6/19/20

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Julius Eastman (1940-1990)

As we celebrate Juneteenth, a holiday recognizing the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans, as well as Pride Month after a month of civil unrest across the United States (mainly protests of modern day racial injustice), it seemed like today would be the perfect opportunity to talk about an underrepresented composer such as Julius Eastman. Last fall I was tasked with writing a report (with a close friend, Katharine Davelos Baines) on Eastman and today’s piece, Gay Guerrilla, which he completed in 1979. In writing that, I learned of his style which, musically speaking, is emblematic of developing East coast minimalism, but generally speaking, is abrasively and overtly tied to his own identity and struggles. In his own words, “What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest - Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.” Unfortunately, and despite his incredible talents as a musician which developed during and after his time at the Curtis Institute of Music, Julius Eastman’s life ended tragically with his last decade seeing drug addiction, eviction and homelessness, the confiscation of many of his scores, and a death that was not reported on until 9 months later.

Gay Guerrilla showcases Julius Eastman’s self described organic style, which is constantly evolving. The piece is not scored for a specific instrumentation, but instead is written for a group of several similar instruments, which is often interpreted as four pianos or up to 12-20 instruments of the same family. Additionally, the score completely abandons the traditional use of meter and rhythm in favor of sections marked with timestamps. The piece begins very transparently with only a few pitch classes before becoming increasingly complex and dense. It is not until around the 6’00” mark that Eastman introduces the pitch classes of F# and then C#, complicating the dissonances between the harmony that had been present up to that point. It is also around this point in the music that Eastman starts to give written notes in the score, often pertaining to how some people should stop playing or an introduction of a new element. As the piece becomes more tense and chromatic in harmonic content, it climaxes around the 18’30” mark with a monumental statement of the Lutheran chorale “Ein feste burg,” in sharp tonal contrast to the chromatic harmony around it. Eastman indicates that this is the melody, but does not offer any explanation in the score as to why he opted to include such a sacred and clear reference. As the piece falls down from this moment, the harmony subsides back to a more diatonic makeup. Here, Julius Eastman also resorts to using common chord symbols as seen in a lot of jazz music, such as Em7, F#m7, G#m7, and C#m7 to dictate the harmony. The piece concludes with all voices ascending by scale up to a C# and staying on that pitch.

So with the musical content of Gay Guerrilla aside, it is important that we discuss the context of the piece. The piece is a part of a collection including two other works (which were also completed in 1979) of a similar style: Evil N*gger and Crazy N*gger. Even in considering only the names of these three pieces, we get a glimpse at how political and forthright Julius Eastman was. As a minority within a minority group, Eastman used his music to give his own existence a voice, thus binding his contribution to the world of music with his stance on injustice and prejudice based on race and sexual orientation. Perhaps this is best displayed in Julius Eastman’s own spoken introduction to the premiere of this three-work collection at Northwestern University in 1980 - after being denied program notes (due to the shocking nature of his pieces’ titles), Eastman decided to speak before the performance to explain his own works. In listening, you will certainly get a glimpse into Eastman’s mind, but I urge you to also consider his audience for this concert: a classical music concert audience that is likely upper-class, well-educated, and almost undoubtedly predominantly white. A link to that speech can be found here.

It is an unfortunate truth that the “ivory tower” world of classical music has almost always been painted as white, male, and Christian. How can that be justified with so many of America’s historically greatest composers of jazz and classical music alike not falling into that specific group? Julius Eastman’s music stands as a testament to the power of music and the struggle of a people that has lasted for centuries. In short, you cannot separate the man’s music from his message. As someone who has had remarkable opportunity, I can only listen to someone like Eastman and consider how so many artists have struggled for their causes. Musicians and audiences today owe a great debt to those who recovered the vast quantity of lost works written by composers like Julius Eastman - without that, an offensively large section of music history could have been lost. Below I am linking a recording of Gay Guerrilla performed by Julius Eastman, Frank Ferko, Patricia Martin, and Janet Kattas. Additionally, if you would like to look at Eastman’s own handwritten score, that can be found here. Whatever stance you may take on social issues of today, I thank you for taking the time to read this post and listen to music of a tormented man like Julius Eastman.