Like all drummers, Steve Reich sometimes feels the urge to tap out a beat on a table-top. But Reich is also a composer — many believe him to be the greatest composer alive — with a vast mental library of songs that he may, at some point during a conversation, suddenly start to sing, hum or vocalise in some way.
During our lunch, he hums a line or two of “Frère Jacques”. He sings a lyric from a pop song that his mother wrote in the 1950s. He chants a bit of a 12th-century choral work. At one point he tries to imitate the sound of a French horn imitating the sound of an elephant. At another, he re-creates the bass line from Junior Walker’s soul classic “Shotgun”. He sings because it is the most direct way to explain a musical concept — but also simply because the music is such a deep part of him.
“You just listen to the music, and you love it,” he says. “It goes somewhere inside of you, and it bubbles up unbidden. It has influenced you on an organic level.”