Julius Eastman, Vol. 1: Femenine

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The composer Julius Eastman, Black and gay at a time when neither group had a substantial presence on the contemporary music scene, died in 1990 after periods of substance abuse and homelessness. His music is undergoing a well-deserved revival, and listeners need go no further to investigate it than this exuberant release by the chamber ensemble Wild Up, offering a single ten-movement work, Femenine. It would be too simple to call the work a fusion of Terry Riley's minimalism and Ornette Coleman's free jazz, for it does not really resemble either of those in its feel. Yet this gives the listener a starting point. The work begins and ends with a metallophone background that persists throughout, soon introducing a two-note figure, E-flat and F, that is the basis for the whole composition. It expands and finally contracts over ten, variation-like movements, most of which are labeled with the technical procedure they include. Particularly interesting is the seventh movement, "E♭," which seems to propose E-flat as a tonic but can't quite make it stick. A quite Coleman-like saxophone is present as the music develops. The detente between jazz and minimalism has been a long time coming, but with the Eastman revival it seems to be here, and it is no wonder that this release was named one of the best albums of 2021 by some critics.

© James Manheim /TiVo