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Transcript One:
Destination
Out
2-3:30 p.m.
Moderator:
Francis Davis, 2002-02 NAJP senior fellow
Panelists:
Gary Burton, musician
Andy Bey, musician
Fred Hersch, musician
Charlie Kohlhase, musician
Grover Sales, jazz historian
Davis: Hi, and welcome to “Politically Incorrect.” I
think you might see what I’m referring to, and before anyone
else can raise the question, I should acknowledge the absence of
a woman on this panel—which might be telling, especially since
our topic is whether jazz is still a macho stronghold and what that
means for a gay musician. It would be nice to have that voice.
I tried. Three of the women I approached had gigs, which was certainly
understandable—that they’d go to Europe instead of coming
here on a Friday afternoon. I would do the same thing, but nobody
invited me to Europe. You’re drawing from a limited field,
that’s the other problem. There are fewer women musicians
in jazz than there are male musicians, and it stands to reason that
there are going to be fewer women who are out. It might be even
tougher for women to come out, because they already have a lot to
prove, anyway. So that’s one thing that I need to apologize
for.
I heard Andy say that he felt like the token up here, and that’s
another problem. We should have greater representation, but I approached
the people I knew to approach. It’s a very delicate situation.
You don’t know who’s out and who’s not out, and
you don’t want to alarm anybody by approaching them if they’re
not out: they’re going to wonder how you know.
I might also have to justify my role as moderator here, since I’m
not gay. But I figure, that’s OK, I’m also not a musician.
I think I can justify it by use of an analogy. No matter how much
one believes in black self-determination, it’s taken for granted
that all sorts of people are going to weigh in on race in America—that
the influence of black culture has been so profound in this country
that it touches all of us, black or white, in many ways. In some
ways, in America, we’re all at least a little bit black. And
I think that, especially over the last 20 or 25 years, the same
has been true of gay culture. I think that the full participation
in American life of gay men and women as gay men and women has influenced
all of us. It’s influenced the way we think about ourselves,
and how we think about identity, sexuality, desire, lots of other
things that go into making an identity.
In comparing it to race: it’s a funny thing. Race is always
an issue in jazz. And I think one reason that’s so is that
it’s visible. It’s becoming less visible as time goes
by. You know, is Joshua Redman black? Is he Jewish? Is he white?
Well, he’s all of those things, and as we have more inter-marriage,
it will become less visible and, maybe, less of an issue.
Sexual orientation hasn’t been an issue, perhaps because it’s
not visible. And something that really illustrates that dramatically
is that when I was lining up musicians for the panel, Fred Hersch
suggested someone to me, whom I know and consider to be a friend
(I’ve known him for about 10 years, a very fine musician who
couldn’t be here today because he had a previous commitment),
and I didn’t know he was gay, much less out. It wasn’t
something that had ever come up. We had talked about movies, we
had talked about restaurants, and of course we had talked about
music; but I guess it proves that straight people have sometimes
pretty bad gay-dar, as they say.
Introducing everybody up here, starting to my left: Charlie Kohlhase
is an alto and baritone saxophonist. Until very recently, he was
a member of the Boston-based Either/Orchestra—a very eclectic,
innovative band. He also leads the Charlie Kohlhase Quintet, and
his latest release is a really swell record called “Eventuality,”
on Nada Records. It features Roswell Rudd and the compositions of
Roswell Rudd.
Next to Charlie is Fred Hersch. The first time I ever heard Fred
Hersch was on record. He was the pianist in a group led by tenor
saxophonist Billy Harper. And he was playing very fiercely, playing
very fierce, driving, modal hard bop. And just by chance within
the same week—I think it was at the Sweet Basil—I heard
him accompanying, very sensitively, the singer Chris Connor. So
that gives some idea of Fred’s versatility. He records for
Nonesuch Records now, and the subjects of his records have included
tributes on the one hand to Billy Strayhorn and Thelonious Monk,
but also an album of Rodgers and Hammerstein. His current release
is “Songs without Words” on Nonesuch.
And next to me here is Gary Burton. Gary is on anybody’s short
list of the most important and influential vibraphonists in jazz
history. He’s been winning polls consistently since the mid-‘60s.
He was one of the first jazz musicians to explore the possibilities
of integrating jazz and country music, jazz and rock, and more recently,
his tango records have been the most successful of jazz/tango collaborations.
And even saying all that, I think his influence has extended beyond
jazz in a way that’s rarely acknowledged. Lots of times in
contemporary minimalist music, when you hear a marimba and you hear
what sounds like the influence of Gamelan music or the influence
of Carl Orff—it might be that, but it also might be the influence
of Gary Burton’s four mallets. Gary’s most recent release
is “Virtuosi” with the pianist and his protégé
Makoto Ozone.
Next to Gary is Andy Bey, one of my favorite people and a singer
whose personal authority puts him ahead of any other male singer
in jazz right now. Andy first gained attention in the early ’60s
as part of Andy and the Bey Sisters. In the 1970s, he performed
with many people. Most of you will be familiar with his recordings
from that time with Gary Bartz and Horace Silver. And later, about
10 years ago, what I like to think of as “the real Andy Bey”
emerged—a wonderful singer of standards with a series of records
(2 records) that he did for Evidence. And that’s continued
on his latest release, “Tuesdays in Chinatown,” which
is on Encoded Music.
