CDOTD 03/17/2025

 Africa Express Presents...Terry Riley's In C  Mali (Transgressive)

Purchased used at The Government Center

NPR's Weekend Edition just did a story on Steve Reich, celebrating the 27-disc retrospective boxset of his works. (My wife: "You don't need to buy that.") In the it was mentioned that Reich, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass were all friends. Yes, I suppose that was true at one time, but I'm doubtful about current circumstances. Reich indeed played on the premiere of In C in 1964; Glass and Reich both played in one another's ensembles, if briefly. When Glass came to the music school at CMU a few years back (pre-COVID), someone asked him about being being lumped together with other composers under the "Minimalism" banner. He said what was interesting was how different his music and that of Louis Andriessen, Fred Rzewski, and John Adams all were. Not even a hint of a mention of Steve Reich. 

In C is the work credited with starting, or at least jumpstarting, the so-called Minimalist movement. As with most things, the reality is more complicated. Its 1968 LP release on CBS Records gives it special merit for bringing this style of pulsing, modal music to the public.

(From here on, I'll dispense with the descriptor "so-called" and use the word Minimalism for the convenience. What else to call this inclusive music? New Modalism?)

Part of Reich's development as a young composer had to do with traveling to study in Ghana. Glass in part developed his Minimalist style in part after working on a film soundtrack, transcribing and arranging Ravi Shankar's works. Riley also had a deep interest in Indian music in particular, if I'm not mistake. The non-Western roots of these composers' music run deep. Reich most directly connected what he does to Africa, but surely African music relates directly and indirectly to all of these composers' music. (Keeping in mind, Africa is an entire continent and not a single cultural force or entity.) The modes, the repetition, the interlocking patterns, there are deep correlations if not connections.

So then, In C, in Mali, certainly makes perfect sense. The original score is very easy to find, it's printed inside the cover of the original LP. What this recording is not is a traditional reading of the composition. It starts very much in character with other versions, a regular pulse with the first phrase/melodic cell introduced over it. It becomes clear pretty quickly that it's not going to be a traditional through-reading of the work though. There are brief improvised solos by some players for example. The density of the ensemble play waxes and wanes multiple times through the recording, not always with the insistent C pulse assigned in the original. Sometimes I hear other melody cells turn up, sometimes I'm not so certain. There's even a brief narration in the latter portion of the album, layered on top of the music.

I guess the question is, is it actually In C? It is and it isn't, I suppose. If you went into this expecting a more straight-forward reading of the work on African instruments (as I did), you're going to get something different. But if the nature of In C is semi-improvisational, is this just as much a reading of the piece as anything else? If this version only briefly quotes the original and intermittently, is calling it by the original Terry Riley title as much as selling point as an interpretation of the work?

I did enjoy the recording, but I think there might be an element of truth to that: that the realization in this case isn't directly In C but more "based on" or "impressions of". I mean, the CD was cheap but I noticed it and bought the thing, so as a selling point it was effective. But where do Terry Riley's intentions as a composer end and something new begin?