The Paganization of Worship (Crisis in Christian Music, Volume 2)
Jack Wheaton grew up in a musical family. His father was a well-known musician in Denver, Colorado. Frank Wheaton, Jack's father played violin, guitar, and trumpet professionally, and taught those instruments as well, until he was eighty-nine years of age. Jack began the study of piano and trumpet when he was nine years old. He went on th graduate from the University of Denver with a BA in Music in 1953. Later he finished his master's degree at the University of Northern Colorado in 1957. His final degree, a doctorate in music and history, was primarily through the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Dr. Wheaton was music department chairman at Cerritos College, Norwalk, California; College of the Redwoods, Eureka, California; and Administrative Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He served briefly on the faculty of the University of San Diego and has been a guest lecturer at over fifty colleges. He has an Emmy Award for musical director for an ABC-TV Special, "Neophonic Spring," as well as directing and supervising the Gershwin segment of the 1984 Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. He has authored over fifteen books, his most recent, All That Jazz: A History of Afro-American Music and Career Counseling for Today's Musician, written for the American Federation of Musicians. As a composer, he has scored the musical soundtracks to eight Hollywood feature films, many jingles, and documentaries. As a pianist he is featured on seven CDs, two of the most recent being Christmas Joy and Favorite Hymns (vol 1) for Hearthstone Publishing. His music ministry positions are many, with the most recent being the director of instrumental music for Calvary Church in Santa Ana, California, the largest church in Orange County, where he arranged for and conducted regularly a seventy-piece orchestra, as well as works for choir. Dr. Wheaton has many published works for choir and praise band, and is currently working on an Easter cantata and an oratorio on the book of Esther. Sought after as a consultant for church music programs Jack became increasingly concerned about the growing crisis in church music; hence the authoring of this book.