Tension and Release: A History of Jazz and Sex

Jazz, at its very core, is sex. The one begs the oth­er. Har­mon­ic ten­sion, rhyth­mic ten­sion, and even melod­ic ten­sion, fol­lowed by release match­es the feel of the moment, pas­sion and unrest bent up inside a per­son before the ulti­mate and sud­den exhale.

The New York Amer­i­can had this to say of jazz music in 1922, “Lights were low­ered, and to the strains of syn­co­pat­ed music, actions that are inde­scrib­able took place. This is the full flow­er­ing — the fruition of mod­ern erot­ic music, which has so crazed and befud­dled the moral make-up of young people…

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