Vijay Iyer Trio: Historicity

As Iyer and his publicists frequently remind us, before becoming a full-time musician Iyer studied mathematics and physics at Yale and UC Berkeley. The guy has smarts; can we please move on now? For if he isn't careful, Iyer is going to match reed player Anthony Braxton's bone-dry academic posturing and in doing so set himself apart from the sizable audience his music could reach.

That's Iyer's call, of course, though it isn't one his new record company, ACT, is likely to encourage. Since the unexpected, early death of Esbjorn Svensson, the German label has, presumably, been looking around for a piano trio to replace Svensson's E.S.T., and in Iyer's group with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore it may have found it. Like Svensson's, Iyer's music is sonically powerful, is performed with gospel-like intensity, is aware of other styles of modern music, and is almost always propelled by simple motor rhythms, even when using fairly complex time signatures. His music rocks, just like Svensson's did. (Or as Iyer has put it elsewhere: "it's all about letting rational structures become intuitive.")

The highlights of the hugely enjoyable and thoroughly accessible Historicity are probably the covers, though Viyer's throbbing title tune, the album's opener, is a contender. Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere," which follows, is pulled and stretched by Iyer's percussive combination of triple and quadruple time over Crump's solid, four in the bar, walking bass. A great tune given an irresistible recalibration. Next up is hip hop artist M.I.A.'s "Galang," with the appropriate subtitle "Trio Riot Version," which truly inhabits the original and cranks the handle further.

Other covers are Andrew Hill's "Smoke Stack," Stevie Wonder's "Big Brother," Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Brew," and—highlight among highlights—Julius Hemphill's "Dogon A.D.," which, if its composer had in mind the mysterious music and masks tradition of the West African Dogon people, hits the spot precisely.

A galvanizing album. No further explanation necessary. Please.