SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL VOICE -- Riley’s early history of learning music by ear end improvising continued during his formal composition studies at San Francisco State and were part of the aesthetic of minimalist works like In C and his improvisations at the KPFA studios in Berkeley, with other composer-improvisers like Pauline Oliveros, in the long ’60s.
Perhaps less well-known are the influences of jazz and Hindustani classical artists on Riley. He has imbibed the work of Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Bill Evans, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, John Coltrane and Wally Rose, and was a devoted student of Prandit Pran Nath. George Brooks, also a student of Nath and a longtime musical partner with Riley, has been influential in the Bay Area blues scene as well.