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AllenLowe

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...the conversation didn't shut down the last time we talked about spousal abuse in the Max Roach household, or Miles's history of abuse--this is all stuff tied up in sexuality.

Respectfully, I say, "bullshit". Spousal abuse, rape, and the like are not about sex or sexuality. It's all about power, control and violence.

Edited by sonnymax
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pousal abuse, rape, and the like are not about sex or sexuality. It's all about power, control and violence.

And sex isn't, at least in part and/or sometimes?

That's what I mean. It's not about sex and sexuality in the strictest sense, but the treatment of sexuality, the apotheosis of masculinity and macho in the jazz culture--isn't this stuff also tied up in power, control and violence? Again, not the whole story, but these things are interwoven.

As for Gaga and cohort--there's some stuff that might be best addressed in the Rosenwinkel "jazz sucks" thread. It is pretty notable, however, that this time around the "old guard" is criticizing neophytes not so much for aesthetic reasons but rather for social conventions like insularity, arrogance, and a lack of historical perspective. For my part, I can't really imagine coming up in jazz (or even improv, at this point) without the knowledge and encouragement of one's forebears (spent waaaaay too much time around some of the "old guard"--which is really just the guard--to think otherwise), but what does it mean when a lot of the guys on the street aren't even playing/battling on the same court anymore? That is pretty bleak.

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pousal abuse, rape, and the like are not about sex or sexuality. It's all about power, control and violence.

And sex isn't, at least in part and/or sometimes?

That's what I mean. It's not about sex and sexuality in the strictest sense, but the treatment of sexuality, the apotheosis of masculinity and macho in the jazz culture--isn't this stuff also tied up in power, control and violence? Again, not the whole story, but these things are interwoven.

As for Gaga and cohort--there's some stuff that might be best addressed in the Rosenwinkel "jazz sucks" thread. It is pretty notable, however, that this time around the "old guard" is criticizing neophytes not so much for aesthetic reasons but rather for social conventions like insularity, arrogance, and a lack of historical perspective. For my part, I can't really imagine coming up in jazz (or even improv, at this point) without the knowledge and encouragement of one's forebears (spent waaaaay too much time around some of the "old guard"--which is really just the guard--to think otherwise), but what does it mean when a lot of the guys on the street aren't even playing/battling on the same court anymore? That is pretty bleak.

I'm not sure if you were answering me. Anyway, I'm done here, my choruses taken. Only gonna repeat myself. I will say though that Kurt Rosenwinkel has a lot more to learn about humility, not to mention other basics about jazz playing,people, and what the music represents at its best before running his self-absorbed mouth about anything. If you like his opinions, take ém. He definitely does not speak for me.

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pousal abuse, rape, and the like are not about sex or sexuality. It's all about power, control and violence.

And sex isn't, at least in part and/or sometimes?

Sexual abuse, rape, and other offenses are not expressions of an individual's sexuality or sexual orientation. They are expressions of a perpetrator's efforts to control and exert power using violence in an assault on a victim's sexuality and sexual identity. You may not appreciate the difference, but I assure you that they exist, and they are crucial to the victims and the people in their lives.

Edited by sonnymax
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To clarify, Jim deleted my post about Lucille Bogan with the lyrics to Shave 'Em Dry pasted below. Jim's call to remove tho' it's interesting how a 75 year old song by a black woman can still make people uncomfortable (if not Jim personally than those who might confuse O. site with Jim A. the musician, an old story.)

The song doesn't bother me but I got a few complaints about it. It's just fine to link to it but I see no need to post the lyrics here. If people want to explore it, they can do so on their own.

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pousal abuse, rape, and the like are not about sex or sexuality. It's all about power, control and violence.

And sex isn't, at least in part and/or sometimes?

Sexual abuse, rape, and other offenses are not expressions of an individual's sexuality or sexual orientation. They are expressions of a perpetrator's efforts to control and exert power using violence in an assault on a victim's sexuality and sexual identity. You may not appreciate the difference, but I assure you that they exist, and they are crucial to the victims and the people in their lives.

I'm not talking about using sexuality as an expression of aggression. I'm talking about using aggression as an expression of sexuality.

Surely you can appreciate the difference.

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pousal abuse, rape, and the like are not about sex or sexuality. It's all about power, control and violence.

And sex isn't, at least in part and/or sometimes?

Sexual abuse, rape, and other offenses are not expressions of an individual's sexuality or sexual orientation. They are expressions of a perpetrator's efforts to control and exert power using violence in an assault on a victim's sexuality and sexual identity. You may not appreciate the difference, but I assure you that they exist, and they are crucial to the victims and the people in their lives.

