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HOUR :: Insurgent artistry

Pianist Vijay Iyer's trio album with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore, Historicity, was at the top of virtually every jazz critic's top 10 list for 2009. It's a spiky, combative album from an Indo-American musician who is perhaps not as widely known as he should be, including covers of artists such as Julius Hemphill, Andrew Hill, Stevie Wonder and M.I.A., artists who he says have a kind of "insurgent quality" that spoke to him in a meaningful way. Full Article

NPR MUSIC :: Vijay Iyer's Upcoming Solo Album

We're happy to pass along news that pianist Vijay Iyer will be releasing his first solo recording later this summer. Solo comes out Aug. 31, 2010 on ACT Music.

Like on his trio record Historicity, a consensus pick among many jazz critics for 2009's best album, Iyer takes on both covers and his own compositions. Out of 11 songs, five are originals; here's also music here from Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and Steve Coleman. "Darn That Dream" made the cut, and a song associated with Michael Jackson starts the record. Listen to Track

The Caravan :: His personal world of sound

VIJAY IYER LIKES TO THROW listeners a little off balance. The ingredients on Iyer’s latest album, Historicity (2009), are basic—a piano, bass and drums—but the music refuses to settle into familiar grooves. Melodies from famous songs are entirely transformed; bursts of percussive sound come from unexpected parts of the piano; the bassist creates eerie slow slides on the strings; and the beats never quite fall where you think they will. Full Article

deutsche well :: New York trio picks up Germany's first Echo Award for jazz

The German Echo Awards, like the Grammys, are among the world's most prestigious music prizes. On May 5, the first-ever Echo for jazz is awarded to the Vijay Iyer Trio from New York.Full Article

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Vijay Iyer: Hybrid Sensibility

To the surprise of most of us who are highly suspicious of such labels, Vijay Iyer's years of being anointed "the next big thing" in jazz have actually led to him becoming a "big thing." His latest album Historicity topped many year-end best-of lists, and his various projects are garnering increasing amounts of attention. It certainly doesn't hurt that Iyer is a gifted communicator whose writings on his own music as well as the music of luminaries such as Andrew Hill and Thelonious Monk have appeared in many publications. Full Article

Blog Talk Radio

SAJA & SAMMA present a conversation with Indian-American jazz musician Vijay Iyer. His Vijay Iyer Trio's "Historicity" album was the most honored jazz album of the year.

Open The Magazine :: The Wizard of Jazz

When Indian American jazz musician Vijay Iyer was growing up in California, he was often dazzled by the percussion of Indian musicians who came to perform there. The rhythm seemed to him “flurries of activity that were ordered and yet so mysterious”. Iyer involuntarily gravitated towards this mystery and, over the years, taught himself to play the piano, seeking to fathom the depths of that elusive sound. Then, in 1991, he heard jazz composer Julius Hemphill play in New Haven, Connecticut. That, says Iyer, changed the way he felt about music and life. Full Article

Chicago Reader :: The Blog

Pianist Vijay Iyer has been turning out ambitious, daring records and giving bracing live performances for years now, but on Historicity everything came together. Though it includes a handful of his brooding, tangled originals, most of the record consists of reshaped covers, both from jazz heavies like Andrew Hill and Julius Hemphill and from pop stars like M.I.A. and Stevie Wonder. Full Article

Philly.com :: New Recordings

This CD by pianist Vijay Iyer made many top 10 lists for 2009, and it's easy to understand why.

Born of Indian parents who immigrated here in the 1960s, Iyer was a physics Ph.D. student at U.C. Berkeley for a time before discovering that he had surprising things to say in jazz. Full Article

The Village Voice :: Pazz + Jop

Highest ranking jazz release on the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll. Full Article

Italian Radio 3

Italian Radio 3 feature aired on 7 January 2010 WEBSITE

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Hindustan Times :: The Jazz Player

“No record defined the jazz landscape in 2009 quite like Historicity,” the Los Angeles Times wrote recently as the newspaper selected it as the year’s best jazz album.

The album is the latest from the Vijay Iyer Trio led by 38-year-old New York-based Indian-American pianist Vijay Iyer. Full Article

Metro Times :: Best of 2009

1) Vijay Iyer Trio, Historicity (ACT): One of the most exciting pianists of the last decade (and with one of his well-honed outfits) is an energized avant populist, deconstructing West Side Story's "Somewhere," paying homage to Andrew Hill, slamming through MIA's "Galang," and translating Julius Hemphill's "Dogon AD." Full Article

metro Times :: Music: Aught not

20. Vijay Iyer Trio, Historicity (ACT): An energized avant-populist, deconstructing West Side Story's "Somewhere," paying homage to Andrew Hill, slamming through MIA's "Galang," and translating Julius Hemphill's "Dogon AD." Full List

The Village Voice :: Vijay Iyer Tops the Fourth Annual Village Voice Jazz Poll

The last ballot has been cut-and-pasted, and I couldn't be happier with the results of the fourth annual Village Voice Jazz Critics' Poll. Oh, sure I could—but with a record 99 critics voting, what would Nate Silver have said the odds were of my top four actually finishing No. 1 through 4 for Album of the Year?
Full Article

Wall Street Journal :: Jazz Musician Vijay Iyer on “Historicity”

When Vijay Iyer enrolled in a PhD program in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, he had no idea that he was about to sign on for a career as a jazz musician instead.

