Terry Riley
Kings Place, London
03/11/2010
Terry Riley - Steinway piano, audio interface keyboard; George Brooks - Tenor saxophones; Talvin Singh - Tabla, percussion, laptop
Terry Riley visited Kings Place as the penultimate stop on his short European tour in honour of the Hindustani classical singer, musician and teacher Pandit Pran Nath. To be exact, the tour was billed not as ?Terry Riley’, but as ?California Kirana: The West Coast Legacy of Pran Nath’. Riley has often acknowledged, indeed celebrated Nath’s influence over the minimalist trend in modern composition, a trend that was, after all, one that Riley himself did so much to advance, although his ?cyclic modal music’ was never purely minimalist. Tonight’s performance, rather fittingly, occurred on what would have been, had he lived to see it, Nath’s 92nd birthday.

Riley’s principle partner for the tour was George Brooks, a saxophonist with a specialist interest in Indian jazz fusion. The two men share an interest in the rhythmic aspects of North Indian music, and their approaches, though clearly individuated, are entirely complementary. When percussionist Talvin Singh heard that the duo sought a collaborator, he apparently wasted no time before putting himself forward for the role; indeed there can have been no more perfect a choice than Singh to complete the line-up.

Anyone attending the tour in anticipation of a recital either of one of Pran Nath’s sublime Raga’s, of any of Riley’s key compositions “In C” or “A Rainbow in Curved Air”, or even a fusion of the two, was certain to be confounded, as the trio format should have made abundantly clear. Much of the evening’s repertoire was derived from an established body of work by the Brooks/Riley duo, of which the best known composition is apparently “Ebony Horns” (I confess I am unfamiliar with it). The trio did, however, essay a piece or two with some of the characteristics of a radically condensed Raga, and “Raga Darbari” was listed in the programme; perhaps this was the second piece the trio played in London. The only other Raga-like passage came in the closing number, some seven compositions later. In both of these pieces Riley’s vocal carried a faint echo of Pran Nath’s intonation, and this reminded me of his past (non-vocal) contributions to Pran Nath performances (one such being the “Raga Cycle” recorded for the “Palace Theatre, Paris 1972” album, on which Riley played tabla, alongside fellow Nath acolytes La Monte Young and Marion Zazeela on tambouras). Instead of the stately progress of a Raga, however, it was the driving percussive influence of North Indian music that came through most forcefully, and it was Riley’s sprightly, dancing pianism that dominated proceedings.

In vivid, brightly-coloured indo-Cali mufti, with his long white beard tidily semi-plaited, Riley wore an expression of impish good humour. He performed with supreme confidence, and paid clear attention to the performances of his companions. Riley is evidently quite comfortably settled in his long association with Brooks, whose approach, although he indisputably can be authoritative (witness his soloing on John McLaughlin’s Grammy-nominated “Floating Point” album), is studiously shy of scene-stealing antics. Brooks’ playing on this occasion was most often in subtle counterpoint to Riley, though in one atypically theatrical moment early on he played one saxophone solo directly into the grand piano’s lid for added reverb. Brooks’ sinewy, measured lines enhanced the melodic contours of Riley’s piano, as Riley overlaid rhythms, one stately while another danced to the accompaniment of cymbal and gong ripples, in multiple tempi.

As for Singh, Riley often glanced his way with a look that betokened both curiosity and appreciation. Singh, who won the 1999 Mercury Music Prize with an album of Weather Report-influenced electro-fusion, also played with restraint. He concentrated for much of the performance on cymbals, gongs, and sundry other percussion rather than the tabla, on which he has always made the strongest impression. A brief flurry of solo tabla in the second piece of the second set brought whoops of appreciation, while a sax/tabla duet in the third piece of the first had seen Singh launch at speed into a sequence of dynamic variations while Brooks pecked simple figures in accompaniment. Otherwise, with Riley taking charge of the rhythmic impetus, Singh’s percussion was deployed primarily as colouration.

The tunes were all of a piece yet clearly individualized. Where one was characterized by nostalgic romanticism, the piece that followed was darker and more turbulent, with one cinematic segment evoking sped-up urban scenes before morphing to channel the energy of boogie-woogie, as if melding the influences of Steve Reich and Conlon Nancarrow. The use of electronics was sparing but effective, with Singh starting the second set cross-legged, staring intently at the screen of a cradled laptop. Looking up, he announced good humouredly that he was “just checking my Facebook”, before triggering a sample of flowing water to which Riley then added touches of dappled piano. The body of this piece was solidly mid-paced adult-oriented-jazz, with Brooks adding a touch of Sanbourne to his usual style, which more often bears comparison with that of, if anyone, Charles Lloyd. The penultimate composition started out as a darkly reflective ballad but switched at its mid point to a Latin-tinged dance time.

Riley only turned from the piano to his electric keyboard for the final, atypically discursive number, briefly achieving first a sound akin to an electric harpsichord, then the tonality of an electric bass and even - following a leavening sax interlude - something akin to an electric koto. This he followed by some bluesy noodling back on the Steinway, all of which was merely a prelude for the concluding touch of Raga. At the evening’s close the trio were given an appreciative and warmly felt ovation, which I suspect Riley would have taken anyway as his due, but which was, in the event, richly deserved by the trio equally.

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