Jazz Articles about Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer: Panoptic Modes

by Jim Santella
March 1, 2002

What a combination. Vijay Iyer's music contains the adventurousness and dramatic tension that you'd expect from avant-garde jazz; as well as a light, rhythmic swing, for those of us who live in the mainstream. His third album is accessible to one and all. They're his originals, and they're interpreted by a stellar quartet. By limiting the ensemble to four members, Iyer ensures that each voice can be understood by the listener. Traditional Indian scales, changing meters, and romantic elements from ...

Vijay Iyer: Panoptic Modes

by Joel Roberts
December 1, 2001

Although Vijay Iyer has a Ph.D. in music and cognitive science, his dazzling new CD, Panoptic Modes , shows the New York-based pianist more focused on spiritual concerns than purely intellectual ones.

Melding Vedic chant and South Indian rhythms with the more obvious influences of Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell, Iyer creates a unique and vibrant sound, but one that's highly accessible and solidly within the progressive end of the jazz spectrum. The most direct comparison that comes to mind ...

Vijay Iyer: Architextures

by Robert Spencer
April 1, 1998

Vijay Iyer is “one of the most fascinating jazz pianists around," says Berkeley's East Bay Express, and I couldn't have said it better myself. It is getting ever more difficult to hear someone with something really new to say, but Architextures should establish Vijay Iyer as a pianist to be reckoned with. He credits Duke, Monk and Cecil Taylor as influences, but there are other, more arcane echoes, especially in the solo “Prelude" and “Postlude: Prayer" - notably Olivier Messiaen, ...