And over there is Grover Sales. Grover has for years taught jazz
studies at Stanford University. He is the author of “Jazz:
America’s Classical Music,” which is published by Da
Capo Press. And, more pertinent to today’s panel, about 20
years ago Grover wrote an article called “The Strange Case
of Charles Ives: or Why is Jazz not Gay Music?” I want to
keep Grover on the sidelines for just a little while, although anybody
should feel free to chime in with anything at any time (except those
of you in the audience—we’ll get to you at the end).
I’d like to start with the musicians. I’d like to talk
to them about their experiences in coming out, what led to that
decision, what trepidation they may have felt, and what sort of
reaction they got.
Gary, why don’t we start with you?
Burton: My decision to come out was a result of the end of my second
marriage. I was in my 40s, and I started reexamining my life up
to that point. And over a few-year period, I finally came to the
conclusion that I was more gay than straight, and then the question
was: Do I try to keep this a secret, or do I let it become public?
As with many people, the deciding factor was that I got a crush
on someone from Chicago who was very out, and in the course of dating
for awhile, I had to be out as well. It didn’t last, but I
was out by then. And my first experiences of people discovering
this were so positive that it immediately erased any concerns I’d
had. It’s been about 15 years now. The first musician I called
was Fred, to get some insight and advice. But in 15 years of being
out, I’ve had only experienced one incident of homophobic
reaction, and that was in a letter that Jazz Times published this
week. Of all things, one of our own magazines treated me badly.
Fred also is mentioned in the same piece.
Davis: Are you talking about the letter?
Burton: Yes. It was headlined, “Faggots in Jazz,” and
it went on to say that certain musicians—naming us by name—couldn’t
swing, that homosexuality was abnormal, etc. The usual kind of hate
things. The mystery is why Jazz Times thought it was appropriate
to print it. There’s a question for journalists: How do you
make that decision, to print or not print something that defames
people or uses improper language?
Davis: Well, it always seemed to me that you came out twice in a
way…
Burton: Well, you’re always coming out again and again, every
time you meet somebody who doesn’t know or finds out all of
a sudden. I’ve been out for years, and there are still people
that I thought surely knew by now. I had more faith in the musician-gossip
line than I should have. I assumed that in a short time, everybody
would know. But I find myself still saying, “Oh no, by the
way I happen to be gay.”
Davis: I think for most people, it was when you were on “Fresh
Air” about 5 years ago. But I recall right after that, I found
the book called “Queer Noises,” by a British writer
named John Gill, where he said that you’d been out since the
’80s.What interests me about that is there was a resounding
lack of attention to it in the jazz press. It was almost as though
on the one hand, you could say that they were respecting your privacy.
On the other hand, it sort of seemed like, “Well, here’s
somebody we love very much, here’s somebody we hold dear.
He just blurted out something very, very personal and embarrassing.
Let’s ignore it.”
Burton: I always wondered why no interviewer asked. In fact, it
came as a real surprise that Terry [Gross] was the first person
that asked me. I assumed it would be a jazz critic or a jazz interviewer
who would want to discuss the topic, what does it mean, what’s
it been like, and so on. But instead, it was a general interview
on the radio, and it came as a surprise when she asked the first
question—something about coming out. I said, “Is that
what this is about?” I didn’t realize until she’d
gotten all the way through the sentence that, yeah, this was it.
So it’s true: jazz people, interviewers, didn’t bring
it up. To this day, I don’t think a jazz interviewer has ever
asked about it. A couple of newspapers have, but not jazz people.
Davis: Well, now one has [laughter].
Fred, what about your experience? Were you out when you got to New
York?
Hersch: Yeah, I arrived in New York in 1977, and I was certainly
out to anybody who knew me. There were certain older musicians I
was working with and that I was very close to, and in those days,
you know…
I was young. I wanted everybody to love my playing and to want to
hire me in every band. So with certain people, I was uncomfortable
mentioning it, although I’m sure they knew. There were several
pivotal events that led me to be a lot looser about it, or to just
assume that everybody knew and nobody really cared. One particular
musician, Sam Jones, a great bass player who I was working with
a lot in the late ’70s and ’80s, was an incredible mentor
to me. And he died almost twenty years ago. I never told him, and
I felt, “That’s a real drag. Here’s this guy I
played on the bandstand with, night after night, and he never knew
that.” I’m sure he did know it, but we never talked
about it. And I vowed I was never going to let that happen again.
Then, also in the early ’80s, I was working as a sub in Stan
Getz’s quartet, and Stan came over to my loft to rehearse.
I live in this loft with a very long hallway, and I was living with
a lover at the time. As Stan was walking down this long hallway,
I went into the bathroom and I took my boyfriend’s toothbrush
and I hid it, ’cause I didn’t want a question about
why there were two toothbrushes. It was a completely paranoid moment.
