'You Don't Play Like a Girl': Queer in a Jazz World

by Allison Miller - Drummer, composer, music producer and drum teacher

All female musicians go through a hazing period, an eye-opening moment when they first observe the extracurricular activities and conversations that go down offstage in the music business. Thanks to my first drum teacher, Walter Salb, I got my hazing period over with at age 14. Walt always said, "If you can deal with me, then you can deal with anyone in this business." He was right! I didn't just learn how to play paradiddles from him.

I learned how to curse like a sailor, volley and one-up sarcastic insults with speed and precision (with beer in one hand and a whiskey in the other) and demean women with vulgar prowess. I also learned how to "man up" and show no emotion. This was all fine and dandy with me. I loved it. I was a little tomboy drummer, obsessed with jazz, who hadn't quite discovered her sexuality. I would just hang out at Walt's house, practicing the drums, cursing, drinking, talking shit and listening to old jazz records. My sexist vulgarity quickly surpassed most of the boys'.

Time went on, and I went away to college, kept practicing those drums, honed my crassness, sharpened my drinking skills and enthusiastically discovered that I was a big fat homo. I now had two love affairs in my life: jazz and women. Historically, jazz and women make a classic combination. But being a woman and loving jazz and women? Not so classic. The dichotomy of the two felt absolutely ridiculous. I spent my days transcribing Miles Davis solos and my nights chasing girls. Let me make one thing clear: My sexuality, at this point, was absolutely one-dimensional. I had no awareness of feminism, equality or politics. I was interested in sex only, and I could still one-up the boys with a dirty joke.

After college I moved to the jazz capital of the world, New York City. I had no idea that it was also the gay capital of the world. How fabulous! I met gays unlike any gays I had ever encountered. Gays fighting for equal rights. Gays who were interested in more than just accumulating notches on their belts. I quickly got schooled in feminism, gay rights and gay subculture.

Righteous queer female artists and activists flooded into my life: BETTY, Toshi Reagon, Ani DiFranco, Gloria Steinem, Animal, Melissa Ferrick, Indigo Girls, Staceyann Chin. I was taken to the mecca of all feminist festivals, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. I slowly but surely became a full-fledged lesbian feminist.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-miller/you-dont-play-like-a-girl-queer-in-a-jazz-world_b_2769544.html