A Dancer Proposed To His Boyiend In Likely The First Gay Marriage Proposal On Italian TV

Contents:

• STEPHANE GAY
• STEPHANE GAY
• STEPHANIE E. GAY, PA
• A DANCER PROPOSED TO HIS BOYIEND IN LIKELY THE FIRST GAY MARRIAGE PROPOSAL ON ITALIAN TV
• IS STEPHANIE ZIMBALIST GAY?
• STéPHANE ROSE GAY RUMORS?ONLE POLL SHOWS 72 PERCENT DON’T BELIEVE HE’S GAY

STEPHANE GAY

BOYS!, the platform om The Ltle Black Gallery to promote queer and gay photography, is openg a new onle exhib featurg the work of French photographer Stephane Gizard, known for his "gentle, kdly eye" which ptur "the bety and agily of his subjectn, which have clud many celebri and strangers. As the rerr ran, my host—known for his fierce telligence and for the refement of his playg—kept referrg to “that faggot” who had produced a somewhat homoerotic documentary of the once-betiful tmpeter and sger. The jazz world is one of the last cultural ontiers of old-fashned macho, and , homophobia ns rampant.

Sce terviewg that pianist, I’ve met a multu of jazz figur who pri themselv on soulfulns and sensivy, yet are as sensive as rednecks on the subject of homosexualy—pecially s prence jazz, which is not nsirable. One saxophonist, a gay man his early 60s, sums up what he se as the persistg attu: “If you are gay, you nnot be playg this mic that requir you to have a much higher level of ttosterone.

” A veteran sger who has worked wh European big bands remembers walkg out on one of them, fur at beg “harassed” by homophobic slurs. “Gays are the last whippg post society, ” he says. Some attentn was drawn to the qutn the ’90s, when three outstandg jazz micians—pianist Fred Hersch, vibraphonist Gary Burton and sger/pianist Andy Bey—all me out publicly as gay men.

STEPHANE GAY

Two years earlier me Lh Life, David Hajdu’s bgraphy of arranger-poser Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967), one of the very few openly gay jazzmen of his (or any) time.

But Strayhorn worked mostly behd the scen, and until recently was easy to thk that jazz, like the Boy Suts, had no gay element at all.

STEPHANIE E. GAY, PA

“I don’t even know a jazz mician who’s a homosexual—not a real jazz mician, ” Dizzy Gillpie was quoted as sayg.

Grover Sal, who teach jazz studi at Stanford Universy and the Berkeley Jazz School northern California, voted eight pag of Gene Le’ Jazzletter to the qutn: “Why Is Jazz Not Gay Mic? ” Notg that the jazz muny was “long unrivalled for s blhe difference to extrem of human portment, ” he nclud that gay people jt weren’t broad-md or hip enough to appreciate jazz.

A DANCER PROPOSED TO HIS BOYIEND IN LIKELY THE FIRST GAY MARRIAGE PROPOSAL ON ITALIAN TV

(Gays had kept jazz out of the mil theater, he add, by “impos[g] [their] tast, perceptns, and sensibili on the 90 percent straight world. “I have que a long list of gay jazz micians, some and some out of the closet, ” he says.

” It may be te, as jazz wrer Chris Albertson—himself gay—not, that “gay people tend to prefer the divas—Billie, Sarah.

One of the most important arranger/posers swg history (notably wh the Woody Herman orchtra) and an equally renowned Broadway arranger, Burns, now 79, refully hid his homosexualy those days.

IS STEPHANIE ZIMBALIST GAY?

A group of fans bated the subject this year on Trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, now 71, stirred up by angrily dismissg the whole discsn, claimg that anti-gay bias didn’t mean much parison to racism and otherworldly threats. That upled wh the fact that I a’t exactly pretty, nor am I always quiet and mure, means that when I was younger, I faced folks llg me ‘dyke’ and wrg homophobic stuff on my dorm room door. Image if I was really gay.

To them, homosexualy was “a simple fact of life, ” acrdg to Chris Albertson, who has documented the genre heavily his long reer as a cric and historian. In 1977, Albertson notated AC/DC Blu (Stash), an LP of sassy gay-themed “race rerds” by such artists as Smh, her precsor Ma Raey and sger Gee Hannah, who proclaimed his “eakish ways” 1930. Journalists upheld this macho shield by jumpg to the “fense” of certa players who had been “acced” of gayns.

Jt after the ath of saxophonist Lter Young 1959, Robert Reisner, wrg DownBeat, lnched a tradn by heatedly nyg the mored homosexualy of Young—a mician whose lleagu the Basie orchtra reportedly lled him “Miss Thg.

STéPHANE ROSE GAY RUMORS?ONLE POLL SHOWS 72 PERCENT DON’T BELIEVE HE’S GAY

No one seems to have a five answer on Young’s orientatn, but the mere suggtn that he might have been gay is enough to send some wrers to a tailsp. On, Stt Yanow fend the late vlist Stephane Grappelli—known to travel openly wh his lover—agast “Natnal Enquirer-type” charg of homosexualy. Now 46, he ially me out as a gay man wh HIV his hometown of Ccnati, where he gave a 1993 benef performance for AIDS Volunteers of Ccnati.

He remas the most public gay man jazz, wh the least amount of patience for anyone’s “bullsh. “There’s homophobia, there is racism, there is sexism the real world.

And jt bee you’re gay don’t mean you’re gonna be more sensive.