Then we played and we had a good time and he left. I thought to
myself, “This is just stupid. If he cares, I really don’t
want to play with him anyway.” But it was just a moment of
real paranoia. So I went through the ’80s and early ’90s
more or less out, but not “Hi, I’m Fred. I’m gay.”
I didn’t do that.
Then in 1993, a confluence of events led me to go public in a big
way. I’d been HIV+ since 1986, and in January 1993, I was
nominated for a Grammy for the first time, which is a big deal.
Also, I’d put together a ballad album to benefit Performing
Arts Against AIDS. We just decided to do the media to talk about
it. It became a very big story in the mainstream media, and the
jazz media, and the gay media, ’cause not many active performing
artists were coming out about having HIV: I was one of the few.
So at that point, everybody knew.
For me, the reason to come out in such a big way is so eventually
it will be a non-issue. I mean, it shouldn’t make any difference
whether you wear glasses or not, or what color your skin is. I figure
people either like my music or they don’t, they like me or
they don’t. But as more and more people come out, it won’t
be so much of an issue, because that many more people will know
a gay person, an out gay person.
Davis: Or an out gay musician.
Hersch: Or an out gay musician. In the old days, there were certain
musicians that I told I was gay. And they said, “Well, that’s
fine with me.” And I said, “Well, I don’t need
your permission.” And some of them said, “Well, just
don’t get any ideas about putting the moves on me.”
And I said, “Well, don’t flatter yourself.”
I told my family when I was 18 or 19—I’m 46 now—so
it’s certainly been an odd number of years. Sometimes I feel—like
when somebody like Gary called me up all those years ago—a
little bit like the den mother. I think it’s really helped
me artistically to be a more personal and sincere artist, and to
take more chances, because I have nothing to hide. I do what I do.
People like it, or they don’t. It’s OK.
Davis: And jazz is supposed to be about revealing who you are, what
your soul is.
Hersch: Exactly. And if you’re hiding something, then you’re
going to hit an emotional roadblock at some point in your work.
But also, to balance that, you don’t necessarily have to be
like, “Hi, I’m Fred and I’m gay,” either.
It’s a matter of finding that balance point.
Davis: Andy? Your experience was similar to Fred’s, in the
sense that you came out at around that time.
Bey: I came out in the ’70s, actually. It wasn’t a big
flag-waving thing. A lot of the musicians knew where I was coming
from. But it wasn’t really until ’94 that I found out
I was HIV+. But I mean people knew, you know? It wasn’t so
much the issue of being gay as the issue of being black, gay and
HIV+. But I’ve always felt the draft one way or the other.
There’s always been some kind of phobia. People want to look
at it.
So I think that being black, HIV+ and gay, you have to really come
to grips with that and accept that, and not feel you have to hide
or run away from somebody. And even though there are still issues,
and there’s a lot of anger, I take one step at a time. It’s
still that thing you have to deal with on a daily basis. It’s
not a big deal because if it’s not one thing, it’s another
thing. I have to accept and deal with all three of those issues
on a daily basis.
There’s homophobia in the jazz business: the jazz-club owners,
the jazz writers, the whole thing. We create our own little thing.
We pick who we want to pick, we make those big, we make those small.
We don’t acknowledge people that have a gift or talent. We
acknowledge who we want to acknowledge. I have a lot of things to
bitch about. I don’t even want to be in this club, number
one, because I was told not to come down to this club. But I’m
here. I could bitch if I want to bitch.
Davis: Did you ever feel a draft from other musicians?
Bey: Oh yeah—blacks, whites, whatever. Everybody’s got
their little politics and their little games. Listen: I’ve
survived this far, and I will continue to survive.
Davis: Do you think it’s tougher for a black musician to come
out than it would be for a white musician?
Bey: Yes!
Davis: Why?
Bey: Well, number one, because I’m black. And I’m HIV+.
Let’s face it. You have people that are cool, or with it.
But then there’s the business, the media. I mean, I’ve
met all kinds of wonderful writers, white writers, black writers,
whatever— if you want to… the media, the so-called jazz
media. But the impresarios—I don’t want to name names,
they know who they are—they pick who they want to pick. If
they could make so-and-so a star, why not me? If I was white, maybe
it’d be easier. Maybe I’d be as big as Diana Krall.
Davis: In a just world, he’d be bigger.
But would the same hold true if you were straight, do you think?
Bey: I think so. Yeah, I think it’s the same. I wasn’t
always “gay.” I’ve been in this business since
I was 3 years old. And I feel a lot of anger and a lot of resentment,
but at the same time, it’s all self-punishing, in a way. And
I have to find a way to deal with my own anger and try to resolve
it and to not give anybody any power. You can’t deny that
you’re not angry or feel this draft or feel this whatever.
But I have to work with it day by day. I have to try to nurture
whatever it is I’m about on a daily basis.
But I don’t even go out to clubs. I don’t go anywhere
unless it’s somewhere I want to go, and I feel comfortable.
I don’t really want to play the Village Vanguard, to be honest.
I haven’t been here in 2.5 years. The only reason why I’m
down here tonight is because of this panel.
Davis: And I’m glad you are here.
Charlie? What about your experience?
