| Contents |
Foreword / by Joan La Barbara -- Introduction -- Part one. Improvisation and experimentation. Amiri Baraka on Miles Davis's "penchant for minimalism" ; John Coltrane on his recent music (Downbeat, 1960) ; Dom Cerulli's liner notes to John Coltrane's Africa/Brass (1961) ; Henry Flint on La Monte Young in the early '60s ; Jonathan Cott profiles Yoko Ono (Rolling Stone, 1971) ; The New York Times on John Cage's marathon of Erik Satie's Vexations (1963) -- Dream music. Jill Johnston on La Monte Young and Dream Music (Village Voice, 1964) ; The theatre of eternal music at the East End Theatre (1965) ; Tony Conrad replies to critic Peter Yates (1965) ; Kate Lloyd on Four Evenings of Music with La Monte Young (Vogue, 1966) ; Tim Souster on "sustained sounds" in "pop" and "serious" music (1969) ; John Cale, Tony Conrad, and Lou Reed on the early history of the Velvet Underground -- Loops and process. Alfred Frankenstein on the premiere of In C (San Francisco Chronicle, 1964) ; Janet Rotter on the Columbia recording of In C (Glamour, 1969) ; Terry Riley's notes on Poppy NoGood's Phantom Band (1967) ; Carman Moore reviews Steve Reich's tape music (Village Voice, 1966) ; Steve Reich, "Music as a gradual process" (1968/1971) ; Philip Glass, "Program notes" (1972) ; Michael Nyman interviews British composers on discipline and process (1971) ; Henry Higuera on Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company (1972) ; Sally Banes on Meredith Monk's Our Lady of Late (1974) -- Altered states. Terry Riley's liner notes for A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969) ; Marcus Bloom interviews Jon Hassell on hashish at the Dream House ; Robert Palmer on the musical trend of trance (New York Times, 1975) ; Tom Johnson reviews Éliane Radigue's Psi 847 (Village Voice, 1973) ; Annea Lockwood and Julie Winter describe their 1970s healing group ; Charlie Morrow on Rhys Chatman's chanting (1974) ; Linda Cousins interviews Edward Larry Gordon (Laraaji) on "celestial vibration" (1978) ; Pauline Oliveros, "On sonic meditation" (1976) -- Gurus and teachers. La Monte Young on Pandit Pran Nath (Village Voice, 1970) ; Alice Coltrane's liner notes to Journey in Satchidananda (1971) ; Chungliang Al Huang on Pauline Oliveros and the [circle on a cross] Ensemble (1973) ; San Diego Magazine interviews Pauline Oliveros (1979) ; Tricycle: The Buddhist Review interviews Philip Glass (1991) -- Cultural fusion. Carman Moore on Terry Jennings and his All-Star Band (Village Voice, 1968) ; Angela Dews profiles Alice Coltrane (Essence, 1971) ; Steve Reich, "A Composer Looks East" (New York Times, 1973) ; Jan Bruér's liner notes to Don Cherry's Organic Music Society (1973) ; Arnie Passman on Terry Riley (Berkeley Barb, 1974) -- Across the arts. Robert Morris, "Blank Form" (1960) ; Yvonne Rainer, "A quasi survey of some 'minimalist' tendencies in the quantitatively minimal dance activity midst the plethora, or an analysis of Trio A" (1966) ; Alfred Frankenstein on "extended timers" at the Whitney (San Francisco Examiner, 1969) ; Lizzie Borden on Charlemagne Palestine's body-as-instrument (1974) ; John Rockwell on Yoshi Wada's Earth Horns (New York Times, 1974) ; Deborah Jowitt on Laura Dean and Steve Reich's Drumming (Village Voice, 1975) ; Joan La Barbara on Alvin Lucier's "sound geographies" (1975) ; Amanda Smith profiles Meredith Monk (Ms. Magazine, 1977) -- Ensembles. Steve Reich, "Notes on the ensemble" (1973) ; Meredith Monk on Dolmen Music (1980) ; Willoughby Sharp interviews the Philip Glass Ensemble (1974) -- Part two. 1976. Tim Page on the ECM release of Music for 18 Musicians (1978) ; Steve Reich's program note for Music for 18 Musicians (1976) ; John Rockwell on Einstein at the Beach (Village Voice, 1976) ; Henry Flint on Catherine Christer Hennix's The Electric Harpsichord -- The new downtown. Rhys Chatham on "Post '60s traditionalism" (EAR Magazine, 1978) ; Peter Gordon replies to Rhys Chatham (EAR Magazine, 1978) ; Julius Eastman, "The composer as weakling" (EAR Magazine, 1979) ; Peter Zummo profiles Arthur Russell (SoHo Weekly News, 1977) ; Lee Ranaldo on Rhys Chatman's Guitar Trio ; Beth Anderson's "Report from the front" on the festival New Music, New York (1979) ; Wim Mertens interviews John Cage about Glenn Branca's