I'm not talking about using sexuality as an expression of aggression. I'm talking about using aggression as an expression of sexuality.

Surely you can appreciate the difference.

Care to provide an example to foster my appreciation? Perhaps we do not share the same understanding of what constitutes "aggression". According to Merriam-Webster, "aggression" is:

1: a forceful action or procedure (as an unprovoked attack) especially when intended to dominate or master

2: the practice of making attacks or encroachments; especially : unprovoked violation by one country of the territorial integrity of another

3: hostile, injurious, or destructive behavior or outlook especially when caused by frustration.

With these thoughts in mind, would you care to grapple with the concept of what constitutes a person's "sexuality"?

Imo, "rough" sex is not the same as rape. Informed consent is the crucial difference. Without it, it's sexual assault, regardless of what the perpetrator claims.

Edited by sonnymax
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Certainly "rough" sex is not the same as rape.

And nowhere did I claim that it was.

Let's connect the dots here:

Spousal abuse, rape, and the like are not about sex or sexuality. It's all about power, control and violence.

True, but...

And sex isn't, at least in part and/or sometimes?

...meaning only that power, control and violence are indeed part of "normal" sexuality as well. And I'm not just talking about "rough sex" either, oh HELL no!

A really good, hard fucking (and remember, not just men fuck, women fuck men too, they don't just get fucked by them, and in the context of this thread, men fuck and get fucked by other men too, and women...women can do damn near anything, one way or the other, and yes, that is a source of wonder, terror, and envy in many, many men) will bring out a lot of power, control, and violence activity from everybody involved at one (or more) point alone the way far more often than it won't. And thank god for that!

I could provide countless examples, I'm sure most of us could, but none of them are really "suitable".

All of which is to say that if behaviors of "power, control and violence" occur only in actions of assault, then sex itself would have to be viewed as being at root an act of assault, and ain't no way I'm buying that.

Surely you can appreciate the difference.

According to Merriam-Webster, "aggression" is:

1: a forceful action or procedure (as an unprovoked attack) especially when intended to dominate or master

2: the practice of making attacks or encroachments; especially : unprovoked violation by one country of the territorial integrity of another

3: hostile, injurious, or destructive behavior or outlook especially when caused by frustration.

Wow...Merriam-Webster got issues!

Edited by JSngry
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erm... George Melly did an entertaining radio show a few years ago on the BBC about homosexuality in the jazz and blues world (I think it's an interesting subject re. blues, inasmuch as the sexual openness of earlier blues lyrics can be contrasted with some of the more homophobic lyrics you get in SOME contemporary hip hop or reggae music...) Melly didn't 'reveal' anything (no surprise that Frankie Half-Pint Jaxon was gay!) but he said in the show that a well known jazz expert had often argued with him that there were NO gay jazz musicians! - He went on to play stuff like "stick out your can, here comes the garbage man..."

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Certainly "rough" sex is not the same as rape.

And nowhere did I claim that it was.

Let's connect the dots here:

Spousal abuse, rape, and the like are not about sex or sexuality. It's all about power, control and violence.

True, but...

And sex isn't, at least in part and/or sometimes?

...meaning only that power, control and violence are indeed part of "normal" sexuality as well. And I'm not just talking about "rough sex" either, oh HELL no!

A really good, hard fucking (and remember, not just men fuck, women fuck men too, they don't just get fucked by them, and in the context of this thread, men fuck and get fucked by other men too, and women...women can do damn near anything, one way or the other, and yes, that is a source of wonder, terror, and envy in many, many men) will bring out a lot of power, control, and violence activity from everybody involved at one (or more) point alone the way far more often than it won't. And thank god for that!

I could provide countless examples, I'm sure most of us could, but none of them are really "suitable".

All of which is to say that if behaviors of "power, control and violence" occur only in actions of assault, then sex itself would have to be viewed as being at root an act of assault, and ain't no way I'm buying that.

Surely you can appreciate the difference.

According to Merriam-Webster, "aggression" is:

1: a forceful action or procedure (as an unprovoked attack) especially when intended to dominate or master

2: the practice of making attacks or encroachments; especially : unprovoked violation by one country of the territorial integrity of another

3: hostile, injurious, or destructive behavior or outlook especially when caused by frustration.

Wow...Merriam-Webster got issues!