Kohlhase: I’ve been pretty much out since I was in my early
twenties. I’d just gotten done playing with a 10-piece band.
That in itself is an interesting sociological experiment, any way
you cut it. But dealing with coming out to the members of the band,
particularly in the late ’80s, I had to assert myself to let
them know that I was gay in a lot of ways, because I found that
there was a lot of presumption that you’re just heterosexual.
I finally had to come out in a big way to the guys at a certain
point, and they were fine with it.
I find that younger people now, they’re much more open to
it, socially. A lot of it has to do with the presence of gay people
on television and what-have-you. I find there’s a lot less
of that assumption that you’re just straight.
Davis: Television, and also real life? I mean, as more people come
out, the more likely one is to know a gay person, and to know that
that person is gay. I mean, not to underestimate the importance
of television.
Grover, let me bring you back into this. I’m going to probably
misrepresent your piece by trying to encapsulate it into one or
two sentences. But in that piece that you wrote in 1984, called
“The Strange Case of Charles Ives: or Why is Jazz not Gay
Music?” you point to the scarcity of gay musicians, especially
relative to the overall gay population. And you speculate that one
of the reasons for this is that early jazz provided an outlet for
a kind of male assertiveness that African-American men were otherwise
prohibited from expressing, and that even the early white players
in jazz were discouraged from expressing because they came from
a background in which the fine arts, music in particular, had become
genteel, overly refined and, as you put it, ‘feminized.’ How do feel about that?
Sales: Well, what you’ve said is not an unfair summation of
my piece. One of the reasons I was fascinated to come here was to
find out what, if anything, has changed since 1984. This piece is
based on almost 15 years I spent in the ’60s and ’70s
in the San Francisco Bay area doing personal publicity for everybody
in the entertainment world from Moms Mabley to the Bolshoi Ballet,
including the Monterrey Jazz Festival, Johnny Cash, Judy Garland,
Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and on and
on.
One of the things that went with the territory in this work was
that I had to watch audiences, closely. I had to spend the client’s
money in a very effective way. For example, if I was promoting Stan
Kenton, I would not advertise Stan Kenton on a rock ’n’
roll station or rhythm-and-blues station. If I were representing
Miles Davis, I would not advertise Miles Davis on an easy-listening
station. After 15 years I began to get fascinated with what kind
of audiences respond to what kind of aesthetic sensibilities. And
I came to the conclusion back then that the percentage of male gays,
not only among jazz musicians but among jazz audiences, was dramatically
lower than the national average, certainly lower than the average
in the theater, most certainly lower in the Broadway musical theater,
and most definitely lower in the ballet.
So I became fascinated with something that had never been written
about before: the relationship between sex and sound, sex and aesthetics.
Because we don’t know that much about sex. Far from it: we’re
still finding out. So the reason I came here today was to find out
if the musicians on the panel—who’ve certainly had more
dealings with this than I have on a personal basis—agree or
disagree with this. Or if they agree with this, whether anything
has changed since I wrote this piece in 1984, which was called,
“Jazz is not Gay Music.”
Davis: Let’s everybody address that. Why is it—and this
is a stereotype—that great numbers of gay men are drawn to
opera, or disco, or cabaret and show-tunes and things like that,
but not so many to jazz? And it’s not a source of frustration
for you guys?
Hersch: As we all know, jazz music—or what would be called
in the world of recordings and retail “jazz music,”
which now encompasses vocalists and what is known as “smooth
jazz”—what is it, two percent of the record-buying public?
Including all these other not-pure jazz instrumental forms? So if
you even accept the fact that one in 10 is gay, and then 2 percent
or less of that—you know, that’s not a whole lot of
people.
Davis: Your point is well-taken, except that I want to chime in
here to say that the same is true of opera, or show tunes. They
don’t account for a great slice of the market either.
Hersch: There have been books written on the attraction of gay men
to opera and tragic divas of all sorts.
Burton: All of the musics that you named that are popular in gay
culture have a high degree of glamour to them, and jazz is the opposite.
Hersch: This isn’t glamorous?
Burton: I mean, take a look here. [laughter]
One of the hallmarks of Vanguard’s history is that it’s
always not been glamorous. And one of the surprises to me when I
came out and started connecting with gay society was that first
of all, no one had ever heard of me. No one had ever heard of the
vibraphone [laughter]. No one listened to jazz. And I found this
surprising, because I was used to a certain percentage of strangers
that I would meet who would be “jazz-aware.” This was
disheartening in a way: I finally connected with “my people”
and they didn’t care [laughter].
So I took it upon myself, and have ever since, to try to promote
jazz to the gay audience. Every time I do an interview with
a gay publication, I try to mention this, essentially sending the
message to gay people, “Give jazz a chance—you might
like it.” The first impression you have is that it’s
dark and gritty and not very nice and it’s not pretty and
we don’t get dressed up to go to it. But in fact, I’ve
converted a lot of gay people to being jazz fans, one at a time.
It’s hard work.
Davis: And maybe after you do that, you can start on women. Because
jazz is also identified as “male” music.
Burton: I look at my audience and it’s mostly men and hopelessly
straight. Where are my people?
