Secret History of Rock. The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard (6 page)

PHILIP GLASS

David Byrne:

[The Talking Heads] and a lot of other rock-oriented people really got into his trancelike repetition. We could relate to it. Like a lot of R&B – it’s got a different kind of groove obviously – but it’s still precise repetition with slight changes. Occasionally we would structure things with that repetition, maybe with an odd meter similar to something he would do...

Beginning in the late ‘60s, as art rock aspired to a higher level of respect and academic acceptance, a new generation of classically trained composers became interested in accomplishing the inverse. Tired of Western musical traditions – even those, such as serialism, which had only been developed in this century – they looked to popular and folk music, particularly non-Western styles, for new inspiration. The most visible among these composers was Philip Glass.

While Western composers’ attention to Eastern music was a trend that had been developing for almost a century, what made Glass and his peers different was that they were consciously a part of the rock era. Not content to sit around waiting for commissions from orchestras or become college professors, these young composers formed bands, played club gigs, and produced records. And having aligned themselves with the rock world, it was only a matter of time before rock musicians and fans took notice.

For at least three generations of musicians working in pop, Philip Glass was a key link to both classical and Eastern music. Over the last few decades, Glass has collaborated with artists from Paul Simon and David Bowie to Suzanne Vega and David Byrne to Aphex Twin. By meeting pop musicians half way, Glass has impacted not only rock, but ambient and techno music as well.

Born and raised in Baltimore, where Glass’s father owned a radio and record store, Philip studied violin and flute at Peabody Conservatory as a kid, graduated from the University of Chicago at 19, then studied composition at New York’s Julliard with Darius Milhaud in his early ‘20s. It wasn’t until he went to France in 1964 to study with famed instructor Nadia Boulanger that Glass began to find his own musical voice.

In Paris, Glass was hired to transcribe the music of Indian composer Ravi Shankar (later a large influence on the Beatles) into Western notation. Glass was mesmerized by the music’s timeless quality, and he was soon off to hitchhike through India and Africa in search of these new (to him, at least) approaches to music. By the time he’d returned to the U.S. in 1967, Glass was composing in a style that borrowed heavily from the structures, if not the sounds, of Indian music. He, along with a small group of composers taking a similar approach, became known as the minimalists.

The music of Glass and the other major minimalists –
LaMonte Young
, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich – shared a number of traits. Profoundly influenced by Eastern music, minimalism was highly repetitive, with cycles of notes developing slowly and subtly, and continuing with no apparent end.

It could be cold and mechanical, and yet mystical and meditative. Though minimalism tended to be more traditionally tonal than the serial music that had dominated previous decades of concert music, the psycho-acoustic phenomena often resulting from the use of electronic instruments – such as Glass’s preferred electric organ – could make it sound quite alien.

Tim Gane, Stereolab:

Repetition and minimalism are the two major things we always come back to, from the first record to the last. Particularly in early Philip Glass and Steve Reich, I like the simple components. You can see how it starts, then hear as instruments are added. It lets you into the secret, but it doesn’t take away from the beauty or wonder of the music. I always liked the idea of not covering up the music and allowing people to understand where the ideas come from, I think that’s important.

The minimalists also agreed that they themselves were the best performers of their own music. Each led small groups, or performed their works solo (Reich and Glass, former classmates, appeared in each other’s groups early on). Soon after his return to New York, Glass formed the Philip Glass Ensemble, which included keyboards, wind instruments, and voices, all amplified and controlled through a mixing board. Too loud and “undignified” for most concert halls, the group played wherever it could, mostly the galleries and rock clubs of New York’s downtown art scene.

Though Glass would later stray somewhat from his roots, the Glass Ensemble’s earliest material – such as
Music with Changing Parts
and
Music in Fifths
– is quintessential minimalist. By the early ‘70s, the group was playing to small crowds in the United States and Europe, and Glass began releasing work on his own record label, Chatham Square. The ensemble’s format and volume made the music attractive to more adventurous rock fans, and early on musicians such as David Bowie and
Brian Eno
attended Glass concerts in London, while New York art bands like the Talking Heads became fans as well. Soon, an Eastern, minimalist quality could be heard in these bands’ pop and rock music.

