Terry Riley

Terry Riley was born in California in 1935. He studied music in San Francisco and Berkeley, and graduated in composition in 1961. Riley's best friend was La Monte Young, with whom he shared the passion for John Coltrane's free jazz. After graduation, Riley left for New York and Paris. He played jazz piano all night long at a bar on Rue Pigalle, sometimes accompanying Daevid Allen's poetry, and befriended Chet Baker. While in Paris, Riley discovered a way to use tape recorders for endless loops of slowly-mutating sound. His compositions of the time include Keyboard Studies (1962),one of which (for two pianos) is contained in Keyboard Study 2/ Initiative (Byg, 1968) and both were later collected with Dorian Reeds on Keyboard Studies (2022), and Music For The Gift (1963), possibly his first piece of music based on a tape delay and feedback system (realizing a loop that repeated a piece of jazz music). He then joined a traveling theater and traveled through Scandinavia, where they staged happenings, and even to Russia.

When he returned to San Francisco in 1964, he joined the newly formed San Francisco Tape Music Center.

The masterpiece of the period was the suite In C (1964), for an ensemble to perform ad libitum, first recorded on In C (Columbia, 1970). It is one of the key works of the postwar period. The piano part, the "pulse" consists solely of "C" notes and is to be repeated for the entire duration of the performance; the other instruments join one after the other, stratifying and infinitely repeating 53 fixed figures, each for an arbitrary duration of time. The piece ends when all of the instruments arrive at the 53rd figure. The frantic chatter of each instrument expands or contracts, shatters or coagulates, inflames or is snuffed, all according to the "organized improvisation" of each musician. Here music regains the essence of ludic play, of liberation feast and of collective ritual. In C marked a radical departure from traditional composition, a milestone in the evolution of avant-garde music. It was not radical enough to belong to Dadaism, and not quite austere enough to fall under the realm of Darmstadt-esque serialism.

Riley backpacked through Mexico and then joined LaMonte Young in New York, where he helped the Theatre Of Eternal Music and befriended Tony Conrad and John Cale. Influenced by them, he became interested in just intonation, purchased an electronic organ and tuned it to just intonation. At the same time, he started playing soprano saxophone, influenced by John Coltrane. In Dorian Reeds (1965), collected on Reed Streams (Mass Art, 1966 - Organ of Corti, 1999), several phrases of a saxophone are delayed and superimposed to constitute a form of mono-instrumental polyphony.

Riley's debut album, Reed Streams (Mass Art, 1966 - Organ of Corti, 1999 - Elision Fields, 2007), compiled the glacial, geometric, robotic Untitled Organ, that offers very little variation, and the more intricate Dorian Reeds, that employed the magnetic tape to create disorienting polyphony.

Riley also started performing all-night concerts, the first one in 1967 at the Philadelphia College of Art. One of these concerts (New York, march 1968) was excerpted and became the Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, a saxophone-based drone piece featuring tape loops, closely related to LaMonte Young's stationary tones. It was credited to Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, but there was no band: the effect of the band was achieve via the looping technique that he discovered in Paris. Hence it was a band of phantoms.

The piece layers sounds that are both slow and massive, climaxing when the storms of echoes of the saxophone mimic the epileptic trills of Rainbow in Curved Air.

The repetition of simple rhythmic and melodic cells not tied to a known key is the foundation of A Rainbow In Curved Air (Columbia, 1969) for electronic keyboards, the composition that made Riley famous also among rock musicians. He played all the instruments by himself (electric organ, two electric harpsichords, dumbec and tambourine), utilizing eight-track recording technology pioneered in Los Angeles by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys for Pet Sounds. The fantasia unfolds lively in a dizzying whirl of improvisations. The accompaniment evolves every 2, 4 or 8 beats, without ever changing the initial pattern. The development is a overwhelming, with a madly trilling harpsichord, an organ holding long church notes, and other electronic sounds serving as the rhythm or counterpoint. Increasingly colorful and exuberant, the saraband shamelessly vents the most uncontrolled hedonistic instincts. It seems to subside into a more ceremonial and contemplative register, on liturgical and mantric cadences, but new timbres, now celestial now mournful, chase each other in spirals and cascades of echoes, overlapping with increasingly breathtaking acrobatics, until galloping off on a relentless tabla beat. The result is a radiant hymn of joy, a Franciscan exaltation of the spirit of life, an overwhelming merry-go-round of intoxicating sensations. This Rainbow is an electronic suite that, in the midst of psychedelia and in full “Indian” fashion, will influence many rock musicians, as well as mark the point of maximum formal perfection achieved by minimalism.