Davis: A woman I know once described jazz as “baseball by
other means.” I asked her about that, and she said, “It’s
even got statistics.” And I figured out she meant the kind
of people who pore over discographies, or rank players—“He’s
my fourth-favorite bass player”—as though they were
third basemen.
Andy, the people that Gary met after coming out are some of the
people who might not have known what a vibraphone was. But everybody
knows what singing is. Have you noticed a change in your audiences?
Are you attracting more of a following?
Bey: I think so, due to the material. I have to thank my producer.
He’s been exposing me to doing different types of material,
all kinds of songs, all kinds of styles. But in my last two or three
records, I’ve been doing Sting tunes, Nick Drake tunes, Brazilian
tunes, a wider variety of stuff, without necessarily beating somebody
over the head, trying to school them or tell them that this is that.
It draws the listener in, in a way, singing the way I’m singing.
The material has a lot to do with it. I think that’s opening
up a little bit. Me, I’m still a bonafide jazz artist, no
matter what. But you’d never know it in New York.
Davis: I think it’s easier for other audiences to relate to
a singer, because singing is something we all do to some extent.
We wouldn’t have any idea how to play a vibraphone, but we’ve
all sung in the shower and we respond to certain songs.
Bey: There’s still a lot of barriers. A lot of barriers set
up for certain “types.” If you don’t fit a mold,
then maybe you might get overlooked.
Sales: Francis, if I could insert something that you said a little
while ago, about why gay males are attracted certain kinds of music,
but also certain kinds of figures—Jesse Miller, a sociologist
who knows more about this than I do, his position is that gay males
are attracted to larger-than-life women who have paid their dues,
like Billie Holiday and Judy Garland, or exaggerated caricatures
of women, like Carol Channing and Ethel Merman. When I promoted
Judy Garland’s concerts, I would say, just on the basis of
casual observation, that it was about 95 percent gay. [laughter]
So I was fascinated by something that nobody had ever written before.
Why is this? What is the attraction? Everybody in the jazz world
know this exists. When I wrote this article for Gene Lees’
Jazz Letter, all kinds of people, like Johnny Mandel, wrote in saying,
“I’ve known about this for 40 years, but nobody ever
talked about it.” I remember one night years ago in a jazz
club in San Francisco, there was a double bill of Carmen McRae and
Dizzy Gillespie. A large, obviously flamboyant (in the stereotyped
way) gay contingent paid $15 a head to come in and give Carmen McRae
a standing ovation. They left the minute Dizzy Gillespie got on
the stand. [laughter].
Hersch: Yeah, we’re particular. [more laughter]
Bey: Plus, I think it’s the thing about not being guarded.
It’s about being open. Once you’ve found out who you
are, you can express that kind of feeling. If you express your feminine
side, your masculine side, you’re not afraid to let it out.
And I think a lot of gay people want to hear that. They might like
the extreme or whatever, but they’ve got to feel like you’re
letting something out, that you’re giving something.
Hersch: But I also know certain gay jazz musicians who are not out,
who I feel have overcompensated artistically by trying to be even
more macho than the “straight” jazz musician—either
that or they’ve gotten so musically constipated, trying to
dance this dance of “What do people expect me to be?”
that they can’t be themselves. I feel compassion for them.
I feel sorry for them, because everybody knows, anyway, and nobody
cares.
Davis: When you say they overcompensate by being more macho, do
you mean also in their music?
Hersch: Yeah. It’s the stereotype thing: Here I am, a piano
player. I play a lot of solo, I play a lot of trio. For years, everybody’s
put me in the sensitive-piano-player mold, the Bill Evans mold.
It’s not true at all. I don’t sound much of anything
like him. Just because I’m gay does not mean that necessarily
makes me a “prettier” player. But in the old days, certainly,
I wanted to prove that I could swing with the cats. Some people
go, I think, almost too far, to the point where their music doesn’t
have much sensitivity, whether they’re gay or straight. To
me, it’s a bad caricature of jazz music, and it’s not
that interesting to listen to. But yes, there is that stereotype.
And I think certain women also, unfortunately, have been pressured
to have more chops and play higher and louder and faster.
Sales: Briefly—the incidence of homosexuality among female
singers is extremely high. Now, that may be something to think about.
Jazz singers. Not pop singers. The incidence of female homosexuality
among famous jazz singers, or even not-so-famous jazz singers, is
certainly higher than the incidence of homosexuality among male
instrumentalists.
What about female instrumentalists? There’re not that many
of them, for one thing. There are more now than there were, say,
20 years ago.
One of the welcome adjuncts of the current wave of the 200-plus-year
history of the women’s movement is that women in the last
20 years have started to enter the jazz life, not just as singers
or pianists, but as composers, horn-slingers, and bandleaders, like
Maria Schneider or Toshiko Akiyoshi and others you could mention.
This is an adjunct of the women’s movement.
Davis: Before we turn this over to the audience for questions, I
want to do two things.
Gary, you were mentioning that letter in Jazz Times before, and
Fred said something that made me think of it too, in that he was
often compared to Bill Evans. If you notice, the criticism of you
and Fred and the other musicians named was that you “didn’t
swing.”—which has always been the criticism of a certain
kind of white musician.
