What are you listening to..ATM?

Just off the crescendo of a two week depression- it's just the nature of the beast I suppose- it's hard to explain but it's sort of like when you just survived some harrowing misadventure, only nothing happened. And so as I resume writing Chapter 54, I came across the tunes out of nostalgia's closet-



 
So I was rewatching this video and just noticed at 1:49-1:50 you can see where Darth Maul got his fashion sense (not a fan of the Star Wars prequels btw)-
I also like the upbeat bass riff's melody- and the energy of the song. Also can relate to the lyrics-

 
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I went to a jazz festival yesterday. Five bands.

First was the Dylan Perrillo Orchestra. Old time revivalism, played with the knowing wink of the ironic hipster, which is what ruined it for me. The whole thing felt like a schtick.

But the rest of the festival was fantastic:

Jeff "Siege" Siegel Sextet. This guy originally came from around these parts, but he's drummed for some of the biggest names in jazz. For this gig, he had local legend Rich Syracuse on bass, and incredible up-and-comer Dylan Canterbury burning it up on trumpet.

The Brighton Beat. Absolutely killer Afro-beat band from NYC.

Mike Stern. He had Dennis Chambers on drums. I wasn't familiar with the sax player or the bassist, but they both killed. Stern messed up his hands in a freak accident a couple of years ago. His picking hand looks all mangled, but he plays as well as ever, and still radiates joy in that uniquely Stern way. Great set.

Maurice "Mobetta" Brown. A young trumpeter with a band of complete monsters, burning up some very contemporary jazz, shot through with hip-hop and perfect for the whole Glasper/Kamasi/Thundercat crowd.

I ended up going home with both Brighton Beat CDs, plus the latest from Maurice Brown. I listened to this Brighton Beat disc already, and it kicks booty:



Here's the other Brighton disc:



And the Maurice Brown disc:

 
I recently obtained a DVD of Jeff Beck live at Ronnie Scott's and it had some nice performances by Imogen Heap and Tal Wilkenfeld. I had never heard of Imogen Heap before, but I really like her voice and singing style. I was surprised at how many albums she has put out. I guess the American music scene just doesn't produce much of interest to me any more. Sigh........ Anyway, Tal Wilkenfeld does a nice solo. However, I think I am more impressed by her looks than her playing. Does that make me a sexist pig? If so, I can live with that, because she is definitely a hottie!



Ms. Wilkenfelds solo starts at about 1:25
 
kimgee said:
I recently obtained a DVD of Jeff Beck live at Ronnie Scott's and it had some nice performances by Imogen Heap and Tal Wilkenfeld. I had never heard of Imogen Heap before, but I really like her voice and singing style. I was surprised at how many albums she has put out. I guess the American music scene just doesn't produce much of interest to me any more. Sigh........ Anyway, Tal Wilkenfeld does a nice solo. However, I think I am more impressed by her looks than her playing. Does that make me a sexist pig? If so, I can live with that, because she is definitely a hottie!



Ms. Wilkenfelds solo starts at about 1:25
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Sexism is defined as prejudice or discrimination according to sex. Did you say something that is prejudiced? Did you discriminate her? No. No sexism here. There's nothing wrong with respectfully acknowledging a lady's attractiveness, is there?
 
jester said:
Sexism is defined as prejudice or discrimination according to sex. Did you say something that is prejudiced? Did you discriminate her? No. No sexism here. There's nothing wrong with respectfully acknowledging a lady's attractiveness, is there?
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Nope, nothing wrong with it at all. In fact I’ve never known a woman to be offended by a respectful appraisal- well there was one exception- my onetime fiancé who said “Tell me something I don’t already know!”
 
It is, at minimum, a tad problematic. On the one hand, humans are sexual beings, and it's only natural for us to notice those we find attractive. But the constant obsession over female looks on musician forums speaks of something else. It's like "sure, she's a good musician and everything, but the important thing is how attractive she is to men". Can't we just appreciate her for the badass bassist she is and move on?
 
