Photos from UCLA Performing Arts
Terry Riley, seen here on his piano, will descend from his ranch in the Sierra Nevadas to bring a musically harmonious performance to Schoenberg Hall this weekend. Riley's All-Stars mix jazz, minimalism and some North Indian music to create an original set of tunes.

Going down the musical evolutionary ladder from today's raves to early electronica, it eventually all comes back to Terry Riley, the composer who started the minimalist revolution in 1964. Unlike some musicians who may scorn the new generation, Riley embraces his connection to the current drug-fueled rave scene.

"Certain aspects of it are universal, which is why they've remained," said Riley, comparing raves to his all-night concerts 40 years ago. "I don't think life is about mellowing out. I think you gotta burn."

Riley and the All-Stars will be performing tomorrow night in Schoenberg Hall, coinciding appropriately with 4/20. With Riley on piano leading a guitarist, an electric violist and a saxophonist, the concerts feature something that is normally unheard of in classical music, though it is the bread and butter of jazz: improvisation. This freedom allows an intermingling of jazz, minimalism and even North Indian music, which Riley studied for a number of years in India.

These days Riley spends most of his time on his Sierra Nevada ranch, composing music for various projects (currently he's working on a commission, or musical invitation, from NASA), practicing his piano and singing, and generally being out of the public eye.

"I am a bit lost up here," Riley said from his home. "It isn't so conducive to world public relations, but I find that there's just enough for me to do to make my living in music."

Certainly, it seems as though Riley has settled down compared with his earlier days in New York City and San Francisco. The 1964 work "In C," Riley's seminal piece that revolutionized music, was a big hit on CBS Records and opened Riley up to fame. While studying at Berkeley, Riley met La Monte Young, a minimalist precursor whose most famous work consists of two notes held for a really long time. Young later introduced Riley to his Indian guru, Pandit Pran Nath, prompting him to take extended trips to India.

Terry Riley (left) and George Brooks are happy to be coming to UCLA this Saturday, and not just because of 4/20. Riley's music deeply influenced the development of the current rave scene.

"I spent a lot of time in India. I'm very fond of the Sufi philosophy, which is celebrating through music the mystery of the universe. It's a wonderful way to use music and poetry to discover God or Goddess," Riley said.

While in Berkeley, Riley also exchanged ideas with minimalist Steve Reich and Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, and later in Oakland, with David Harrington, founder of the Kronos Quartet. Characteristic of his Berkeley era were all-night concerts, a precursor to raves that made drug use a staple and were attended by people like John Cale of Velvet Underground.

"Marijuana has always been associated with music and inspiration. It's a very musical drug. When you experience music under psychedelics, you see another aspect to it. I'm not advocating everybody to go do that, but the people that have done that, it's a consensus that there is something else in the music deeper that you can hear in this state. Minimalism was born out of this," Riley said.

While early on he spent a lot of time doing tape loops of recorded sounds with primitive technology, today he leaves that to the technophiles and concentrates more on live performance, where improvisation is a central tool. For example, while Riley's All Stars, his touring band, may have notation paper in front of them, it will usually only be a general outline of the structure, not a note-by-note score.

Though improvisation was once a building block of western classical music (Mozart and Bach commonly had to improvise on the keyboard), Riley has picked up spontaneous creation from jazz and Indian music. Unlike performing through-written works, improvisation requires a different set of skills.

"More than anything, improvisation is the ability to listen with 95 percent of your energy and play with five percent," said Gyan, Riley's son, who plays guitar with the All Stars. "(My father) is a band leader. Sometimes he'll just take it out and we'll just have to hope we follow on a whim like that."

It wasn't until four years ago that Gyan, a wannabe punk rocker in his youth, was invited by his father to play in rehearsals. Without coercion, Gyan shifted into the classical tradition and has since performed some of his own pieces in concerts with his father.

"It's a good way to bring us together in a way that is a pretty unique thing," Gyan said.

Coming into prominence during the tumultuous '60s, Riley, who dislikes religious dogma, draws from his sense of non-denominational spirituality. As a pacifist, Riley envisions a world of harmony just as his group plays with musical harmony.

"I'm deeply stirred by what's going on in the climate of the country," said Riley about the current war in Afghanistan. "I think it's a bad move to get people angry and violent and bloodthirsty. My musical reaction is to try to harmonize things. Rather than go out and look for enemies in my music, I'd rather try to harmonize the atmosphere through music."

Far from fading from the music scene, Riley resists stagnation with a constant stream of work. His new commission for NASA, featuring the Kronos Quartet and sounds of radio waves from space, will begin rehearsals in June and his current international tour goes on until the end of May. While everyone else is still catching on to Riley's revolutionary style, he's already moved on.

"I don't like to build a school around what I'm doing," Riley said. "I'm not interested in 'isms' at all. I'm more interested in trying to be in the moment as much as possible and seeing what needs to be expressed at the time, what's forcing its way to the surface."