Burton: Also, of women musicians. It tends to follow that same line.
Hersch: Yeah, I’d agree with that.
Davis: There’s a lot of a racial profiling in jazz, and I
always thought that white players are sometimes pulled over for
excessive introspection, or something like that [laughter].
In some ways, this is an academic panel—it’s being sponsored
by organizations like Columbia University—so I feel the need
to give academics a voice. Gary is a vice-president at the Berklee
School of Music, and some of the other people here, certainly Grover,
have been involved in academia.
And there’s something afoot in academia now called “Queer
Musicology” as a part of queer studies. For example, a writer
named Philip Brett, in a piece called “Piano Forehand: Schubert
and the Performance of Gay Male Desire,” says that we can
detect “transgressive notions of desire” in Schubert’s
unfinished symphony. In other words, we can tell from Schubert’s
unfinished symphony that Schubert was gay. I have no idea if Schubert
was gay, but that’s the belief now. And then Susan McCleary,
who’s like the Bessie Smith of this movement—writing
about Beethoven’s Fifth, she says that “one of the most
horrifying moments in music occurs” when “the carefully
planned cadence is frustrated, damming up energy which finally explodes
in the rattling, murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining
release.” Anyway, I wanted to say to the bartender, “no
more drinks for Prof. McCleary. And make sure she gets a ride home.”
[laughter]
Now on the other hand, the other school of thought in this is represented
by the same musician I was speaking about earlier, who Fred had
recommended to me, who couldn’t be here today because he had
a gig in another city. But he told me that even if he could make
it here, he would not be here, because the academic connections
scare him. This guy teaches, and he’s been exposed to people
in queer studies, and he said, “Listen, you play Schubert
for me. You play any sequence of three notes, and you tell me where
in those three notes you can tell this guy likes it up the ass.”
I thought, “Man, you have to be on this panel.” But
he couldn’t, and he said he wouldn’t.
My own feeling—and I want to hear what the panelists think
about this—is that all this stuff is very, very subjective.
Certain kinds of music are supposed to be rollicking and masculine,
and other kinds of music are supposed to be layered and feminine:
Charles Ives on the one hand, and Debussy on the other. But are
these things that we project onto music? And is there an added element
of subjectivity in associating some traits as masculine and others
as feminine? Is there a way that you can listen to Gary Burton,
or Andy Bey, or Fred Hersch, or Charlie Kohlhase, and know that
that person is gay?
Burton: I don’t think so at all.
Hersch: No.
Burton: But I’ve always noticed that there are people who
insist on attaching words and descriptions to music that are literal.
And musicians virtually never do. We live in another language, the
musical language, and you can’t translate it like from French
to English. You can’t translate from music to English and
have a successful re-expression of what was said. People often ask
you, “What is that piece about?” And it’s a struggle
to actually describe it, and it’s always inadequate when you
do try to capture it in words. Don’t you think that, Fred?
Hersch: Unless something has a real program, we could all listen
to the same piece of music, whether it was jazz, classical or whatever,
and some people would think, “Oh, that sounds like a waterfall
in Borneo,” and some people would say, “It sounds like
traffic on Seventh Avenue.” And that’s what’s
beautiful about music: it doesn’t really express anything
concrete. It’s feeling, it’s sound and rhythm. But I
don’t think there’s any way you can say, “This
is gay music,” or “This is not.” You can say this
music was composed by a person we know was gay, and who maybe was
gay, but the bottom line is: it’s a waste of energy. Who really
cares? Is it good music or not?
Sales: Many years ago a great trumpeter, Roy Eldridge, told the
late critic Leonard Feather that he could always tell, when somebody
played a record, whether the soloist was white or black. Leonard
Feather gave Roy Eldridge a blindfold test, and Roy Eldridge wasn’t
right, on the basis of race, at the 50-50 rate that the law of averages
predicted he would.
Bey: When you listen to music, you should try to listen without
any preconception, whether it’s jazz, classical, whatever.
If you’re listening to something, just listen to it without
saying, “Well, it’s not jazz,” or “It’s
not pop.” If you like it, you like it. It’s not about
the concept or the style of music.
Davis: Right, and maybe we could all identify with somebody for
three minutes or seven minutes. In other words: I’m not gay,
but I’ve really come to love Judy Garland. I don’t know
what’s going on there. [laughter] And I can identify with
Judy Garland for the time it takes her to sing “Have Yourself
a Merry Little Christmas,” or the song she sings in “A
Star is Born”—“The Man That Got Away.” In
the same way: I’m not black, but I can identify with many
black singers. So maybe that’s what it’s all about.
Not the willing suspension of disbelief, but what Keats called “negative
capability”—putting yourself in the other person’s
place.
Does anybody have any questions?
[Audience member]: Andy mentioned very concrete effects on his career
from coming out. I was wondering if anyone else had any real career
effects from coming out. What was the actual, concrete effect, if
any?
Hersch: I can actually say it’s had a positive effect in my
case.
Burton: Yeah, mine too.