Check out the late psychoanalyst Robert Stoller's IMO brilliant book "Sexual Excitement: Dynamics of Erotic Life." Baldly stated (as he admits), Stoller's theory of the origins of sexual excitement (i.e. what gets you hot, not what inspires the feelings we call "love," though of course there are connections there) is:

"In the absence of special physiologic factors (such as a sudden androgen increase in either sex), and putting aside the obvious effects that result from direct stimulation of erotic body parts, it is hostility *** -- the desire, overt or hidden, to harm another person, that generates and enhances sexual excitement. The absence of hostility leads to sexual indifference or boredom. The hostility of erotism is an attempt, repeated over and over, to undo childhood traumas and frustrations, that threatened the development of one's masculinity or femininity. The same dynamics, though in different mixes and degrees, are found in almost everyone, those labeled perverse and those not so labeled.

*** Stoller adds: "I prefer the word 'hostility' to 'power,' for it has a crisper connotation of harm and suffering."

Stoller continues:

"I came to these hypotheses as I sought -- and failed to find, as many others (including Freud) also had failed -- a line on the continuum of sexual behavior that could separate 'normal' from 'perverse.' Looking at the manifestations of sexual excitement or the enticements to it that are accepted by society at large -- as revealed in such communications as the entertainment media, advertising, books, jokes and cartoons, newspapers and journals, and pornography for the masses -- I felt that either the mechanisms to be described were not restricted to the perversions or that most people are perverse (as others of more cynical persuasion have long been saying). How you want to put it is your choice; the evidence for either statement is the same.

"The following, then, are the mental factors present in perversions that I believe contribute to sexual excitement in general: hostility, mystery, risk, illusion, revenge, reversal of trauma or frustration to triumph, safety factors, and dehumanization (fetishization). And all of these are stitched together into a whole -- the surge of sexual excitement -- by secrets. (Two unpleasant thoughts: First, when one tabulates the factors that produce sexual excitement, exuberance -- pure joyous pleasure -- is for most people at the bottom of the list. Second, I would guess that only in rare people who can indefinitely contain sexual excitement and love within the same relationship do hostility and secrecy play insignificant parts in producing excitement.)"

Stoller's book also includes the most detailed and IMO scrupulous account of a psychoanalysis I know of.

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Whether a musician is gay doesn't figure into whether I enjoy music. I have a few gay friends, but they're not close friends. There's a few lipstick lesbians I know who I'm a little bitter don't want me for sex, but they're nice ladies anyway. I've never really considered myself perverted in any way, but I do enjoy a good wild sweaty roll in the hay with a pretty girl in which things could be described as amorously violent.

Wait, what are we talking about?

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Check out the late psychoanalyst Robert Stoller's IMO brilliant book "Sexual Excitement: Dynamics of Erotic Life." Baldly stated (as he admits), Stoller's theory of the origins of sexual excitement (i.e. what gets you hot, not what inspires the feelings we call "love," though of course there are connections there) is:

"In the absence of special physiologic factors (such as a sudden androgen increase in either sex), and putting aside the obvious effects that result from direct stimulation of erotic body parts, it is hostility *** -- the desire, overt or hidden, to harm another person, that generates and enhances sexual excitement. The absence of hostility leads to sexual indifference or boredom. The hostility of erotism is an attempt, repeated over and over, to undo childhood traumas and frustrations, that threatened the development of one's masculinity or femininity. The same dynamics, though in different mixes and degrees, are found in almost everyone, those labeled perverse and those not so labeled.

*** Stoller adds: "I prefer the word 'hostility' to 'power,' for it has a crisper connotation of harm and suffering."

Stoller continues:

"I came to these hypotheses as I sought -- and failed to find, as many others (including Freud) also had failed -- a line on the continuum of sexual behavior that could separate 'normal' from 'perverse.' Looking at the manifestations of sexual excitement or the enticements to it that are accepted by society at large -- as revealed in such communications as the entertainment media, advertising, books, jokes and cartoons, newspapers and journals, and pornography for the masses -- I felt that either the mechanisms to be described were not restricted to the perversions or that most people are perverse (as others of more cynical persuasion have long been saying). How you want to put it is your choice; the evidence for either statement is the same.

"The following, then, are the mental factors present in perversions that I believe contribute to sexual excitement in general: hostility, mystery, risk, illusion, revenge, reversal of trauma or frustration to triumph, safety factors, and dehumanization (fetishization). And all of these are stitched together into a whole -- the surge of sexual excitement -- by secrets. (Two unpleasant thoughts: First, when one tabulates the factors that produce sexual excitement, exuberance -- pure joyous pleasure -- is for most people at the bottom of the list. Second, I would guess that only in rare people who can indefinitely contain sexual excitement and love within the same relationship do hostility and secrecy play insignificant parts in producing excitement.)"

Stoller's book also includes the most detailed and IMO scrupulous account of a psychoanalysis I know of.

