I knew who Philip Glass was, I had sat through Koyaanisqatsi. I have only so much tolerance for repetition, but I have been impressed at times by Glass, like by his commentary on Erik Satie in this documentary.
Recently I discovered this piece from an album Glass made with the band Uakti called Aguas da Amazonia. The piece is "Japura River." Of course it's repetitive - come on, it's Philip Glass - but it is
a. relatively shortb. has lots of cool instrumentsc. great percussion
It's quite popular so there are several versions of the song available on YouTube, including an all guitar version and an all-glass and wine bottles version - I guess a word play on the name Philip Glass?
But I got around to reading Glass' biography finally and I love the fact that he was a plumber, moving guy and taxi driver while he was also a working composer:
In order to pay rent, composers frequently take up secondary jobs. Borodin was a licensed chemist, Ives worked in the insurance industry, and the pioneer of minimalist music Philip Glass supported himself by working as a plumber, furniture mover and taxi driver. “I was careful,” the composer explained, “to take a job that couldn’t have any possible meaning for me.” Even after Glass achieved fame and notoriety with his opera Einstein on the Beach in 1976, he still continued to ply his blue-collar trades. Called upon to install a dishwasher, “I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish.”
and
Glass first performed his music in the concert hall in 1974, and slowly his career blossomed. Yet he kept driving his cab even after the breakout premiere of Einstein at the Beach. Gradually, more and more commissions trickled in, and slowly Glass realized that the taxi driver’s license he had renewed as a precaution might not be needed. Glass understood that he had finally arrived as a composer when a woman tapped on the side of his cab and told him “you have the same name as a very famous composer.”
When will we have a movie about the young Philip Glass, called Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Taxi Driver?