Frederic Rzewski - Coming Together/Attica
Frederic Rzewski
Coming Together/Attica by Frederic Rzewski is an incredibly powerful piece of music on a cassette which Bill Grove laid on me awhile ago. Bill tells me the composer's name is pronounced "JEFF-SKI".
Here's a review:
Coming Together/Attica/Moutons de Panurge [Opus One, 1973]
The
design of "Coming Together" is simple, even minimal: Steve ben Israel
reads and rereads one of Sam Melville's letters from Attica over
a jazzy, repetitious vamp. Yet the result is political art as
expressive and accessible as Guernica. In ben Israel's interpretation,
Melville's prison years have made him both visionary and mad, and the
torment of his incarceration is rendered more vivid by the nagging
intensity of the music. The other side features a less inspiring
political piece and a percussion composition, each likable but not
compelling, but that's a cavil. "Coming Together" is amazing.A- Review by Robert Christau Dean of American Rock Critics