Bassist4Eris said:
It is, at minimum, a tad problematic. On the one hand, humans are sexual beings, and it's only natural for us to notice those we find attractive. But the constant obsession over female looks on musician forums speaks of something else. It's like "sure, she's a good musician and everything, but the important thing is how attractive she is to men". Can't we just appreciate her for the badass bassist she is and move on?
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Personally, I think the male obsession with female looks has benefited Ms. Wilkenfeld. I don't think she would be getting near as much attention were it not for her pleasing aesthetics. In my honest opinion, there are quite a few better bassists that receive much less positive attention. I do not mean to detract from her abilities at all, she can definitely play, and in the music industry, which is all about entertainment, it is not unexpected. So, good for her and I hope she goes very far in her career.
 
Bassist4Eris said:
It is, at minimum, a tad problematic. On the one hand, humans are sexual beings, and it's only natural for us to notice those we find attractive. But the constant obsession over female looks on musician forums speaks of something else. It's like "sure, she's a good musician and everything, but the important thing is how attractive she is to men". Can't we just appreciate her for the badass bassist she is and move on?
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To be honest, I haven't had much experience with other music forums. I 'd say ours is pretty cool in that respect.

I think it's a delicate issue. I 've been doing a lot of thinking about this today, some stuff I thought are obvious, some other not so much. I 'd like to summarize my thoughts as: I don't think men should apologize for being men, as long as they respect women. This rationale should explain the content of my first reply to kimgee.
 
Hoggles said:
I've seen quite a few sexist remarks on my beloved Bass Arena. It's really not a huge surprise that there are very few women on this forum, or many other male dominated forums for that matter. The way the vast majority of men subjugate women is a gross systemic problem and one that needs to be addressed and called out every time it happens. How often is the appearance of a male bass player commented on, in this forum? Not much. I really don't think it even remotely compares to the times I've seen woman's apperance commented on, for no other reason other than they're women. Or seeing the bouncing breasts gif on the chat room from time to time. There's no need for that kind of stuff. Especially a forum that is struggling to stay alive.
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I haven't been able to spot many sexist remarks here, we most probably have a different idea about what's sexist. Even if it's true, I don't think this is the reason we don't have many female members here. Did we stop to consider the ratio of male vs. female bass guitar players? It's the first question we should answer if we want to tackle our forum gender statistics. Let us not jump to accusations of sexism, even if sexism is a real thing.

The reason male bass players' looks are not commented on this forum is because members are mostly males, 9 out of 10 are heterosexual so they do not care at all about male players' looks, and 1 out of 10 does care but won't comment for obvious reasons. In my opinion there is not some kind of vile prejudice or desire to subjugate women when an attractive and famous female bass player enters the discussion and a healthy male respectfully expresses his appreciation of her looks.

To elaborate a bit on this: On my first reply to kimgee's message, where he self-blamed, I wrote: "Sexism is prejudice and discrimination according to sex". You will discover that the word "sexism" is used and abused in all kinds of ways all around you, and thrown around all the time in a knee jerk fashion. But what I quoted is pretty much the definition of sexism. That's it.

Now, having this in mind, and this is one of my thoughts that I did not share earlier: Let us assume you are a heterosexual male. Being that, and most probably unbeknownst to you, you are making a very serious and very important discrimination according to sex. When looking for someone to have sex with, men are out of the question, women are not out of the question. Does this discrimination according to sex make you a sexist? The answer is of course, no. I hope you understand the connection I am trying to make.

I guess my point is that certain things are natural and should not be suppressed as long as you respect the other person. I'm not saying we should let our urges take full control. We 're humans that have the capacity for restraint. But we 're only one notch above apes, guys and gals, so we do need to recognize that our animal side is there and it's very important as it's the reason we were born to have this exchange.
 
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