known as the St. Louis Jesuits. At the time, all were members of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit order), however Manion would never complete his studies there or become ordained. He continued to collaborate with the group until 1984.
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