Anybody that’s investigated the prime ‘70s work of Philip Glass has heard the saxophone playing of Richard “Dickie” Landry. He also worked with Laurie Anderson and appears on the Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues LP. But the man also cut his own slice of killer experimental drift titled Fifteen Saxophones, a record that unlike so many impossibly rare and frustratingly high priced obscurities is easy and affordable to hear in the nonce. For folks known to frequent the less-travelled alleyways of unconventional sound, it’s highly recommended.
It’s always good to go back and reevaluate prior notions. Sometimes these ideas stem from personal experience but just as often they are solidified due to received wisdom. If it’s informally written down in enough places and by extension carried through the air like a cold germ by word of mouth then subscribing to oversimplifications and even blatant inaccuracies becomes somewhat understandable. And impressionable young minds are particularly susceptible.
Mine was. I’m thinking directly of the idea that the 1970s were largely a musical wasteland that ruined the angelic greatness of the decade before. Of course punk arrived as savior but basically got treated in a manner not unlike Jesus Christ; few dug it at the time (though this is another questionable concept) and countless people came to embrace it later.
This belief used to be pretty much the official line, and it went hand in hand with the view of the ‘70s as a period of general cruddiness; the gas crisis, an unpopular war that dragged on, Watergate, hijackings, Son of Sam, Patty Hearst, Jonestown, etc. So, it’s no surprise that the perception of the sounds made during this epoch so often related to the foul, the stagnant and even the downright fatuous.
And I was all of nine years old as the ‘70s drew to a close, my biggest memories of music from the time were Donny and Marie Osmond, C.W. McCall’s “Convoy” and Rick Dees’ “Disco Duck,” so naturally I wasn’t adequately prepared to challenge the line of thinking that proposed the decade from whence I sprang as one forever burdened with the curse of musical suckdom.
But time can be a great clarifier. For instance, it’s now no great secret that many thousands of worthwhile records saw release in the ‘70s. It’s just that due to issues of distribution and promotion far too few got to hear them at the time. And it’s also true that certain shared opinions do change; disco is no longer the devil, and hard rock, prog, and fusion have all gathered increased if varied amounts of critical respect. And fans of dub reggae, second-generation free jazz, and the unlikely avalanche of obscure Krautrock hold the ‘70s in special regard.
However, in certain persnickety (and rock-centric) quarters the concept of the ‘70s as a sad place still lingers. But don’t misunderstand me. I’m not proposing the era as The Good Old Days. Nah. If asked what I think is the best musical time to be alive, my response has been solid for quite a while; Right Now. Not only do we have the vast contemporary spectrum to explore and evaluate as the good, the bad, and the ugly, but we also have the now insurmountable backlog of recordings to delve into and enjoy. And along the way our preconceptions of the history that brought us to the here and now can be challenged.
Take for example Fifteen Saxophones by Dickie Landry. Not only is this obscure LP of New York City-based avant-gardism an outstanding piece of abstract artistry if completely shorn from the context of the time and place of its origin, but if taken in consideration as a small but heavyweight entry from the substantial and still resonant 1970s New Music scene, it assists greatly in shedding light on a movement that gets too often shorthanded as belonging to just a few big names.
Names like Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson for example, and big-time fans of those artists might recognize Richard Landry as contributing to such albums as the former’s Music in Twelve Parts – Parts 1 & 2 and the latter’s’ Home of the Brave. But Landry’s story is far more interesting than just a name-check on other people’s discs, one who managed to record a neglected LP prized by fans of obscure music and unfortunately too little known by the scads of ears that might appreciate it as a rough jewel of maverick sonic expressionism. Indeed, knowledge of Richard Landry’s background goes far at overthrowing the stereotypes attached to those who populated the 20th Century avant-garde.
For if a member of the NYC New Music community, Landry wasn’t born there. His place of birth was Louisiana, specifically the village of Cecilia. And in direct opposition to the pigeonholing of avant-gardists, conceptual artists and experimentalists in various disciplines as the effete sons and daughters of privilege, he was raised poor and on a farm. The draw of music for Landry was ultimately no different for him than it was for countless youth across the spectrum of class, and one of his earliest sources of inspiration was sphere of Modern Jazz.
And the way Landry has described his first trip to New York City in the late ‘50s sounds like something out of Kerouac; he and a friend driving north through a long trail of small towns in a red and white Corvette to eventually land in Gotham, parking in front of Birdland where they entered to witness Bud Powell, Miles Davis, and Philly Joe Jones doing their thing.