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I think the notion of "assertion" gets blurred into "aggression", which then gets blurred into "hostility".

Why this is, I can only guess, but suffice it to say that sometimes, yes, but sometimes, no.

The use of language to define behavior in an attempt to control it is potentially as much of an act of hostility as the hostility which it ostensibly seeks to contain.

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Huh? Does this mean my lust for someone is actually hostility?

I think the sticking point here may be the word "actually." If you're using it here to mean something like "Does this mean my lust for someone is hostility instead of lust?" (whatever one thinks the dynamics of "lust" or sexual excitement in fact are) no. What Stoller is saying, if one goes along with him, is that hostility is a significant component in lust or sexual excitement, for reasons he elaborates on.

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Huh? Does this mean my lust for someone is actually hostility?

I think the sticking point here may be the word "actually." If you're using it here to mean something like "Does this mean my lust for someone is hostility instead of lust?" (whatever one thinks the dynamics of "lust" or sexual excitement in fact are) no. What Stoller is saying, if one goes along with him, is that hostility is a significant component in lust or sexual excitement, for reasons he elaborates on.

Intriguing idea. Sometimes yes, but always?

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Let's face it - our sexual urges are rooted in the need to spread seed. Now that eons have passed and too much seed has been spread and borne fruit, the need now is to spread seed without fear of reproducing.

Being either gay or a jazz musician will take care of that. Being a gay jazz musician is, like, doubly blessing the planet with your presence.

Selah.

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Huh? Does this mean my lust for someone is actually hostility?

I think the sticking point here may be the word "actually." If you're using it here to mean something like "Does this mean my lust for someone is hostility instead of lust?" (whatever one thinks the dynamics of "lust" or sexual excitement in fact are) no. What Stoller is saying, if one goes along with him, is that hostility is a significant component in lust or sexual excitement, for reasons he elaborates on.

Intriguing idea. Sometimes yes, but always?

Some in the field think that Stoller's theory goes too far. A very interesting book, in any case, as are his books on gender identity, perversions, and pornography. Those subjects (in order IIRC) were his original professional interests, and one could argue that they either slanted or brought insight to his views of how sexual excitement works across the board.

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  • 6 months later...

a few years ago Francis Davis led a panel on this subject, because it was something jazz people never used to talk about - well, I was speaking to Larry Gushee last night; Larry is the most meticulous researcher in jazz, and was on the jazz scene in the 50s and 60s; he dropped an interesting bombshell - that both Bunk Johnson and Ben Webster were gay,

I'm currently reading "Jazz Masters of the 30's" written by Rex Stewart - quite a good writer I must say so - he documents a lot of his own personal reminiscences going back to the early twentieth century

Most of the chapters were lifted from articles he wrote for downbeat during the 60's

I've just finished the chapter on Ben Webster & though not directly stated I have the impression that the assertion may be supported here

I'd forgotten about this thread & googled gay jazz musicians (based on reading the article) & up it popped near the top of the list

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To clarify, Jim deleted my post about Lucille Bogan with the lyrics to Shave 'Em Dry pasted below. Jim's call to remove tho' it's interesting how a 75 year old song by a black woman can still make people uncomfortable (if not Jim personally than those who might confuse O. site with Jim A. the musician, an old story.)

The song doesn't bother me but I got a few complaints about it. It's just fine to link to it but I see no need to post the lyrics here. If people want to explore it, they can do so on their own.

Discovering this thread only now (very interesting views expresed there, BTW).

But THIS (above)?? I am suprised, to put it mildly. How prude can you get? Does the pendulum indeed swing back THAT far? In TODAY's world?

So, thanks, Moms, for linking at least to that site where the "Screening The Blues" book is discussed.

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To clarify, Jim deleted my post about Lucille Bogan with the lyrics to Shave 'Em Dry pasted below. Jim's call to remove tho' it's interesting how a 75 year old song by a black woman can still make people uncomfortable (if not Jim personally than those who might confuse O. site with Jim A. the musician, an old story.)

Regardless, anyone who doesn't know the dirty dirty (hot) "Shave 'Em Dry", is missing out-- and anyone missing out, is missing the point of history altogether.

the version I'm referring to is the last quoted here--

http://www.philxmilstein.com/probe/pix/oliver.htm

I wrote an arrangement of this for kazoo orchestra + tenor obbligato I'm hoping Allen Lowe will someday record but...

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for the "I don't care about" s-e-* crowd to explain Little Richard & Esquirita to me.

And didn't Miles say the the first thing he does is "look at my ding"?

Oh my!

miles-davisnewmans_71.jpg?w=500&h=338

acting out in the supermarket of love :lol:

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