Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn: The Transitory Poems

7

Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn: The Transitory Poems

By

View read count
Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn: The Transitory Poems
Perhaps curiously or perhaps purposely for these two inspired alumni of Roscoe Mitchell's Note Factory, The Transitory Poems enters existence with the anticipatory, lets-get-acquainted improvisation "Life Line (Seven Tensions)," before each pianist's creative wanderlust and imagination takes hold and the music becomes a ranging, raging real-time white-hot collaborative statement.

Recorded live at the Franz List Academy of Music in Budapest in March 2018, the first collaborative release from Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn finds two of jazz's most adventurous thinkers not only revisiting their shared history but displaying to each other and their captivated audience how far each has traveled since. Both have become restless originators, Iyer's music absorbing break beats, hip hop, the economics of film-scoring as well as his inventive, multi-lingual use of world musics. Taborn, with his focused polyrhythmics, tech savvy, and melodic intuitiveness, moves from serene to unsettled in a moment's breath.

Both players attest to hearing The Transitory Poems as a series of homages to the masters who have influenced them and indeed, when the album hits its majestic stride, spirits do swirl and there's no going back. Cecil Taylor especially hovers over-all. "Kairos," the third of eight Iyer-Taborn improvised compositions is the launch point. Beginning with a tentative whisper as Taylor was want to do, the track moves to a forceful cascade of fluid and percussive runs, building to an expectant crescendo, only to disappear into the decidedly disturbed quiet of "S.H.A.R.D.S." In tribute to Muhal Richard Abrams, innovative co-founder of Chicago's legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the duo instantaneously concocts the ravishingly concussive "Clear Monolith" and we're left wondering how. How do some brains work that fast and conclusively?

"Luminous Brew" continues the Taylor tribute, its rumbling, visceral foreboding giving way to a jagged, though beautiful solace. After a free flurry of frenzied improvisation, the late Geri Allen's singature "When Kabuya Dances" brings "Meshwork/Libation/When Kabuya Dances," and The Transitory Poems to a peaceful close. The music, like a passing breeze, fading to applause.

Track Listing

Life Line (seven tensions); Sensorium; Kairos; S.H.A.R.D.S.; Shakedown; Clear Monolith; Luminous Brew; Meshwork_Libation (When Kabuka Dances).

Personnel

Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn
band / ensemble / orchestra

Vijay Iyer: piano; Craig Taborn: piano.

Album information

Title: The Transitory Poems | Year Released: 2019 | Record Label: ECM Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.