Funeral home owner wants to turn Flt-area gay bar to jazz club

Contents:

• FUNERAL HOME OWNER WANTS TO TURN FLT-AREA GAY BAR TO JAZZ CLUB
• JAZZ: GAY MEN JAZZ
• THE 10 BEST NEW YORK CY GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS NEW YORK CY
• THE 10 BEST AMSTERDAM GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS AMSTERDAM
• THE 10 BEST BERL GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS BERL
• THE 10 BEST LONDON GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS LONDON

FUNERAL HOME OWNER WANTS TO TURN FLT-AREA GAY BAR TO JAZZ CLUB

Evangele Harris is piqug the cursy of some pestrians outsi of Mova Lounge, an upsle gay bar Washgton, D. When discsg the soundtrack to ntemporary mastream gay life, jazz is often treated as an allergen on a mil landspe more voted to vol pop, club hs and electroni.

JAZZ: GAY MEN JAZZ

As someone who equents gay bars wh almost the same regulary as jazz clubs, I often sense a great divi between the two worlds. “It is extremely polarized, ” argu saxophonist and claretist Andrew D’Angelo, “so much so that when my ex-boyiend me to one of my gigs, some of his gay iends were so disproportnately removed om my [jazz] scene. It would seem that there’d be more overlap between the jazz and gay muni relatnship to mastream society.

THE 10 BEST NEW YORK CY GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS NEW YORK CY

“I fd myself far more spired by the stggl of someone like Chet Baker or Eric Dolphy than some glamoro Hollywood actrs, ” says the openly gay volist and poser Theo Bleckmann.

THE 10 BEST AMSTERDAM GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS AMSTERDAM

“Jt by Eric and Baker’s nstant fight for acceptance and their battl wh ner mons, I wonr why more gay people wouldn’t look up to people like them than someone like Judy Garland, who was already accepted by the Hollywood tablishment. Jazz has, however, produced s fair share of gay lumari, among them Billy Strayhorn, Cecil Taylor, Gary Burton, Andy Bey, Ian Shaw, Fred Hersch, Lea DeLaria, Patricia Barber and Allison Miller.

And support for the gay muny wh jazz as a whole has mirrored the growg acceptance found mastream Amerin culture.

THE 10 BEST BERL GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS BERL

Sometim ’s a matter of showg arnt support and rpect for the gay muny (Barbra Streisand, Madonna and Beyoncé).

Exprsg the ncerns and issu facg the gay muny is not, of urse, the first time jazz has been volved wh potentially ntroversial inty polics. As stigmas associated wh gay and bisexual culture ntue to fall by the waysi, jazz songs that explicly rhapsodize or, at the very least, acknowledge the queer muny are surfacg at a fair pace.

Among the most engagg entri this non are works by openly gay artists: say, Barber’s “Narciss, ” which explor a Sapphic love affair, and Hersch’s “Out Someplace (Blu for Matthew Shepard), ” a movg piece dited to the 21-year-old Wyomg gay man who was murred bee of his sexual orientatn. But gay-themed work isn’t exclively solemn or ser-md, eher; rather, queer-oriented them are beg brought to the fore ways alternately bold, brash, prankish, clever or cute. “I thk there are unrton that are now g to the surface, ” argu D’Angelo, who leads a band lled Gay Dis, and who has given some posns such provotive tl as “My Prostate” and “Cheek Spread.

THE 10 BEST LONDON GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS LONDON

“I don’t have a shre to Barbra Streisand, I don’t listen to dis or worship Judy Garland, but I am gay and I do love all of those songs.

“I tell that story a live-and-let-live manner, and I’ve had many gay people e up to me after the ncert troducg me to their partners. Of urse, intifyg gay touchston morn jazz prov easier through lyrics and song tl than do wh stmental mic. A Queer Qutn for Jazz Studi, ” which she argued that jazz was once a hotbed for gay exprsn until the mic moved to the mastream.

“If we claim that Hersch’s performance is queer, we may be cued by his disclosure of his sexual inty, but we’re not assertg that he plays a ‘gay’ way, ” McNeilly explas.