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Jazz Articles about Fieldwork

225
Live Review

Fieldwork: Philadelphia, March 12, 2011

Read "Fieldwork: Philadelphia, March 12, 2011" reviewed by Dylan McGuire


Fieldwork Christ Church Neighborhood House TheatrePhiladelphia, PAMarch 12, 2011 To describe the music of avant-garde jazz trio Fieldwork--featuring polymath/pianist Vijay Iyer, drummer Tyshawn Sorey and saxophonist Steve Lehman--as complex may be an understatement as broad as the group's dedication to exploring the far reaches of harmony, ensemble dynamics, and the physical capabilities of their traditional acoustic instruments. Fieldwork's ability to take a single, stark musical passage and build it and twist and transform it until ...

156
Album Review

Fieldwork: Door

Read "Door" reviewed by Lyn Horton


The selection of which avenue to follow in music is the whole ball game to sustain the integrity of a particular venture. On Fieldwork's Door, the measure of the music's success has to do with the recognition that it centers within a specific tonal range. The alto sax, played by Steve Lehman, establishes that range. There are no extremes reached here. Mixes of pointillistic textures abound; the flow of any melody is broken up by the rockiness beneath the sonic ...

302
Album Review

Fieldwork: Door

Read "Door" reviewed by Troy Collins


In the three years since their sophomore recording, Simulated Progress (Pi Recordings, 2005), the collective trio Fieldwork has expanded its scope beyond sophisticated M-Base funk to delve into more expansive territory on Door. Comprised of pianist Vijay Iyer, saxophonist Steve Lehman and drummer Tyshaw Sorey, Fieldwork operates as a true cooperative, offering a model of balanced collective improvisation and advanced compositional strategies that eschews ego for the sake of the group dynamic.

Iyer is one of the most ...

134
Album Review

Fieldwork: Simulated Progress

Read "Simulated Progress" reviewed by Sean Patrick Fitzell


The melodic hooks are not obvious. The harmonies are not lush or comforting. And the rhythms won't be easy to tap along with. But Fieldwork's Simulated Progress is not a free-form blast of notes from three soloists playing near each other. Instead it is a result of careful listening to bring disparate elements together, with room for improvisation within focused forms that are not instantly apparent. Elliptical lines from the saxophone, out-of-phase piano, and skittering grooves are woven in elaborate ...

386
Album Review

Fieldwork: Simulated Progress

Read "Simulated Progress" reviewed by Budd Kopman


Has anyone out there ever been totally flattened by a record from the first notes? It happens that Pi Recordings was present at a Rudresh Mahanthappa show last week, and I was able to pick up a copy of Fieldworks' Simulated Progress, which I listened to on the way home. “Flattened" is definitely the word, and I felt chagrined that I could not get to the group's show (with a new drummer, Tyshawn Sorey) the next night. ...

319
Album Review

Fieldwork: Simulated Progress

Read "Simulated Progress" reviewed by Paul Olson


It's hard to write about the collaborative trio Fieldwork. On their sophomore CD, Simulated Progress, pianist Vijay Iyer, altoist Steve Lehman, and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee play a dazzling, intrepid sort of new jazz that's as deeply interactive as anything you're likely to hear this year. This is Lehman's first CD with the band (he takes the place of tenor player Aaron Stewart) and Kavee's last (his chair having been filled since this recording by Tyshawn Sorey), so Simulated Progress ...

270
Album Review

Fieldwork: Your Life Flashes

Read "Your Life Flashes" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


The first four releases from Pi Recordings feature brilliant but underappreciated veteran jazz giants: Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, and Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet. But the label also looks to jazz's future with Your Life Flashes by Fieldwork, a collective trio of inspired and vibrant young jazz men.The group's leader (unofficial, perhaps, but he wrote ten of the twelve tunes) is pianist Vijay Iyer, who sounds like a man possessed here. He's from the percussive school of piano. ...


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