Jazz Articles about Vijay Iyer

About Vijay Iyer

Album Review

From the time of his debut as a leader nearly twenty years ago on Architextures (Asian Improv Records, 1996), pianist and composer Vijay Iyer has been a great experimenter. The Albany, New York native successfully utilized duplicated patterns and phrasing in a variety of settings from solo piano to ensembles. Advanced as his earlier techniques were, Iyer has continued to move forward and challenge himself, incorporating and manipulating decades of learning as his career progresses. At a given time his ...

Extended Analysis

Vijay Iyer Trio: Break Stuff

by John Kelman
February 5, 2015

When it comes to jazz/improvised music, there are those who, like pianist Keith Jarrett, prefer to approach it with a blank slate, clearing their minds of everything in order to find a way to pull form from the ether. Then there are those who spend considerable time formulating their approach, and coming up with a philosophy, an aesthetic, to apply to the music they make. While he's far from the only musician to take the latter approach, few are as ...

Live Review

Vijay Iyer Trio at Brooks Center for the Performing Arts

by Mark Sullivan
January 19, 2015

Vijay Iyer Trio Brooks Center for the Peforming Arts Utsey Chamber Music Series Clemson, SC 1/15/2015 The Vijay Iyer Trio's performance at Clemson University's Brooks Center for the Perfoming Arts was the first jazz programmed as part of the long-running Utsey Chamber Music Series. As the presenter pointed out in her introduction, most jazz is technically chamber music: one player on a part. When the band took the stage Iyer greeted the crowd ...

Film Review

Vijay Iyer/Prashant Bhargava: Radhe Radhe, Rites of Holi

by Ian Patterson
December 22, 2014

Vijay Iyer/Prashant Bhargava Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi ECM 2014 Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi is a sumptuous visual and sonic collaboration between Vijay Iyer and film maker Prashant Bhargava. It was commissioned by Emil Kang, Executive Director of the Carolina Performing Arts as part of a wider series of works to celebrate the centenary of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (1913), which in its day, with its avant-garde orchestration, ballet and ...

Album Review

Vijay Iyer: Mutations

Read "Mutations" reviewed by Vincenzo Roggero

by Vincenzo Roggero
March 17, 2014

Alla fine anche Vijay Iyer si accomoda alla corte di re Manfred Eicher. E lo fa alla sua maniera, spiazzando chi lo attendeva al varco con una nuova rivisitazione del piano trio, o con l'ennesima escursione nel mondo del poetry insieme all'amico Mike Ladd, o con il recupero della via indiana al jazz insieme al collaboratore di vecchia data Rudresh Mahanthappa, o con una riconferma della sfida per eccellenza, quella del piano solo. Invece Iyer si circonda ...

Album Review

Vijay Iyer / Mike ladd: Holding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project

Read "Holding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project" reviewed by AAJ Staff

by AAJ Staff
March 17, 2014

Devo confessare che--pur nel rispetto delle opinione di tutti e ben consapevole che il percorso artistico di Vijay Iyer possa anche non piacere--ho trovato estremamente ingenerosi, talvolta ai limiti della stupidità, molti commenti negativi e invidiosi che si sono susseguiti nei social networks all'indomani della vittoria del pianista della prestigiosa [e soprattutto pecuniariamente corposa] MacArthur Grant. Se c'è infatti un musicista che in questi anni ha dimostrato di avere una statura culturale degna di un importante riconoscimento, ...

Extended Analysis

Vijay Iyer: Mutations

by John Kelman
March 10, 2014

There are times when it's possible to chart an artist's success through his association with record labels. Vijay Iyer--who, over the past 20 years, has built a reputation for genre-defying, forward-reaching music--spent the early part of his career on independent US labels including the highly regarded Pi Recordings, Savoy Jazz and Sunnyside Records. But it was with his move to Germany's ACT Music label and a series of trio and solo recordings, including the Grammy-nominated Historicity (2009), that the pianist ...