performance at New Music America (1982) -- Instruments and environments. Ellen Fullman on her Long String Instrument (1987) ; James Fulkerson on Phill Niblock's music (1982) ; Yoshi Wada's liner notes to Lament for the Rise and Fall of the Elephantine Crocodile (1982/2007) ; Eliot Handelman interviews Maryanne Amacher (1991) -- Ambient music and New age. Anthony Korner interviews Brian Eno (1986) ; Stephen Hill, "New age made simple" (1988) ; Dean Suzuki & Bob Doerschuck interview Harold Budd (1986) ; Paul Bowler interviews Midori Takada on Through the Looking Glass (2018) -- Canons. Tom Johnson, "What is minimalism really about?" (Village Voice, 1977) ; Tim Page and Mark Abbott, "Aspects of minimalism," WKCR festival playlist (1980) ; Peter Goodman, "Minimalist music: is less more, or a bore?" (Newsday, 1984) ; Alan Licht, "Minimal top ten" (1996) -- Backlash. Beth Anderson on the first night of New Music, New York at the Kitchen (1979) ; Ian MacDonald on minimalism (The Face, 1987) ; Charlemagne Palestine, interviewed by Alan Licht (1989) -- Politics, identity, and expression. Rudy Koopmans interviews Louis Andriessen, Reinbert de Leeuw, and Misha Mengelberg "on the occasion of a concert tour by Phil Glass" (1976) ; Renate Strauss profiles Julius Eastman (Buffalo Evening News, 1976) ; Julius Eastman introduces his concert at Northwestern University (1980) ; K. Robert Schwarz profiles John Adams (1985) ; Steve Reich's program note for Different Trains (1988) -- Postminimalists. Kyle Gann, "Enough of nothing: postminimalism" (Village Voice, 1991) ; Libby Van Cleve interviews Michael Gordon on his 1983 composition Thou Shalt!/Thou Shalt Not! (1997) ; Libby Van Cleve interviews David Lang (1997) ; Julia Wolfe's program note for Lick (1994) ; Elodie Lauten, "Composer's notes" (2009) ; Kalvos & Damian interview Ann Southam (1998) ; John Adams on the music of Ingram Marshall (1984) ; Elena Dubinets interviews Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky (2010) ; Elena Dubinets interviews Sergei Zagny (2020) ; Elena Dubinets interviews Nikolai Korndorf (2000) -- Spiritual minimalism. John Rockwell on mystical minimalism (New York Times, 1993) ; Jamie McCarthy interviews Arvo Pärt (1986) ; Paul Jamrozy on Henryk Górecki's Symphony no. 3 (The Wire, 2014) -- Popular culture. Stephen Holden on disco (High Fidelity, 1979) ; Kenny Berkowitz on minimalism's impact on techno (Option, 1997) -- Part three. Histories. Arnold Dreyblatt, "An open letter to La Monte Young and Tony Conrad" (2000) ; Nico Muhly on Philip Glass's Music in 12 Parts (2017) ; Jace Clayton, "Reverence is a form of forgetting" (2020) ; David Toop, "Black minimalism" (2018) -- Silences. Alex Ross, "Silent song" (The New Yorker, 2016) ; Jürg Frey, "And on it went" (2004) ; Eva-Maria Houben, "Presence, silence, disappearance" (2010) -- Futures. Brandon Stosuy interviews Sunn O)))'s Stephen O'Malley (The Believer, 2006) ; Randy Gibson, "On tuning" (2018) ; Philip Sherburne on ambient jazz (Pitchfork, 2021) ; Steve Smith profiles Sarah Hennies (New York Times, 2020) ; Éliane Radigue, "The mysterious power of the infinitesimal" (2009). |
| Abstract |
Minimalism changed everything. When composers like Philip Glass and Steve Reich began creating hypnotically repetitive music in the 1960s, it upended the world of American composition. Hip, young listeners flocked to a genre that had long been insular and academic, packing concert halls and buying millions of records. But minimalism wasn't just a classical phenomenon: its static harmonies and groovy pulses swept through the avant-garde landscape, shaping the work of experimental mavens Yoko Ono and Brian Eno, radical improvisers John and Alice Coltrane, outre innovators Pauline Oliveros and Julius Eastman, and many others. This book provides a comprehensive, revisionist retelling of minimalism's transformative rise, through the voices of the musicians who created it. Featuring more than a hundred rare historical sources, the book moves from the style's origins in psychedelic counterculture through its arrival in the mainstream and into its present-day manifestations in doom metal and ambient jazz. The editors curate minimalism's history anew, documenting one of the most important musical movements of our time. |
