St Luke's Chamber Ensemble finds the joy in Julius Eastman... and answers it with respect

Stay On It has become one of the big hits in the unexpected and ongoing resurgence of Julius Eastman, whose story ended too early: homeless and all but forgotten, just shy of 50. It’s an uplifting composition, exciting and full of life, immediately recognizable from its incessantly repeating theme but at the same time more open to artistic interpretation than much of his work. The experimental rock band Horse Lords recorded a driving version with rapper Abdu Ali and Sō Percussion released a vibrant, psychedelic rendition. Others have (arguably) weakened the piece not by violating the fragmentary score but by undermining it. 

WIth as much freedom as the piece allows, you can’t kind of do Stay On It. Failing to approach the spirit that drives it is something like throwing a crate of lightbulbs and wine glasses down a flight of stairs and calling it John Cage. The interpretation has to be convincing. The St Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, in their “Visionary Sounds” concert at the DiMenna Center, let It fall into abandon at times, but never without a plan. The singular melody line was never far away. Singer Catherine Brookman (a composer herself) gave voice and attitude to the piece. She invoked Eastman’s opening three-verse poem (sometimes omitted) with more than a little reverb and, later, augmented her powerful voice with electronics, emitting quick laser shots and distant echoes, doubling, tripling and multiplying herself into a small chorus. 

Eastman’s Gay Guerrilla opened the program (that lasted in total barely one marvelous hour). It began very quietly, with subtle movement in the bass – trombone, then vibraphone, then piano – giving gravity to what is nearly a single-note repetition. But then a joie de vivre, understated though it was, arose from Alex Fortes’ violin, floating above the pulsation. Soon we were engulfed in dizzying dissonances, then released, as the monochromatic theme ebbed into near silence and gained force again and again, restoring itself with the same components but never quite in the same way. There was little by way of solo instrumental voice, there wasn’t even a theme, there was just the count and shifting emphases. The result was saturating and intoxicating. 

It was once believed, 100 years ago or so, that sound waves never dissipate, that with the right equipment, any sound ever made could be retrieved and heard again. We now know that to be untrue, but somehow it seems that Julius Eastman’s music could defy the science, that somewhere, at some amplitude, it is still and always going on. If we could rewind and hear them all, SLCE’s interpretations might be more formal than most, perhaps more than the composer’s own realizations. But there is a value in their readings, treating him with the seriousness accorded to his contemporaries Philip Glass and Steve Reich (with whom, in truth, he only has so much in common). For all of his anger and attitude, and his occasional cheek, he well deserves the respect.