Julius eastman john cage7/30/2023 Though it doesn’t offer an expansive look at his compositional growth like Unjust Malaise, it gives us a better sense of Eastman as a bandleader and performer of his own works. In creative terms, it’s a crystal-clear, 72-minute shot that reaffirms what all the veteran scholars and performers have been talking about for decades. In terms of sonic fidelity, this is an occasionally scratchy live recording of a chamber orchestra performance from November 6, 1974, with Eastman at the piano. The release of Femenine, however, is an occasion for wide celebration. Still, the primary stumbling block to any greater revelry has been a lack of recorded evidence of Eastman’s own performances. And along with Renée Levine Packer, Leach has edited an important book of essays covering every aspect of Eastman’s career. Jace Clayton reinterpreted two of those works on a 2013 album. In 2005, a three-CD set on New World Records, Unjust Malaise, brought several of Eastman’s most notorious compositions into wide circulation. Contemporaries like Kyle Gann and Mary Jane Leach have pooled rare recordings and fragments of scores, and found new material in archives. Thankfully, the last decade has seen a renaissance in Eastman appreciation. Yet for a long time, hardly anyone pursued either activity-largely because much of his music had been scattered to the winds prior to his death in 1990. After he died, alone in a Buffalo hospital at age 49, it took eight months for an obituary to be published.Įastman can be almost as fascinating to read about as he is to listen to. Details from his homeless period are sketchy (or contested), but it’s generally agreed that he lived in Tompkins Square Park and also suffered from some form of addiction. Most of his scores were bagged and carted away-eventually lost to history. Then he faded from view.Īfter alienating lovers and collaborators alike, Eastman was evicted from his apartment in the mid-’80s. He contained so much art and vision as to be a scene unto himself. These were moves that obscured Eastman’s stated desire to face up to “that thing which is fundamental” in American society. And Eastman’s confrontational “nigger series” of compositions-including pieces like Nigger Faggot, Crazy Nigger, and Evil Nigger-were sometimes truncated on concert bills, due to pressure from well-meaning protestors and risk-averse programmers. His explicit, queer reframing of John Cage’s Song Books famously enraged Cage himself. While in the company of such elites, Eastman challenged the norms of etiquette with a potency that guaranteed scandal.
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