AFTERWORD Kyle Gann's Obituary of Jerry Appeared in the Village Voice

AFTERWORD answer and switch the call to the barn. He’s survived by his lover, Stephen Housewright. Unfortunately, his primary exposure outside Kyle Gann’s obituary of Jerry appeared in The Village new-music circles came from a pointless Voice, December 21, 1993: controversy. He had collaborated with Karen Finley (even she couldn’t upstage When John Cage performed in Dallas in him), and when he was later on a panel that 1975, the private reception afterward was gave her a grant, right-wingers trying to dominated by a thin, intense-looking guy discredit the NEA trumped up a conflict-of- whose spindly limbs swept the air as he interest complaint. Even had they spoke. He was comparing episodes of 'I investigated Hunt personally, they wouldn’t Love Lucy’ to the Beethoven sonatas as have comprehended his level of artistic varied manifestations of a recurring purity. Luckily, before he died, he got one structural formula. I thought he was fantastically characteristic audio document brilliant and nuts at the same time, and of his work onto disc: Ground:Five those two words have come back to me Mechanic Convention Streams on the 0.0. every time I’ve seen Jerry Hunt perform. I label. had no idea he was anybody significant, but His death November 27 makes no more five years later I saw him again at New sense than his music did, but the latter was Music America, making high-tech electronic an astonishing feat of manic intensity. music by hitting a suitcase with a stick. Jerry’s works and pieces composed in Hunt was a bundle of nervous energy, never tribute to him were performed in several boiling over, but eternally simmering. His concerts given during the first six months of doctor made him cut down on his 40 cups of 1994. This is my description of the first: coffee a day, and after he gave up chain- The memorial concert for Jerry in Houston smoking—not early enough, tragically, to was given in the Rothko Chapel on January prevent him from dying of lung cancer three 29th by DiverseWorks, the contemporary days before his 50th birthday— he chewed arts organization for which Jerry had nicotine gum vigorously, even onstage. performed several times over the years and He was the fastest talker I’ve ever that had invited him to give a concert on the interviewed. 29th in connection with the John Cage His music was a personal, hermetic religion. exhibition at the Menil Collection. The His works, with titles like Chimanzzi (olun): octagonal Rothko Chapel is located on the core and Bitom (stream): link, were based grounds of the Menil, a park-like area near on a private geography of Texas towns the University of St. Thomas. The Chapel meshed with the angelic tables of the 16th- contains the huge, almost solidly black century magus John Dee. Bells on his wrists paintings of Mark Rothko; as one walks jingled as he banged endless tremolos on about the space, or sits on the benches, each the piano. Electronic sounds would burble, of these somber works becomes a window video images would flip, as he whipped opening inward to the darkness that we fishing poles toward the audience. Every usually decline to see—a darkness both of a gesture in his repertoire seethed with personal dimension and of the world. The inscrutable meaning. When I told a friend tiny square of light at the very top of the Hunt had died, and that I wished I ceiling invites the gaze upward and beyond, understood his music enough to describe but it is hard to keep the head back for very how it worked, she said, “No one knew what long. Jerry was doing. Make up something.” On the 29th that gaze was, instead, led Hunt lived in a barn on his mother’s forward to the stage and its video monitor, property, somewhere northeast of Dallas. microphones, and various nondescript When you called up, his mother would objects cluttering the performance space. 1 There was little sound as the 150 or so these small instruments were taken from a people assembled on the benches. Michael suitcase sitting in full view of the audience, Parenteau began by reading a tribute to yet another of Jerry’s practices. Jerry that described his career and his art And through it all, from the sides and back and the influence Cage had on him and that of the Chapel, and sometimes from places he himself has on artists and audiences. For on the benches them selves, came the notes a minute nothing happened. Then Michael from Pauline’s accordion—plaintive, Galbreth started a videotape of Jerry distant, occasionally angry-sounding, performing on a stool, gesturing and waving moving here and there. At one dramatic some of the objects he made, to a moment, she appeared in a side doorway background of his music. holding