Hersch: Many people said, when I was coming out —not just
about being gay but having HIV—in the early ’90s, “You’re
crazy. Who’s going to want to book you for a concert next
season? They’ll figure you’re going to be dead or sick
or you won’t make it.” But my career has gotten better
with each passing year. Artistically, it’s also been
an improvement. And also it’s been less energy I have to use
worrying about something that’s kind of dumb anyway.
Burton: In my case it has had no noticeable effect on my career.
All the musicians that I tended to work with regularly all rushed
to say how supportive they were. The real telling factor is: Are
they still available for your projects, or do they still call you
to play with them? And none of that changed. I’m still playing
with the same people I’ve played with through the years. And
I still work as much as I can, as much as I want to. I don’t
think it’s had any impact at all. If anything, it’s
continued to be positive because there was a really nice, warm embrace
from the musician community for me when I came out.
[Audience member]: What about on the job at Berklee?
Burton: Berklee has been a totally supportive atmosphere. I’ve
been there 30 years. The first 15 years, I was not out. The first
time I took my new boyfriend to a reception at the president’s
house—and I don’t think it was obvious we were dating;
he was also an alum of the school and there were a lot of people
there—the next day, the president, at the end of a meeting,
asked me to pause for a second and he said, “I just wanted
to let you know that you’re welcome to bring Earl to any event
of any kind here, without question.” He didn’t have
to say that to me, but I thought it was great that he went out of
his way to make it absolutely clear. It’s been a totally supportive
atmosphere.
Kohlhase: I don’t know that I’ve had enough of a career
for it to have an effect. It certainly hasn’t been anything
negative.
Howard Mandel, audience member: I want to ask a question on behalf
of the jazz press.
Whenever I address this issue, I always seem to get in trouble,
as I think a lot of us do. On the one hand, I would never dream
about asking any of you really—as a jazz journalist—about
your sexual behavior for an article in Downbeat. Unless it has direct
bearing on your music, I would ask that no more than I would ask
somebody if they were a pedophile, if they beat their wives—
Hersch: No, no, no, Howard. Let’s not go there.
Mandel: Excuse me, I shouldn’t say it in a negatve way—
Hersch: Well, that was pretty negative.
Bey: Just the way you say it.
Hersch: Those are things that are illegal, immoral.
Mandel: And I don’t think homosexuality is immoral or
weird or anything like that. What I’m trying to say
that I wouldn’t ask musicians about private matters that didn’t
have bearings on the sound of their music. I don’t hear Schubert
as being gay music: I wouldn’t know. Or when Grover brings
up female singers: that’s news to me. I’d never interpreted
most of the singers that I’m aware of as “gay”
or “not gay.”
Sales: I’ve always been interested in fascinating things that
are of absolutely no concern to most people. [laughter]
Mandel: I guess, it’s like if I ask you about what is it like
to live in the suburbs as opposed to the city.
Hersch: If you ask, “What effect has it had living on lower
Broadway after 9/11?” or if you asked, “Is it difficult to maintain an intimate relationship being on the road?” or
“How has being gay affected your music, or has it?”—those
are perfectly, to me, valid journalistic questions.
Mandel: Gary was saying that he had never been asked by a jazz journalist.
And I saw Gary perform, when I was 16 or 17, with Stan Getz. And
I love what he did with Carl Blay and with Jarrett. There are so
many more interesting things to ask you. And yes, I think you’re
right: that Jazz Times to headline a letter with the ‘faggot’-word,
is rude. It’s crude, it’s rude, and it doesn’t
really belong there.
Sales: Howard, I’ve got to insert this. A highly accomplished
jazz musician, who I will not name, had a sex-change operation,
and I got to know this musician extremely well. And I asked her,
“When you were a man, and you became a woman, did this make
any difference in your music, or your approach to composition on
the piano?” She said, “When I was imprisoned in the
body of a man, my music was harsh, unformed, and ugly. When I became
a woman, my music began to develop the way I’d always envisioned
it.” As I said, we don’t know anything about sex.
Burton: I would answer that I think it is a valid area of discussion.
The experiences you’ve had in your life do shape your music,
and I think it matters whether you grew up in the country or grew
up in the city, or grew up in another country, another culture.
The experiences you’ve had in your life are a part of the
creative work that you do.
It’s always struck me as this unanswered topic. The interviewers
ask me all these other questions, and want to know all the history
of everything I’ve done—what has the impact of having
been a teacher for years brought to my music, and so on. To me,
this undiscussed area of living a gay life, being part of the gay
community and gay culture, how this has affected my creative work—I
think that would be a very interesting thing to explore.
Bey: I don’t think it’s so important that one has to
hide. You have to be able to deal with these issues yourself. And
they’re difficult issues. Especially if, to some, you’re
living a so-called “abnormal” life. You have to really
deal with that issue of who you are, whether you’re gay or
straight or lesbian or whatever. And I think it needs to be talked
about in order to liberate yourself. There’s a certain kind
of freedom when you can talk about it—not so much that you’re
flag-waving, that you’re saying “Look, I’m this,
I’m that.” But you have to get to that point where you
can feel cool with yourself, even if you’re dealing with issues,
even if it is difficult.
