Jazz Articles about Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer: Reimagining

by Rex Butters
July 6, 2005

Vijay Iyer inhabits a musical universe like no other. Juxtaposing deceptively familiar jazz structures with scales and modes more intimate with Indian and classical musics, Iyer has successfully reinvented jazz syntax while remaining unmistakably a jazz artist.

He illuminates his reimaginings with a vicious virtuosity usually corroborated by the equally remarkable Rudresh Mahanthappa on saxophone. Mahanthappa's solos rocket out of nowhere to blaze across Iyer's compositions. Stephan Crump rejoins the quartet on bass, in between duties with Liberty Ellman, Jen ...

Vijay Iyer: Reimagining

by Sean Patrick Fitzell
June 14, 2005

Whorls of piano, insistent rhythm, and keening saxophone evince a sense of urgency on “Revolutions, opening pianist Vijay Iyer's Reimagining and establishing its tone. For several years, Iyer has gained critical notice for his technique and its application in a variety of settings. His personalized sound draws from contemporary styles, traditional world music, and jazz and is delivered with an emphasis that reminds listeners the piano is a percussion instrument. Reimagining is the first of a multi-CD ...

Vijay Iyer: Part 2-2

by Paul Olson
June 2, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 New York pianist/composer Vijay Iyer may be the musician of 2005. With his remarkable quartet and their fine new CD Reimagining, his collaborative, experimental trio Fieldwork (whose new CD Simulated Progress should turn some heads when it's released in July), his past and future collaborations with spoken-word/experimental hip-hop artist Mike Ladd, and his other ongoing projects, Iyer is undeniably active. He's also very, very good. I spoke with Iyer in Chicago a ...

Vijay Iyer, Part 1-2

by Paul Olson
June 2, 2005

Part 1 | Part 2 New York pianist/composer Vijay Iyer may be the musician of 2005. With his remarkable quartet and their fine new CD Reimagining, his collaborative, experimental trio Fieldwork (whose new CD Simulated Progress should turn some heads when it's released in July), his past and future collaborations with spoken-word/experimental hip-hop artist Mike Ladd, and his other ongoing projects, Iyer is undeniably active. He's also very, very good. I spoke with Iyer in Chicago a ...

Vijay Iyer: Reimagining

by Paul Olson
May 16, 2005

New York pianist/composer Vijay Iyer continues his string of remarkable recordings with his Savoy debut, Reimagining, his first release with his quartet since 2003's Blood Sutra. I hesitate to call this new CD his most mature statement to date, since Iyer sounded pretty fully-formed--and hardly callow--on his 1995 debut, Memorophilia. But I'll say it anyway: Reimagining might not reach the searing highs of Blood Sutra, but it substitutes an organic, austere consistency of vision and accomplishment that's simply stunning.

The ...

Vijay Iyer: Blood Sutra

by Kurt Gottschalk
November 16, 2003

Pianist Vijay Iyer isn't afraid of big ideas. He premiered a song cycle about urban life and ethnicity and “lives in transit" at the Asia Society in May (documented on the Pi Recordings release In What Language, also released this month), and is the 2003 recipient of the CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts in the field of music. He was also nominated for Up and Coming Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association, and was listed as ...

Vijay Iyer: Blood Sutra

by Dan McClenaghan
November 11, 2003

You get the feeling that piansist Vijay Iyer is shifting into a period of transition with the opening track on his new CD, Blood Sutra. “Proximity (Crossroads)" is – uncharacteristicaly for Iyer – a slow tempo bit of introspection, with a swish of brush and stickwork painting washes behind the hard-edged piano notes. But the “Brute Facts" jolts out of the speakers next, in a full frontal assault, in very Iyer-esque fashion. Propulsive, urgent, jarring even, riding a relentless rhythmic ...