[Dixielandjazz] The Curse of Beauty / Sexism in Music / Frumpy anyone?

[Charles Suhor]

This is a tough call. I heard a track from the Lara St. John CD on the
radio and added it to my collection. (I'm a nut for baroque music as well
as jazz.) The cover was a titillating surprise but it didn't affect my
response to the music. Except that honestly, I'd be slightly more inclined
to go to a live performance.

You can't blame her for, er, fronting her beauty but it's too bad that the
cultural context makes that an item of importance in an artist's success.
Too bad, but too true. It stinks mainly when the artist is a no-talent or
low-talent bozo who's selling mainly sex. There have been many of these,
male and female, especially in popular music.

We guys are both exploiters and victims in this matter of horny response. I
think that the first rape is the rape of our minds by biological need,
radically intensified by constant cultural presentations of sexual imagery.
After that, we do a pretty good job of sustaining sexual exploitation
ourselves. This isn't excusable but the there are plenty of victims in this
complex scheme of things.

One thing we can do is, as Anne Midgette and Steve suggest, be aware of
what's going on and not be too quick to blame either Lara St. John or the
dirty old and young men who dig her CD cover.

Another is to have a sense of humor about it all. I was tickled by the way
a band I play with reacted to an excellent vocalist at a rehearsal. The
poem is a work in progress but I think that the vibes that went on will be
recognizable to many of you. To the others, my apologies.

Charlie Suhor


That Old Feelin'

Sixteen old farts playing 40s charts--
Miller, Basie, the Dorseys, Goodman, Shaw--
strictly recreation,
beenthere/donethat a thousand times,
a bit worn now and not so hot, and yet
nostalgia is not lost on them.
In
    walks
            chick vocalist,
damn, the niftiest fifty you ever saw,
oozing & bluesing premenopausal charisma,
yeah very hot yet somehow very cool,
and then a tension arises, attention arises
like an old pecker gone suddenly stiff,
and eyes go flashing, cymbals crashing,
hormones kindling harmony,
band swinging out and above all clefs.
They find in the music/
the music finds in them
a re-creation,
some new it, or some old feeling
that's never old, and will not ever be--
It's what the music sings about
when music is set free.