Dickie Landry's Fifteen Saxophones

[clifford_thornton]

Please excuse the shameless self promotion:

I'm very proud to have been involved in writing the liner notes and nudging the label toward reissuing this gem of American avant-garde music. It's not "jazz" or "free jazz" per se - Dickie Landry was part of the Phillip Glass Ensemble in the 1970s - but I've long been fond of his work and it really is unique in the realm of music that straddles the line between structured/didactic composition and open improvisation.

Buy Dickie Landry's Fifteen Saxophones from Unseen Worlds Records here. It's available on CD and high-quality LP, both of which look very nice!

[JSngry]

Why fifteen?

[clifford_thornton]

Tape delay.

[JSngry]

Damn post office.

[clifford_thornton]

Yuk yuk.

[JSngry]

No, seriously, is it one guy working with loops or 15 saxophonists? If it's the latter, I'm wondering what the instrumentation is, whether he's going from highest to lowest, focusing in on one range, or just what.. In other words, why 15?

[clifford_thornton]

Oh - no, "Fifteen Saxophones" uses a tape delay to the effect that the original saxophone sound is delayed four times. That in turn is overdubbed twice. So 4+1 saxophone sounds (5), three times = 15 saxophones. The other pieces use delay as well but to a lesser degree. Wild stuff.

[JSngry]

Thanks for the elaboration.

So, he's looping live, recording that, and then...overdubbing the original loops back onto themselves? In sync or out?

[clifford_thornton]

Out of sync. The recordings date from 1974 so there's a distinctly raw, low-tech vibe to it.

[mikeweil]

It was released on LP on the German WERGO label - one of Meredith Monk's early albums was in the same series. I will have a look tomorrow whether I still have it ...