joel wrote:You're painting with a very broad brush. I just read the story of an early Chicago jazz musician, Mezz Mezzrow, who totally adopted the language and customs of the black culture, beginning, according to his story, with black musicians he met in a "reform school", i.e. a jail for kids.
Hi joel, thanks for the feedback and link. No offence meant to anyone but the beadth of the brushstroke was deliberately wide, perhaps bordering on being ill-judged and/or indescreet, however I am not able to see how it dabbed into the realms of Mezz Mezzrow? Can you help me out, please? Thanks.
The uninformed attempt to put figure on the extent to which black, gay,0 anybodies face issues of intolerance from within the heterosexual black family was crude but i am positive real. Has anybody come across any reputable social studies of this life experience?
Part of what is interwoven in the subtext of those couple of posts is the relevance or otherwise of 'racial-stereotypes' and the challenges/opportunities that these present, if any, when pursuing a certain kind of spiritual lifestyle.
And perhaps to continue in the spirit of thought provocation: Is the sort of world occupied by the talanted creative soul slightly different from that of the man-in-the-street? Is it a given that we will see exceptions to some social norms in the attitudes of artistes due to the very fact that the artiste is endeavoring to live at the cutting edge of the human soul's life expression?
Given my curiousity re: things musical, thought was to do a little rummaging around on the basis of Joel sharing a little about Mezz Mezzrow and noticed as quoted below which may provide an insight into one sociolgist's view of the 'world occupired by the creative soul:
Sociologist Robert Stebbins defines the jazz community as a status group in which social differentiation occurs at two levels: within the community at large and within the status group. Within the status group are core and peripheral institutions. The core institutions are jazz jobs, jam sessions, after-hours social life, the musicians' union, and cliques of musicians who refer jobs to each other. Peripheral institutions are the musician's family and commercial music jobs. Over the years, the jazz community has distinguished itself from the community at large by a variety of distancing techniques that help maintain the integrity of the group, including use of a private slang, specific modes of dress, drug use, and other eccentric behavior.
All of this may underline some of what Joel shared. Thanks again for starting me off on another learning experience.