Rzewski plays Rzewski – The people united will never be defeated! – live 1986

A couple days ago in a restaurant in a Czech village, a waitress was taking down my order when I noticed some English words tattooed in cursive along her forearm. I asked and she held it up for me – ’If there is struggle, there is no progress’ Right I had misread it. ’If there is no struggle, there is no progress’ She had a tried and true quote from Frederick Douglass out on display for any of the 2500 people in the village who might wander into the place. Those lucky enough to understand it at source would feel a jolt which still charges through 150 years. I think this recording of Frederic Rzewski playing his own People United, live in 1986, shares the sentiment of that quote. The performance is sudden and rough and violent, challenging and unreserved. By the end the theme reemerges with what feels like a lifetime of expressive protest and defiance. Lived change embodied.