Chamber Music for Riley’s Trippy Storytelling

courtesy of Jensen Artists

This Friday, March 25, Cantaloupe Music will release Autodreamographical Tales, a composition composed and performed by Terry Riley in a new arrangement for chamber ensemble prepared for the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Riley called this piece a musical dream diary. It was created in 1996, when Riley recorded himself telling stories from his unconsciousness while accompanying himself at a keyboard. In 2010 Tzadik released a CD of his performance, which has an Amazon.com Web page.

Riley is about nine years older than I am. My guess is that we both took pleasure in listening to Al “Jazzbo” Collins, whose narration of familiar fairy tales was delivered with an eccentric abundance of hip lingo. My guess is that Collins had been inspired by the nonsense verse of Lewis Carroll. By 1967 Carroll had surpassed the hip qualities of Collins when Jefferson Airplane used his verse as a point of departure for the lyrics of “White Rabbit.” Riley’s approach to narrating the surreal is much cooler than Jefferson Airplane’s delivery, making his ancestral tie to Collins stronger than the Airplane’s acid tripping.

The move from piano accompaniment to chamber ensemble was a smooth one. The first seven tracks of the Cantaloupe album were arranged by Riley’s son, Gyan; and Riley himself arranged the remaining three tracks. As of this writing, the album is available for pre-ordering from Amazon.com; but it is only being sold for digital download. The good news is that the download will include the accompanying booklet, which includes the texts of all of Riley’s trippy tales.

The participating Bang on a Can performers are Ken Thomson (clarinet and bass clarinet), Ashley Bathgate (cello), Robert Black (bass), Mark Stewart (guitar), David Cossin (percussion), and Vicky Chow (keyboards). They are joined by Bruce Gremo, who plays glissando flute on the opening track (“Dwarf”) and shakuhachi on “Black Woman” and “The Faquir.” While I cannot complain about the new instrumentation, I fear that, to some extent, Riley’s role as a “teller of unreliable tales” has lost the sharper edge that arose when he was the only performer. The Bang on a Can All-Stars may have approached this project as an anthropological effort, but it is unclear that they appreciate either the flesh or the spirit of anthropology.