Di tutto quello che di suo si può riascoltare tramite Bandcamp, e forse in assoluto, l'album prediletto da Richard 'Dickie' Landry è lo storico 15 Saxophones (Wergo, 1977). Ma certamente meritano attenzione - e ammirazione - anche altri tre lavori pubblicati come titolare negli anni Settanta, ora nuovamente disponibili (anche in vinile) grazie a Unseen Worlds: Solos, Four Cuts Placed in “A First Quarter” e Having Been Built on Sand.
Landry’s music occupies a peculiar, non-idiomatic zone all its own. He grew up on a farm outside Lafayette, Louisiana, in the 1950s and ’60s, playing saxophone from the age of 10 and diving headfirst into the jazz and zydeco that surrounded him. Early on, the multi-reedist saw the strange and thrilling results of cross-cultural exchange, and he carried that spirit with him to New York, where he shepherded many other Louisianans into the thriving avant-garde art and music communities of Lower Manhattan. Throughout the early-to-mid ’70s, as he became a key member of the Philip Glass Ensemble, Landry staked out his own corner at the intersection of free jazz and minimalism, developing a unique style of improvisation that unites the former’s fire-breathing revolutionary spirit and the latter’s dizzying swirl.
A new trio of reissues from Unseen Worlds - Solos, Four Cuts Placed in “A First Quarter” and Having Been Built on Sand - documents the evolution of his style. Each album sprang from Landry’s connections across the avant-garde, but even when the music was recorded in a gallery setting, nothing about it is tidy or inert. Like fellow Glass Ensemble member Joan La Barbara, Landry harnesses the technicality and endurance that Glass’ music requires and puts it to work in far more esoteric - at times anarchic - contexts. As the ’70s progressed, Landry’s music became increasingly fixated on tonality and rhythm, but these three albums present a musician determined to confront and confound, even when he embraces repetition and melody.