OutBeat — Philadelphia | September 18–21, 2014

[bluenoter]

Festival website: http://www.waygay.org/outbeatjazzfestival/

The William Way LGBT Community Center, with generous support from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, is proud to announce
OutBeat: America’s First Queer Jazz Festival. The four-day festival will . . . highlight the intersections between sexual orientation,
gender identity, and jazz history and culture.

[bluenoter]

http://jazztimes.com/articles/133997-from-fred-hersch-an-open-letter-re-the-outbeat-jazz-festival

[Cem]

I'm not sure that I understand… is Fred Hersch mainly taking issue with the gay/queer/lgbt as potential qualifier for the music played at this jazz festival? Would it help if it was called [blank]-positive or something? Or does he think that that piece of information is not necessary at all?

[Ron Thorne]

My take is that Fred finds the word "queer" distasteful and off-the-mark, though understands its widespread use. I think the festival's organizers were short-sighted and a bit flippant in using that word in their tagline. LGBT is now in common usage and would have probably been a more accurate, inclusive and positive part of a tagline. It doesn't necessarily "flow", but ...

Outbeat
America's First LGBT Jazz Festival

[Cem]

Maybe so, Ron. See, I read his opposition as more towards blank-jazz… the music is not going to be more "gay" or whatever. I understand that some jazz musicians who happen to be LGBT, may want to make noise, as it were, about their gender, as it's a pretty straight male dominated industry. I'm not sure what's the best approach and certainly, my take is irrelevant, but some tagline about the festival's inclusivity may be good… such as "America's [rainbow flag] Jazz Festival" or some such.