a black umbrella over herself as she No one would have been less likely than played. Jerry to invite people anywhere for 'canned’ Within a few minutes, Ellen had completed entertainment, and the Art Guys, Ellen her tableau: the chair now with the coat on Fullman, and Pauline Oliveros tacitly the back, the shoes placed together in front acknowledged that fact as they very slowly of it, Jerry’s picture in the seat lit by the and deliberately opened the live portion of flashlight lying in front of it, and the tilde the concert by making sounds and gestures (~) that Jerry always signed his letters with that had come to be associated with Jerry’s reproduced on a card and positioned just own work. Michael began reading quotes above the photograph. Then Ellen walked to from Jerry’s letters and interviews by taking her mike and read Jerry’s words in a loud, cards at random from a paper sack on the strong voice:’If I don’t get there, just put my floor. The quotes pertained to music and picture in a chair.’ religion, primarily, but several were The final minutes of the concert were anecdotal and of a personal nature. Many devoted to a portion of another videotape were funny. Sometimes Michael lay down to Jerry made. We see only his head, above a read them, like a little boy doing his broad, white Elizabethan collar. He homework. And sometimes he drew a card whistles, blows, and breathes, all the while only to read it to himself; Jerry would have making a series of facial expressions that liked that touch. suggest, alternately, a magus and a clown; Meanwhile, Ellen began assembling several sometimes it appears that he has in fact objects on the other side of the performance been possessed. The lamps used to light the space. She dragged a metal folding chair video recording are bright in Jerry’s eyes as across the stone floor, then brought in a he looks directly out at us. The white man’s sportscoat and a pair of shoes. She brightness that had emanated from the carried a picture of Jerry, one that had been center of the Chapel ceiling seemed to have taken in performance, through the audience, moved to those eyes. illuminating it with the flashlight that Jerry One by one the performers left the stage. himself so often used. Pauline’s accordion grew silent. Then there Jack Massing accompanied the words and was a loud noise offstage, like a paper sack movement by making a variety of sounds. being burst. And Michael Galbreth walked He held a yards-long glass tube filled with out, looked at the audience, and said (as BB pellets, allowing them to roll first one had Jerry so many times at the ends of way and then the other, producing a concerts), ’Well, I guess that’s it.’ rushing, oscillating sound like ocean waves, or heavy eerie breathing. Then he put on The Dallas performance group Voices of Change plastic gloves (another of Jerry’s dedicated their February 7th concert at SMU to Jerry’s trademarks) and shook tiny bells and other memory. Pianist Jo Boatright played "Melody", Jerry’s metallic objects—often quite close to last composition. Laurie Shulman described the work Michael’ face and body as he read. Most of in the concert program: 2 'Melody’ is not nearly so simple as its title. was coordinated by Steve Key and was held in San Hunt builds the piece above a static open Diego. Some of Jerry’s as yet unrecorded songs were fourth in the left hand that functions as an played, accompanied by slides, and a couple of his ostinato. video works were shown. The right hand has all the activity, The last concert was given at the Outpost Performance alternating shorter notes with long, wide Space in Albuquerque on June 18th. Pauline Oliveros intervals with an occasional melisma. The performed, using several of Jerry’s video works; she effect is an appealing mix, rather like chant was assisted by lone, Margrit Schenker, and Joanna crossed with new age jazz.... 'Piano was Whitney. The evening was sponsored by the always Jerry’s first love,’ says Housewright. Nonsequitur Foundation, whose music gallery on Fifth 'It’s appropriate that his last piece should be Street concurrently displayed several hundred of the for piano.’ artifacts Jerry used in his video work and in performance. (Steve Peters had come to Canton the On March 12th Voices of Change presented a previous weekend to select these objects and take them memorial concert at the Contemporary Culture back to Albuquerque for the exhibition.) Gallery. In addition to the video works Birome [zone]: plane (fixture) and Transform (stream): core, some I described that last concert as follows: footage from an interview with Jerry filmed by Paul Steve Peters welcomed the audience and Bosner was shown.

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