When Landry eventually moved there in ’69, he lived a lifestyle that’s essentially vanished, that of struggling in a metropolis until you either make it or the experience breaks you, a set of circumstances enabled by the reality of cheap living. Once upon a time it was possible to subside as an artist in large cities on very little money, eating beans and striving for a break while hovelling in a dump that probably should’ve been condemned (or maybe actually was). Oh, the bohemian way.
This was the environment in which Landry met Philip Glass. The flautist/saxophonist has detailed that he was desperate to get away from the music of his Louisiana background and do something new (though he currently plays it in the “swamp-pop” group Lil’ Band O’ Gold), so it makes perfect sense that he would end up in the same room as Glass and Steve Reich. But it’s not like he was just suffering in his abode waiting for the occasion; along with photography and painting, he recorded in the bands of some pretty commercial jazz figures, namely Les McCann and Gene “Jug” Ammons.
And Landry was there with Glass in the early days, before the Einstein on the Beach composer became one of the elite names in the Modern Classical field. In fact, the earliest recordings of both men surfaced on Chatham Square Productions, a label set up by the pair that in addition to their own recordings also released music by Canadian multimedia artist Michael Snow, flautist/saxist/composer Jon Gibson and much later avant-garde/dance music kingpin Arthur Russell.
Landry’s first two albums, 4 Cuts Placed in “A First Quarter” and Solos were on Chatham Square, but these days those babies are flat-out scarce. This is thankfully not the case with Fifteen Saxophones. Originally issued in ’77 by a label called Northern Lights, it was quickly licensed to the ridiculously prolific German avant-garde label Wergo, where it joined the music of some truly esteemed company. In fact for a long time Fifteen Saxophones sorta blended right into the background, its existence eluding me until just a few years ago.
And before hearing it for the first time I was frankly expecting something comparable to Glass. What I got was much closer to the work of great avant-composer Terry Riley, an unexpected and very pleasing turnabout. The record opens with the title work, a beautiful ten and a half minute soundscape where Landry’s tenor is recorded by producer Kurt Munkacsi and then first fed through a Revox tape delay four times and then overdubbed two more times, with five times three equaling fifteen saxophones.
If that smacks of the dry and/or academic, well it’s anything but. It’s true that it completely eschews verse/chorus structure and also the melodiousness of trad classical stuff, but if given proper attention it is music of great power. Rather than sedate, his playing is searching and yes, demanding though not difficult. Landry has said that his intention was to test the boundaries of his instrument, but what results isn’t blind fury but instead a constantly evolving field of warm tones. And it can serve as a great soundtrack for images conjured up on the back of your closed eyelids.
Landry’s music is quite far from the extremely notated structure of Glass and Reich, though he is still conversant with the textures of minimalism. It’s just that he’s more psychedelic in effect, again somewhat similar to Riley’s Rainbow in Curved Air. That album was a big seller when released in 1967, remaining in print for years through CBS Records. A decade later Fifteen Saxophones appeared through channels far more modest and suffered a different fate.
“Alto Flute for Quad Delay” is similar to the prior piece, but due to the properties of the chosen instrument it shapes up much differently. The terrain is in line with drone music, but it lacks abrasion, and unlike the fluffy sounds often produced by the flute, the result can be described as a haunting calm.
But the nearly twenty-two minute second side is where the real fireworks reside. “Kitchen Solos” was recorded live at the legendary and long-gone NYC venue The Kitchen. If initially very much in Riley mode, it gradually finds Landry squealing, wailing and huffing like a free jazz titan. But those delay effects really shift up the situation, and at times the horn sounds more like a stressed-out trumpet. Also fantastic is a passage of audible key clicks that present a possibility for the sax that’s too rarely explored.
If all this sounds intriguing, then get hip to the Unseen Worlds label’s multi-format reissue of Fifteen Saxophones from last year, the limited edition LP being still available. This is great news for vinyl cravers that also happen to be heavily invested in experimental sounds, a territory where fresh vinyl releases are always welcome.
Contrary to its old rep, the ‘70s were maybe the last decade where engagement with the avant-garde was considered part of a full musical diet rather than a fringe explored by the few. How about that? And yet, Fifteen Saxophones still managed to slip through the cracks. It’s great to have it back in print.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