The masterpieces of his mature stage was born when the musician relied more firmly on mystical inspiration. Ritual peace and ecstasy radiate from and preside over the terse performances of Persian Surgery Dervishes (Shandar, 1972). The double album (recorded live in two different occasions) finds Riley on organ, with only the help of a tape-delay. It is his most profound and evocative work, and the most closely related to Eastern spirituality. Riley improvises ceaselessly by recycling and recombining the few rhythmic-melodic figures: on one keyboard he continually invents ebbs and flows of tonal colors, while on the other, as if in a trance, he imposes a hypnotic pulse (the tape-delay causes the sound to continually overlap itself). The humility and discipline that preside over this almost inward exercise contrasts the music's material poverty with its spiritual richness. The organ shudders along majestic soars, in wide, ecstatic swirls, to sink immediately into subdued prayers in a whisper. It is the “adult” version of Rainbow in Curved Air, which no longer has anything of its adolescent playfulness, expressing more metaphysical emotions.

Riley’s fascinating personality and the extraordinary symbiosis that he manages to engage with his organ soon made him a living legend. Thanks to him, minimalism and rock music met halfway, thanks to his natural modesty that emarginates him from the cold intellectuals of laboratory music, and thanks to his blind faith in the human element, which is improvisation.

He recorded relatively little, content with living in his California farm, where he could continue to study in peace. He always remained an underground figure, even when the music that he had invented began to obtain the favor of the general public.

Over the years Riley's keyboard music became more colorful and expressive, more tolerant towards variations and movement. This new style was inspired by the intricate tapestry of some Indian singing on Shri Camel (Columbia, 1978), reissued as The Last Camel in Paris, a live solo organ concert recording from november 1978. Anthem Of The Trinity sounds like a jazzy version of A Rainbow In Curved Air. The appeal of Desert Of Ice, another variation on Rainbow in Curved Air, lies mainly in its crystalline xylophone-like timbres.

Riley was the most spontaneous of the minimalist composers of his generation. Precisely because his music eschewed convoluted psycho-acoustic theories, he managed to constitute a natural bridge between minimalism and rock, and in general between avant-garde music and popular music.

Riley met Pandit Pran Nath when LaMonte Young brought him to the USA in January 1970 and Riley followed him back to India in September to study with him. Riley then went to Paris, hired to score the soundtrack for Joel Santoni's two-hour art film "Les Yeux Fermes/ The Closed Eyes".

L'Infonie - Mantra (1970), reissued as Reed Streams/ In C (Cortical Foundation, 1998) and Reed Streams (Elision Fields, 2007). contains a 20-minute organ improvation (keyboard studies recorded in 1966), a live direct version of Dorian Reeds (1966) and a 29-minute verion of In C titled Mantra performed by the Canadian jazz collective.

Church Of Anthrax (Columbia, 1970) was a collaboration with John Cale.

Riley was hired as a music faculty member at Mills College in 1971 and remained until 1981.

Happy Ending (Warner, 1972) contains the soundtrack to Joel Santoni's Les Yeux Fermes (1972), reissued together with the other soundtrack Lifespan (1974) as Les Yeux Fermes & Lifespan (Elision Fields, 2007). The soundtrack itself consists of two lengthy pieces. Journey From A Death of a Friend is mostly a reprise of the smooth, liquid, viscous, cascading counterpoint of Persian Surgery Dervishes recast for an acid organ timbre, except that towards the end the a jazzy piano breaks in briefly but only to launch the final gallop of the synthesizer. Happy Endings, scored for piano and saxophone, begins in a jovial manner reminiscent of Poppy Nogood until the organ takes over with a much slower and graver pattern. The sax follows suite and for a while the piece becomes a jazz duet between two instruments that alternate (not interact). They are finally all mixed together in the final apotheosis. Riley doesn't seem quite in full control of these two pieces.

Keyboard Study 2 (Get Back) documents a Terry Riley piece recorded in 1969.

Over the years Riley's keyboard music became more colorful and expressive, more tolerant towards variations and movement. This new style was inspired by the intricate tapestry of some Indian singing on Shri Camel (Columbia, 1978), reissued as The Last Camel in Paris, a live solo organ concert recording from november 1978.

Anthem Of The Trinity sounds like a jazzy version of A Rainbow In Curved Air .

