Julius Eastman - Joyboy (1974)

We are so excited to be featuring Julius Eastman’s JoyBoy on our weekly InfraSonic series. In realizing this piece, our team decided to experiment with multi-tracking which, as far as we know, hasn’t been done with JoyBoy before. As we continue to discover new ways to create and connect through experimental music, we invite you to join us in embracing these new sounds.

To learn more about Eastman and the piece we are presenting this evening, read on!

Julius Eastman was an unapologetically black and queer vocalist, pianist, dancer, and composer. He was one of the leading voices of experimental music in the 1970s and was one of the first composers to use a blend of pop music progressions with minimalist musical structures. His music brought him to such acclaimed NYC venues like The Kitchen, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and The Town Hall. His music had a strong political voice, and often he used reclaimed slurs in titles of his pieces like Gay Guerilla.

JoyBoy has been described by musicologist Luciano Chessa as one of Eastman’s “queer-themed” pieces. Written for a quartet of treble instruments, JoyBoy begins with what he instructs as “ticker-tape” music on a single unison E natural. Throughout the piece, this E natural expands and contracts into glorious minor seventh and suspended chords, only returning to the solitary E briefly before crescendoing to more chromatic tones and figures. The frazzled energy of the ticker-tape music finally finds peace in the final bar, when the solitary E finds itself hugging an adjacent D natural in a final embrace.

Check it out on our April EP!