Terry Jennings was an American minimalist

Minimalist music

Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

 composer and performer.

Terry Jennings was born in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California

Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California

In 1909, Hill Avenue, now Hill Drive, was one of Eagle Rock's most beautiful streets. Other streets were Royal Drive , Acacia Street , Kenilworth Avenue , Highland Avenue , and Fairmont Avenue...

, in 1940. Coming from a background in jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, he played piano, clarinet, and saxophones. He played jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 with La Monte Young

La Monte Young

La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...

 in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, and later began to compose in the manner of Young's early sustained-tone style (Garland and Young 2001). He also studied with Robert Erickson

Robert Erickson

Robert Erickson was an American composer.He studied with Ernst Krenek from 1936-1947: "I had already studied—and abandoned—the twelve tone system before most other Americans had taken it up." He influenced notable students Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, and Paul Dresher...

 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Leonard Stein at the California Institute of the Arts

California Institute of the Arts

The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...

. He was active as both composer and performer in New York starting in 1960, where he worked with the James Waring Dance Company

James Waring

James Waring was a dancer, choreographer, costume designer and theatrical director based in New York City in the 1940s through the 1970s. He was a prolific choreographer as well as a dedicated teacher who selflessly helped his students and proteges to advance their careers, while maintaining a...

 and with La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music

Theatre of Eternal Music

The Theatre of Eternal Music, sometimes later known as The Dream Syndicate, was a mid 1960s musical group formed by La Monte Young, that focused on experimental drone music. It featured the performances of La Monte Young, John Cale, Angus MacLise, Terry Jennings, Marian Zazeela, Tony Conrad, Billy...

. Two of his compositions from 1960, Piano Piece and String Quartet were published in An Anthology of Chance Operations (edited by Young in 1963). This publication led to the performance of both pieces in England by Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...

 and others (Garland and Young 2001). His early works are quiet, simple, and restrained, much like some of the early work of Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...

, but generally more tonal. One of his early pieces, Piano, is included in manuscript in the book Notations (1969) by John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

. He strongly influenced American composers Harold Budd

Harold Budd

Harold Budd is an American ambient/avant-garde composer and poet. Born in Los Angeles, he was raised in the Mojave Desert, and was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires....

 and Peter Garland

Peter Garland

Peter Garland is a composer best known for publishing Soundings Press, one of the few sources of new music scores and articles while in print...

, as well as British composer Howard Skempton

Howard Skempton

Howard Skempton is a British composer and accordionist. Since the late 1960s, when he helped organize the Scratch Orchestra, he has been associated with the English school of experimental music...

. In the 1970s, he turned to a neo-romantic style (Garland and Young 2001). Jennings died in San Pablo, California

San Pablo, California

San Pablo is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city of Richmond surrounds nearly the whole city. The population was 29,139 at the 2010 census. The current Mayor is Paul V. Morris, and the current Vice Mayor is Cecilia Valdez. Current Councilmembers include Arturo M....

in 1981.