The appeal of Desert Of Ice, another variation on Rainbow, lies mainly in its crystalline xylophone-like timbres.

His voice, on the other hand, trained at the school of Pandit Pran Nath, adds a human element to his supernatural journeys on Songs For The Ten Voices Of The Two Prophets (Celestial Harmonies, 1983).

In the 22-minute Embroidery his lament actually approaches the metaphysical weltanschauung of Robert Wyatt and the funereal glamor of Nico, although the dancing synthesizers (the "two prophets" of the title) anchor it to an almost childish mood. The somnolent and delicate Eastern Man and the anguished Chorale Of The Blessed Day, somewhere between a soul ballad and a lithurgical hymn, suffer from uninspired synth improvisations.

His early quartets (Sunrise Of The Planetary Dream Collector from 1980 and The Medicine Wheel from 1983) went unnoticed, but in 1985 he truly began a new chapter in his work, showing that he may have found a more congenial style of composition, with Cadenza on the Night Plain (Gramavision, 1985). At times it is reminiscent of ragas ( Cadenza: Violin I), folk dances (Cadenza: Cello), impressionist pizzicatoes (Cadenza: Viola), Arabic scales (Cadenza: Violin II, Night Cry), musichall (March of the Old Timers Reefer Division, Captain Jack) and his In C, while elsewhere it enlightens his mysticism with an ecstatic alternating of meditative pauses, Sufi whirls, Stravinsky-ian marches and Nyman-esque ostinatoes (Mythic Birds Waltz).

In 1986, Riley recorded two albums of piano improvisations, The Harp of New Albion, performed on a piano tuned according to the mathematical system of La Monte Young. None of these works managed to match the beautiful gems of the past.

The masterpiece of his later years was the quartet Salome Dances for Peace, documented on Salome Dances For Peace (Nonesuch, 1989), one of the most monumental in the history of music, with 23 movements. It was the least minimalistic work of his career, closer to Penderecki and Webern's serialism. It has lost the happy abandon of the jazz and raga improvisation of his roots, and instead embraces a rigorous compositional technique whose mission is no more to arouse ecstatic moods than to “tell" a story through sound. It is not a coincidence that the work sounds more similar to film soundtracks than to classical chamber music. The themes run the gamut from Arabic litanies (Summons, Way Of The Warrior) to relentless bolero progressions (Fanfare In The Minimal Kingdom), almost imitating the rococo minuet ( Good Medicine Dance). It includes peaks of pathos in the most subdued and dissonant moments (Echoes of Primordial Time, perhaps the standout, and Peace Dance) and in moments of dramatic tension and dynamism (Half Wolf Dances Mad in Moonlight, The Underworld Arising). With these quartets, Riley established himself as an erudite followers of Henry Cowell.

Le Secret De La Vie (Philips, 1974) is a trivial film soundtrack.

Descending Moonshine Dervishes (Kuckuck, 1982) documents a 1975 live solo performance of about one hour. After six minutes the pulsing, swirling "dervish" dances of the keyboards are met by a counterpoint of droning keyboards in a different timbre. Then the dancing pattern resumes, and every now and then the drones resurface. The timbre changes, particularly at the 27th minute when cascading crisp tones pierce the stately droning foundations. The music rests, the music self-ignites, the music spirals out of control, the music seems to achieve nirvana, and then the music plunges again into an earthly dance.

Live In Koln February 23, 1975 (Modern Silence, 2016) documents a collaboration between Don Cherry (trumpet) and Terry Riley (organ) with Karl Berger on vibraphone that yielded the 20-minute Descending Moonshine Dervishes, the 8-minute Sunrise Of The Planetary Dream Collector and a 12-minute free improvisation.

No Man's Land (Plainisphare, 1985) is a film soundtrack. The ethnic overtones prevail. Jewel Movement is an exuberant raga with sitar, piano and flute. Medusa's Refrain (Part Two) is a jazzy duet between piano and sitar. A Spark From The Infinite (Part Two) And so on. It is one of his most facile works.

The Ethereal Time Shadow (Music from Mills, 1985) contains a nine-minute excerpt of Riley's The Ethereal Time Shadow for two synthesizers turned to just intonation, but mostly music by other avantgarde luminaries: Lou Harrison, Luciano Berio, Robert Ashley (Flying Saucer Dialogue), David Rosenboom (In The Beginning Etude I), Steve Reich (Melodica), Maggi Payne, etc.

