The practice of rhythm and blues horn players (quintessentially tenor sax players) to literally get up on the bar during a tune and walk it from one end to to the other, riffing and honking. Typical in the 1940's and 50's, it was deemed a display of machismo and virtuosity.
A friend of mine reported seeing tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet walking the bar in St. Louis. He moved along. playing and kicking over drinks as he went. One patron, objecting to the endeavor, pulled a switchblade knife out and stuck it into the bar in Illinois' path. When Jacquet came to that spot, he peered over his horn at the knife, turned around, and continued to play as he retraced his path.
The grindset is a contemporary ideology of self-exploitation disguised as strength, deeply tied to the aesthetics of the “sigma male” and to new digital forms of patriarchy. It promotes the idea that human worth depends on productivity, economic success, absolute emotional control, and the ability to work endlessly, turning vulnerability, rest, community, and tenderness into signs of weakness. Beneath its rhetoric of discipline and power often lies a profound inability to relate healthily to pain, fragility, and human interdependence.
“That’s the grindset, brother. While weak men sleep and complain, sigma males stay disciplined, work in silence, suppress emotions, and build power while everyone else wastes time chasing comfort.”