Brian Eno
:

It was a dense, strong sound, and that really impressed me, the physicality of that sound. There was no attempt to draw your attention by standard musical devices. It was just, here is the sound. Live in it... A lot of people left that show, but it really bowled me over. I thought, Oh God, this is it! This is the future of rock music! [from Option, Nov./Dec. 1997]

While Glass was developing a reputation in more progressive circles, it wasn’t until 1976 that he broke through in the classical world. With the premiere that year of his first opera, a collaboration with scenarist Robert Wilson called
Einstein on the Beach
, Glass became a recognized composer uptown as well as downtown (though afterward, he was still forced to make a living driving a cab).
Einstein
, a four-hour theatrical piece without plot or well-defined characters, is still Glass’s most celebrated work. It took Glass’s music beyond strict minimalism, and laid the groundwork for a new, multimedia art form that would come to be known as performance art.

Over the next decade, Glass composed other theater works, including operas
Satyagraha
(based on the life of Gandhi) and
Akhnaten
, as well as film scores (
Powaqqatsi
,
Koyaanisqatsi
), dance pieces for choreographer Twyla Tharp, and even soundtracks for events (his music for the torchlighting ceremony at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles introduced his music to millions of television viewers).

Toby Marks, Banco de Gala:

I saw
Powaqqatsi
and I thought, “Wow, amazing.” The way the music and the images marry together in that film is quite something. I was fascinated by the repetitiveness and small changes over time – and running different arpeggios against each other to get constantly shifting patterns – I definitely took something away from that, whether it was consciously or not.

By the ‘80s, Glass’s reputation had developed to a point where CBS Records offered him a recording contract (the first composer to receive one since Aaron Copland). Subsequent records like
Glassworks
and
Songs for Liquid Days
moved Glass closer than ever to becoming an actual pop star.
Liquid Days
, which featured songwriting collaborations with Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson, Suzanne Vega, and David Byrne, is by design a rock record. In addition, he produced a record for new wave band Polyrock, and lent arrangements to both Simon and Vega on their own records.

Jim O’Rourke, Gastr del Sol:

[Glass’s music] was rock and roll to me. Complete headbanging music. People around me were listening to Rush and Metallica; to me that was the stuff that made me pump my fist in the air.

Glass’s full impact on rock has undoubtedly yet to be felt. Musical styles such as New Age, ambient, and techno have all embraced minimalist concepts in their repetition, slow development, linear structures, and layering of parts. In addition, Glass’s 1995 collaboration with electronica star Aphex Twin connects him to yet another generation of pop explorers. And with his recent trilogy of symphonies based on David Bowie’s late ‘70s work with
Brian Eno
–
Low
,
Heroes
, and
Lodger
– Glass seems to be once again looking to rock music for inspiration.

DISCOGRAPHY

Music with Changing Parts
(Chatham Square 1972, Elektra Nonesuch 1994)
.

Solo Music
(Shandar, 1972; Elektra Nonesuch, 1989)
.

Music in Similar Motion
/
Music in Fifths
(Chatham Square, 1973; Elektra Nonesuch, 1994)
.

Music in Twelve Parts 1 & 2
(Elektra Nonesuch 1974; 1996)
.

Einstein on the Beach
(1976; CBS Masterworks, 1984; Elektra Nonesuch, 1993)
.

Dance Nos. 163
(Tomato, 1976)
.

North Star
(Virgin, 1977)
.

Glassworks
(CBS, 1982)
.

Koyaanisqatsi
(Antilles, 1982)
.

The Photographer
(CBS, 1983)
.

Mishima
(Elektra Nonesuch, 1985)
.

Satyagraha
(CBS Masterworks, 1985)
.

Songs from Liquid Days
(Columbia, 1986)
.

The Olympian
(Columbia, 1986)
.

Akhnaten
(CBS Masterworks, 1987)
.