The Jazz Priest

The “Jazz Priest” legacy lives on through the Straight and Narrow Gospel Choir.

Straight and Narrow Inc., is one of the oldest and largest inpatient and outpatient drug and alcohol treatment facilities in New Jersey. 

Since its inception in 1954.Straight & Narrow, Inc. has developed treatment and prevention programs in response to emerging and systemic needs of the community. At the core of Straight & Narrow’s response to each of these needs is the commitment to our mission of “…providing help – creating hope…”  

An integral part of the holistic treatment experience at Straight and Narrow is one’s spirituality.  Straight & Narrow’s Pastoral Care Department assists with meeting the spiritual needs of the clients served.  One of the many activities, which the staff of the Pastoral Care Department coordinate is the Straight & Narrow Gospel Choir.  Participation in the Choir provides clients with a sense of fulfillment, meaning and hope to continue to maintain their recovery lifestyle.  That sense of fulfillment is not limited to the clients at Straight & Narrow. As an agency the spirit of the choir is felt with all who are employed here; to the credit of the agency's former Executive Director the late Father Norman J. O'Connor.

The Straight and Narrow Gospel Choir originated with the agency's former Executive Director the late Father Norman J. O'Connor. Fr. O'Connor was known as "the jazz priest" for his work in the Roman Catholic Church and his commentary on jazz.  After his ordination as a Paulist priest in 1948, he spent a decade as Catholic chaplain at Boston University. While there, he was named to the board of the first Newport Jazz Festival, and for many years served as its master of ceremonies.

Fr. O'Connor’s passion for jazz emanated off stage as well, writing a weekly column in the Boston Globe and articles in Down Beat, Metronome and other music magazines. When he was reassigned to New York in the 1960s, as the director of radio and television for that city's Paulist Fathers, he hosted a syndicated radio show and a local TV show, "Dial M for Music" on WCBS in New York City.

Father O'Connor also used jazz in religious services. ''I'm a 20th-century man,'' he told The Daily News in 1969. ''I'm accustomed to the modern sounds of the piano, the drum, the trumpet and the saxophone.''

From 1980 until his retirement in 2002, Fr. O'Connor served as the Executive Director of Straight and Narrow, the largest and oldest rehabilitation center of its kind in the state. Fr. O’Connor’s progressive mindset afforded Straight and Narrow the reputation of becoming a premier treatment provider consisting of a diversity of programs for those affected by substance abuse as well as a host of community programs for adults, children and families.  Under the leadership of Fr. O'Connor Straight and Narrow’s pastoral care expanded its small Gospel choir to become a cornerstone of its drug and alcohol prevention and education program.  At the age of 81, Fr. O’Connor passed away of a heart attack yet his legacy lives on in Straight & Narrow and especially the Gospel Choir.



Raymond, a client of Straight and Narrow’s long-term program who is a choir member said that “it’s one of my favorite things to be part of the choir here. It allows me to get in touch with my spiritual side”. The choir consists of men and women who are actively in treatment and graduates from the programs for more than 15 years that stay involved with the choir. Straight and Narrow’s former director of pastoral care said, “I always believe eyes are the window to the soul and I can see in some of these clients that their soul is alive. That here’s a good person trying to be better”.

Religious services are provided for multiple faiths utilizing local Ministers, Imams and Rabbis in addition to Straight and Narrow's own pastoral care Priests and Staff.