The Harlem Renaissance at 100: as black as was gay

Contents:

• FROM HARLEM TO ITALY, SOUNDS OF GAY SUBVERSN
• FATS WALLER - DON'T LET IT BOTHER YOU (OM THE RKO PICTURE "THE GAY DIVORCE") (REMASTERED) LYRICS

FROM HARLEM TO ITALY, SOUNDS OF GAY SUBVERSN

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTcric’s notebookIn ncerts Manhattan and Brooklyn, artists explored the termglg of gay inty and Fara Silver for The New York TimPublished Dec. But the words leapt off the stage durg an exuberant recent performance that opened a New York Ftival of Song program at Merk Concert Hall, “Ta’t Nobody’s Bs If I Do: Songs of Gay Harlem. Gays and lbians, pecially those drag, were routely persecuted by police and nmned om the pulps of neighborhood church.

Yet the creative valy of Harlem’s gay subculture reprented a fiant was a night to celebrate that subculture and brg to light some remarkable mic. Several of the songs performed have lyrics that imply ght oppose-sex relatnships, like Bsie Smh’s “It Mak My Love Come Down” — though the homosexual subtext would have been hard to miss when Smh sang .

FATS WALLER - DON'T LET IT BOTHER YOU (OM THE RKO PICTURE "THE GAY DIVORCE") (REMASTERED) LYRICS

” Here was a song om the unrground not jt revelg gay love but also suggtg the subtleti of to church by day and a club by night was mon for Harlem rints, as a verse the fal song on the program, Grager’s “Ta’t Nobody’s Bs If I Do” (performed by everyone) ma clear:If I go to church on SundayThen jt shimmy down on MondayTa’t nobody’s bs if I Moon for The New York TimA ncert a few days earlier, at Roulette Brooklyn, offered sight to another gay unrground: the one ntemporary classil mic that pervad the middle s of the 20th century.

Bsotti has been alg wh gay them his piec and livg wh pneerg openns as a gay man sce the late to an artistic fay Florence, Mr. Bsotti absorbed the techniqu of serialism and immersed himself Darmstadt’s avant-gar his flamboyant behavr disncerted many lleagu, pecially Boulez, who kept his own gayns closeted.