"Einstein on the Beach, it's a masterpiece. America, in 1976, was to be celebrating its 200th year of existence, and Michel Guy, the French Minister of Culture, came to New York to offer a commission to Philip Glass and Robert Wilson to write an opera. This was the gift that France would give for America's two-hundredth anniversary. That was the first time I met Robert Wilson."
"My son had died, and I had taken to two years to recover. So I went to New York. I had dinner with Laurie Anderson, and as I was getting up to leave, she said, 'What are you doing in New York?' I said, "I'm looking for work' She said, 'What are you doing next week?' I said, 'Well, I'm supposed to be in Atlanta, Georgia doing a music film with David Byrne and Talking Heads. Well, what do you have?' She said, 'I'm doing a piece next week at Brooklyn Academy of Music with Trisha Brown and Robert Rauschenberg, Set and Reset. Why don't you come? Bring your sax, we'll work it out then.' Two weeks after that concert, Laurie's manager called and said, 'Do you want to go on a 20-city tour of America with Laurie? Home of the Brave?' Of course, we did that. That was the beginning of the reconstruction of my career in New York through Laurie Anderson."
For nearly half a century, Richard “Dickie” Landry was at the center of the New York avant-garde. Born in the small Louisiana town of Cecilia in 1938, he began making pilgrimages to the city while still in his teens in search of the city’s most cutting edge gestures in jazz, and relaxed there not long after, falling in with a close knit community of artists and composers like Keith Sonnier, Philip Glass, Joan Jonas, Gordon Matt Clarke, Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg, Nancy Graves, Lawrence Weiner, Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, and Robert Wilson.
Landry remains one of the few artists of his generation who made important waves within numerous creative idioms. Having been trained from a young age on saxophone, not only is he a remarkably respected solo performer and bandleader, but he was an early and long-standing member of Philip Glass’ ensemble, playing on seminal records like Music With Changing Parts, Music in Similar Motion / Music in Fifths, Music in Twelve Parts, North Star, and Einstein on the Beach, and played with Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, and jazz giants like Johnny Hammond, Gene Ammons, and Les McCann. He was also one of the most important photographic documenters of the New York Scene, until he left the city for his native Louisiana, following 9/11.
https://unseenworlds.com/collections/dickie-landry
Music on this episode courtesy of Dickie Landry:
E-mu & Alto Saxophone composed by D.L. for Robert Wilson's production of "1433 The Grand Voyage" based on the story of Zheng He. Premier National Theater Taipei, Taiwan 2009
Philip Glass’"Einstein on the Beach”. Original recording on Tomato Records 1977. D.L. on flute
“Home of the Brave” on the Late Show with Laurie Anderson
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