Posted on 05/13/2011 9:55:15 PM PDT by tlb
WASILLA — When members of Wasilla High School’s symphonic jazz choir heard Friday it wouldn’t be singing the popular Queen hit “Bohemian Rhapsody” at this year’s graduation ceremony after working on it all year, the students couldn’t get their heads around it.
WHS Principal Dwight Probasco reportedly had received complaints from at least one parent that the 1975 hit written by Freddie Mercury wasn’t appropriate for the ceremony simply because Mercury was gay.
“The whole thing was just ridiculous,” senior Rachel Clark said Monday. “They’d played the song on the school intercom and we played it at prom.”
Choir member Casey Hight, a junior, was angry enough to contact a gay and lesbian support organization in Anchorage. They told her to contact the American Civil Liberties Union.
“I felt like the school was discriminating for sexual orientation and I felt it was wrong,” Hight said Monday. “It’s so stupid because there’s nothing sexual in the song. There aren’t even any cuss words.”
Although Probasco wouldn’t comment on the issue Monday, Senior Class Advisor Deb Haynes said Probasco has now agreed to allow the choir to sing an edited version of Bohemian Rhapsody that doesn’t include lyrics in one section about killing a man.
“The kids had put a lot of time into the song, but at graduation we really try to accommodate anything that might be a sensitive issue for anybody,” Haynes said, adding she didn’t understand why the song would have been a problem in the first place. “I’ve heard it a hundred times and it’s never bothered me.”
Hight said she believes Probasco decided to put the song back on the graduation program because he didn’t want any problems with the ACLU.
“We were joking about singing Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind,’ instead,” Clark said.
(Excerpt) Read more at frontiersman.com ...
Maybe they could have done Judas Priests’ “Hell Bent for Leather.”
Maybe it was seen as glorifying the gay themed Queen as well as raising controversy about the reference to a murder, so it wasn’t just one single issue. I could think of more wholesome things.
The left will blame Sarah Palin for this, somehow.
When I was about 8 or so and staying w my great-grandmother in Dexter, KS we used to go down to the local bar and shoot pool and this was our favorite song. Sounds crazy but it was about the best time of my life.
The article states the musical group is a "symphonic jazz choir". That alone is hard enough for me to grasp (yeah, I'm a square). I think of jazz as music such as Count Basie and Benny Goodman and it's hardly like symphony music to my ears.
That nitpick aside, how in the world does a rock song get categorized as "symphonic jazz". I could imagine that some of George Gershwin's compositions might be more appropriate for that genre.
But what do I know? My tastes tend toward Country and Southern Gospel music. :-)
It is kind of a dumb choice to sing at graduation, though.
MAGNIFICO.
Once you start arranging jazz, well it isn’t jazz any more. It’s at best a portrayal of jazz.
Easy come. Easy go.
WHY M CA...!!!!!!!!!
Oh, wait.....
Nothing crazy about it!
I used to think so, too. However, you should look at the origins of Jazz. Jazz originated in New Orleans because there were blacks who had the ability to write music, based on some peculiarities of the way that Reconstruction worked. Starting with the big bands, arranging was a must. However,as much as you may like Gillespie or Parker, I’m pretty sure that there was a LOT of arranging going on.
Because it is symphonic.
Its a curious and rather complex thing actually, for pop music.
Jazz, I don’t know. Rock certainly.
This isn't about blaming Palin.
This is a flanking attack ON Palin.
They are planting subliminal stories now, about how she came from, and became Mayor of, such an intolerant place.
This is foundational stuff that will be used later to justify the next charge.
-PJ
I’ve been to graduations where the Senior Chorus sang Lennon’s “Imagine” with no complaints.
Given that, Queen is no problem.
It’s art. Art, when it succeeds, breaks all boundaries. Bohemian Rhapsody broke all boundaries. These kids probably learned it from Wayne’s World, the movie.
or just do some floyd...ya know ‘hey teacher, leave us kids alone’ ???
If there isn’t some improvisational part to the work, it can’t be jazz in the fundamental sense. Jazz is often marked by various solo instruments taking turns improvising as the lead, and the audience will applaud each one at the end of its part according to how well it did. A good jazz band will have at least one improvising soloist.
Incidentally the word jazz itself was once a slang term, regarded as naughty, for “having sex.” From its namesake, it never was the exact same thing twice.
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me for me for me.
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