Hersch: I just wanted to amplify something that Andy was saying.
I’m not a sociologist by any stretch. But it seems like there
are several phases of coming out. I think most of us went through
that first phase when we first told another living soul that we
were gay, and we were nervous, and we were looking for the perfect
way to say it. Then, over time, we get to a second phase, where
we assume everybody knows and nobody really cares. But the third
phase, which I think Andy was talking about, is that when somebody
talks about their girlfriend or their wife, you talk about your
boyfriend or your lack thereof. It’s really just kind of that
non-issue place.
Davis: I was going to say more or less what Fred just said. As a
fellow journalist, if I’m writing about Sonny Rollins, and
it’s a typical newspaper piece, and I talk to him on the phone
or go where he lives, there’s bound to be a sentence like
“Rollins and his wife Lucille live…wherever.”
You’re not talking about sexuality there, certainly, but you’re
assuming that someone’s straight. And, in fact, I did write
about a musician who beat his wife. It’s not in the piece.
There’s a difference.
[Audience member]: Gary, I wonder, if the question has gone unasked,
is it something that you feel comfortable, or even compelled, to
address to start a line of questioning? Because some journalists,
I’m sure, feel a certain hesitation to “go there.”
Burton: No, usually I leave the interviewing up to the interviewer.
I’m there to respond, unless they’ve said to begin with,
“We want you to take the lead here and guide this thing.”
Usually, an interviewer has something already in mind when they
call you up, or when they come to sit down with you. And usually,
it’s the same 20 questions: “What’s the latest
record?” “Where are you from?” “Why the
vibraphone?” and so on. Like Fred said, you don’t necessarily
feel like, “Oh, by the way, make sure you include something
about the fact that I’m gay.” Because I don’t
think it’s the foremost factor in my music, I do want them
to primarily talk about the music itself.
It just struck me that maybe interviewers are not sure how to write
about it themselves, so they stay away from it. But to me, it’s
certainly a part of my life, and I don’t know what the answer
is about exactly how it’s affected my music. I don’t
think it changed— it didn’t get prettier. And it wasn’t
harsher before, or whatever. So I can’t say that I noticed
any sudden change there in 1985 when the earth shifted for me.
Mitchell Seidel, audience member: I have to go with Howard. As a
journalist, I don’t see where asking about your sexuality
is pertinent to the story. However, a suggestion. If you want someone
to ask that question in an interview, put something on your next
album like “To my lover, Irving.”
Andy: Oh, please. It’s got nothing to do with that. When somebody
interviews you, you don’t go up to them and say, “I’m
gay. We’ll talk about it.” I don’t talk about
it. I don’t even mention it. I don’t even like the title
“gay” or “straight.” I’m a musician
first. It’s not about being gay or straight, black or white.
These are the issues that people make, the ones that put you in
a pigeon-hole and make you this. I’m a musician first.
Hersch: Did people ask Erroll Garner if he was gay when he recorded
“The Man I Love”? You relate to the sentiment, to the
feelings—not the particulars.
[Audience member]: A comment: I’ve interviewed three of the
panelist musicians, and I have one to go yet. And with them—in
most instances I was writing for a gay publication—I was looking
for who they are as a person. So that included varying degrees of
information that they then put forth. I think it’s a reverse
form of prejudice to not go to wherever it may lead. But I must
say, if you are open with any of these people, it is your privilege.
They are amazingly open with you, and it was never a problem for
me.
Burton: Let me add that I have been asked from time to time what
it’s like being a white musician in a field that is considered
an African-American cultural music. I think an equally valid
question would be, “What’s it like being a gay person
in a music that is seen as macho?” The first question I get
asked pretty often, and the other one, I don’t. It’s
not ruining my day to not be asked this question, I just thought
it was interesting that it never seems to come up. And I should
have made an exception, because [the audience member making the
comment] is the one interviewer who has asked about those things.
Bey: It’s something where you get the impression that we’re
out there trying to say that we’re gay to give us some kind
of, “Have pity on us.” Fuck that. It’s not
about that. I’m a musician, and I’m on a level with
anybody: straight, gay, white, black, or whatever. So you’re
not doing me no favor, and I’m not doing you any fucking favor.
Davis: Well. (Laughter) Thanks, Andy. I should
just say, as a fellow journalist, lots of things go into making
an identity and we don’t know quite what they are. And if
I’m interviewing somebody or I’m at somebody’s
house and he reads mystery novels, that’ll be in there. And
I would ask him about it, and he might not be able to explain a
connection between his music and those mystery novels, but I’m
sure it’s there. What you want to do as a journalist is to
present all the pieces, all the evidence as it were, and let the
reader decide things for himself or herself.
[Audience member]: If there were more stories which covered that
part of a gay jazz musician’s life, you might have more interesting
patrons. There’s some degree of wanting to see your own story
on stage and feeling some identity with people who are players.
I think it’s true that jazz is perceived by a lot of gay men
and gay women too, I would imagine, as baseball. And that’s
not discounting the gay men who love baseball. It’s a closed
code, and there are no openings into that code. If those stories
are told, you have more opening.
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