Terry Riley's In C has been recorded in a variety of arrangements: In C (Celestial Harmonies, 1989) for Chinese orchestra; In C - 25th Anniversary Concert (New Albion, 1995) for creative improvisors (Rova Saxophone Quartet, Henry Kaiser, Jaron Lanier), a rather unsuccessful one; In C (Maso, 1996) for percussion ensemble; In C (Atma, 2000) for sitar, tabla, percussion, droning voices and orchestra; In C (Cypres, 2000), a lively interpretation that has little in common with Riley's original, gray, monotonous, austere version; In C (Cantaloupe, 2001), an even more lively (and very ethnic) version which also includes the string quartet Requiem For Adam (1998). In C (Wergo, 2002) is a "disco" version, performed by European Music Project and the electronic duo Zignorii++.

Riley composed three "requiem quartets": Mario in Cielo, Lachrymosa and Requiem for Adam (1998). The latter appears on Requiem for Adam (Nonesuch, 2001), credited to the Kronos Quartet. It is a metaphysical three-movement quartet which begins with a simple sequence of ascending patterns, at first increasingly skittish but then increasingly resigned. The second movement opens with booming electronic noise and the noise continues to duet with the strings, which are dragged into the chaotic and pulsing frenzy of the electronics. The third and longest movement (which is in reality several movements in one) quickly reestablishes that brutal, messy, Charles Ives-ian action but after six minutes it plunges into a slow melancholy march, and halfway becomes an almost comic scherzo that mutates into a tense exhange, and it ends with three minutes of angelic whispers. The third movement alone is one of Riley's most complex and emotional compositions. The album also includes Riley's brief solo piano improvisation The Philosopher's Hand.

But, with the expection of Salome's Excellent Extension, which appears on Intuitive Leaps (Work Music, 1996), Riley's compositions were clearly moving away from minimalism. Riley was, in fact, becoming one of the most varied, dynamic and unpredictable composers of his generation.

The quality was not always up to his reputation. June Buddhas (MusicMasters, 1991) is a three-movement piece for chorus and orchestra. Cactus Rosary (Artifact Music, 1993) is a confused 1990 composition for mixed instruments. Chanting the Light of Foresight - Imbas Forasnai (New Albion, 1994) is a six-movement quartet written with the Rova Saxophone Quartet (from 1987), a demanding but not inspired work. A Lazy Afternoon Among the Crocodiles (AIAI, 1997) is a duo with bassist Stefano Scodanibbio (Diamond Fiddle Language, Tritono). The Book of Abbeyozzud (New Albion, 1999) is a cycle of pieces for guitar (in different settings) inspired by Spain. These are all relatively minor works in the career of one of the centuries' most influential innovators.

The live performances were even less interesting. Padova Concert (Amiata, 1992) contains music from The Harp of New Albion and Salome Dances for Peace. Lisbon Concert (New Albion, 1996) is a piano concerto that samples different styles.

His archives yielded a wealth of rarities. All Night Flight V.1 (Organ of Corti, 1996) documents a 1968 concert. Olson III (Organ of Corti, 1999) documents a 1967 live performance of a lengthy piece a` la In C for any instruments and voices. Music for the Gift (Organ of Corti, 2000) collects the early electronic compositions of 1963-65, including Two Pianos Five Tape Recorders (1960), Music for the Gift (1963), Bird of Paradise (1964), and the psychedelic Mescalin Mix (1962). You're Nogood (Organ of Corti, 2001) contains a live 1967 performance (for saxophone and tape delay) of Poppy Nogood, a "sampled" and processed version of the rhythm'n'blues song You're No Good

Riley has also composed the seven-movement orchestral suite Jade Palace (1991), the chamber opera The Saint Adolf Ring (1992), Ritmos and Melos (1993), an elegant (and occasionally jazzy) work for chamber trio (violin, piano, percussion) inspired by Greece, El Hombre (1993), a quintet for strings and piano, the seven-volume cycle The Heaven Ladder for Piano (1994), whose sixth volume is titled Night Music for Piano (1996), Mandala Miniatures for Saxophone Quartet (1998), Uncle Jard (1998), a quintet for saxophones and piano, The Dream (1999), an evening-length work for solo piano in micro tonal tuning, the piano concerto Banana Humberto 2000 (2000), Y Bolanzero (2001) for large guitar ensemble, Assassin Reverie (2001) for saxophone quartet, etc.

Atlantis Nath (Sri Moonshine Music, 2002), ostensibly a tribute to Pandit Pran Nath who died in 1996, collects various compositions recorded between 1994 and 1998. It includes excerpts of Riley's operas The Saint Adolf Ring (1992), an evening-long multimedia theater piece originally scored for flute, clarinets and saxophone, violin, cello, piano, two percussions and a narrator, and Remember This O Mind (1982), originally scored for 10 instruments and voice. It opens with the interlocking droning "oms" of Crucifixion Voices, but it quickly descends into skits that sometimes amount to circus music masquerading as ethnic music. The 13-minute Emerald Runner is an anemic pop-jazz ballad (for voice and piano). Asencion is an intriguing 15-minute folk-jazz piano improvisation (originally scored for solo guitar in 1993), but Riley is no Keith Jarrett: his playing is rather bland.

Riley's chamber music also includes: ArchAngels (2003) for eight cellos , The Cusp of Magic for string quartet and pipa (2004), and Transylvanian Horn Courtship for string quartet (2009) He also rearranged for string quartet an old composition for keyboards and saxophone, G-Song (1980). He composed two concertos: The Sands for string quartet and orchestra (1991), recorded on The Sands (2023) with the Cleveland Orchestra, and Banana Humberto for piano and electro-acoustic band (2000).

The double-disc Aleph (Tzadik, 2012) documents a 2008 concert for just-intonation synthesizer. The two-hour program is a display of Riley's mastery at deploying "tricks" practiced throughout his career, a summa of 50 years of raga-influenced improvisation. The first part is often borderline cacophonous, with Riley unleashing a youthful energy in his fibrillating ragas. The second part seems to flow more organically, and with fewer sections of pointless repetition. It is intriguing to hear Riley, consciously or unconsciously, imitating instruments of the orchestra (for example the trumpet 12 minutes into the second part and the flute 45 minutes into the second part, an effect that recurs for 15 minutes, and the saxophone frequently in the first part). It is exciting to witness how he can simulate polyphony either by alternating different pulsating timbres (for example 26 minutes into the second part) or mixing wave-like drones with harsh hysterical bursts (for example 36 minute into the second part). It is reassuring to hear the frequent pauses in ecstatic languor (notably 30 minutes into the second part). But the two hours stand more like a testament to his live performances than as an accomplished, curated piece.

The Lion's Throne (2019) collects live performances from 1999 till 2006 with Italian singer Amelia Cuni, who was trained in "dhrupad" singing in India.

Cantos Desiertos (2003) contains a cycle of lieder based on folk music.

I Like Your Eyes Liberty (2004) is a collaboration with poet Michael McClure.

The Cusp of Magic (2004) is another quartet for the Kronos Quartet.

Diamond Fiddle Language (2005) contains duets with bassist Stefano Scodanibbio.

Assassin Reverie (2005) contains Uncle Jard, Assassin Reverie, Tread on the Trail.

Banana Humberto (2008) is a piano concerto performed by the Paul Dresher Ensemble. The Last Camel in Paris (2008) documents a live solo electric organ performance of 1978. Two Early Works (2010) delivered two of Riley's early compositions, performed by the Calder Quartet.

ZOFO Plays Terry Riley (2015) consists of ZOFO (the piano duo of Eva-Maria Zimmermann and Keisuke Nakagoshi) performing Etude from the Old Country, Jaztine, G Song, Cinco De Mayo, etc.

One Earth One People One Love (2015) is a five-hour anthology of compositions performed by Les Mystere des Voix Bulgaires and the Kronos Quartet: Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector, Cadenza on the Night Plain, The Cusp of Magic, Requiem for Adam, Salome Dances for Peace.

Sunrise Of The Planetary Dream Collector (2015) contains re-recordings of Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector and Cadenza on the Night Plain besides unreleased compositions, all performed by the Kronos Quartet.

Sun Rings (2019) contains the quartet Sun Rings (2004) performed by the Kronos Quartet, a work which incorporates sounds recorded by physicist Don Gurnett during NASA missions.

The Lion's Throne (2019) documents a live performance with singer Amelia Cuni.

Archangels (2021) contains Remember This O Mind for choir and cellos, Madrigal for choir, Archangels for cellos.

The EP Zephyr (2021) contains a 20-minute violin solo.

The ten compositions of Autodreamographical Tales (2022) are performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

Organum for Stefano (2022) documents an improvised live concert on pipe organ.

Standard(S) - Kobuchizawa Sessions #1 (2023) contains six jazz standards.