Having taught himself piano and played in a jazz orchestra by the time he was in college, Iyer moved to the Bay Area wanting to get involved with jazz as an extracurricular activity. But with a push in the right direction from some helpful mentors, Iyer gave up the PhD in 1995 set out to start a recording career. His latest album, “Historicity,” was recently released.
Full Article

Chicago Tribune :: Most Significant Cultural Works

This decade's singular moment in culture could just as easily have been a YouTube video as it might have been a book, a film, an album or an opera. Such judgment calls are a matter of perspective, for one thing, and certainly it's too soon to tell what ultimately will rate as the artistic triumph of the '00s.
Full Article

The Village Voice :: 2009 Voice Jazz Critics' Poll: The Results

Jazz Album of the Year
1. Vijay Iyer Trio, Historicity (ACT)
Full List

All About Jazz :: Into the Mainstream

New York-based pianist and composer Vijay Iyer is a rhythmic explorer whose piano trio album Historicity (ACT, 2009) is a cohesive and vibrant record that carries its creator and his colleagues firmly into the mainstream of modern music.
Full Article

Los Angeles Times :: Best of 2009 - Jazz / Chris Barton

Like the rest of the recording industry, jazz clearly has its issues going into 2010. But rumors of its death remain greatly exaggerated. In the last 12 months, a variety of performers released remarkable, forward-looking music that in some cases showed little regard for barriers between genre or culture. A sampling of the year's best, ranked from 1 to 10. Full Article

The Boston Globe :: Steve Greenlee's top jazz albums for 2009

The most buzzed-about pianist in jazz has finally released his first trio session (after several albums in other configurations), and it sparkles with ingenuity. What fun he has with M.I.A.’s “Galang.’’ Full Article

Chicago Tribune :: Top 10 innovative jazz releases of 2009

1 Vijay Iyer Trio: "Historicity" (ACT Music). Pianist Iyer has been bringing new ideas to jazz for years, and not only by invoking musical elements of his Indian heritage. In "Historicity," Iyer produces work that's daring in its approach to harmony and rhythm yet surprisingly accessible to mainstream audiences. Moreover, practically everything he plays unfolds on an epic scale, the pianist apparently incapable of producing inconsequential gestures. Joined by bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore, Iyer presides over music-making that defies conventional approaches to the piano in both solo and ensemble settings. Full Article

PopMatters :: The Best of 2009

Everything in the culture these days is political, right? Partisanism is the new black.

Jazz, at its heart, resists polarization. The premise of the blues, after all, is the creation of joy from adversity, and surely no music has ever reconciled as many contradictions as jazz. Full Article

Ottawa Citizen :: Fascinating Rhythms

The most fascinating jazz-related newspaper article that I've read in quite some time is this one from the Guardian last week, by the U.S. pianist Vijay Iyer. In it, Iyer explains the influence of mathematics and much more on his music.

It follows then that the most fascinating jazz CD that I've heard in quite some time is also from Iyer. It's his new trio disc, Historicity, about which the jazz interweb's been buzzing for some weeks now. (I set hands on my review copy only last weekend.) Full Article

RVA News :: Favorite Albums of 2009

Vijay Iyer Trio’s Historicity took an interesting approach to the jazz standard of reproducing the American Song Book or contemporary pop songs. “Each cover,” Iyer writes in the CD’s liner notes, “becomes a conversation between the original work and something else entirely; the best word for it is ‘versioning.’” Full Article

City Sound Inertia :: Top 20 of 09

14. Vijay Iyer Trio – Historicity (ACT) See Full List

Seymour & Nahikian :: Top 10 of 09

The combination of incantatory aggression and mordant insistence that made up jazz’s cutting edge in the 1960s persists most conspicuously in the work of such young tyros as this pianist, whose trio (bassist Stephen Crump, drummer Marcus Gilmore) is a storm-making machine of fearsome beauty. With the Bernstein-Sondheim classic, “Somewhere” from “West Side Story”, Iyer and company ramp up the inquisitive resentment simmering beneath its plaintive yearning while the ironies embedded in Stevie Wonder’s “Big Brother” resound harder and deeper even without the benefit of a lyric sheet. Full Article

NPR :: The Year Of Living Improvisationally

How can such a well-worn format (piano, bass and drums) sound like a sudden shakedown? For starters, Vijay Iyer's trio includes a promising young innovator dispersing prismatic rhythms, a bassist who thrives on intensity and a leader who cuts into songs with an incisor before removing their flesh. Full Article

Citizen Jazz :: Historicity

Rares sont les disques de jazz à avoir, ces dernières années, provoqué une effervescence comparable à celle qui a entouré la sortie d’Historicity, premier disque du trio du pianiste américain d’origine indienne Vijay Iyer, du bassiste Stephan Crump et du jeune batteur Marcus Gilmore. Full Article

Citizen Jazz :: Vijay Iyer

Eh bien, c’est fait ! Voilà Vijay Iyer installé au firmament du jazz. Les monstres sacrés de la critique l’adoubent, tel Ben Ratliff, du New York Times, qui nous presse d’accueillir le nouveau grand trio du jazz. Plusieurs de ses douze albums en leader ou co-leader figurent dans la sélection annuelle des principaux magazines américains. S’affichant en solo sur la couverture de la revue anglaise Jazzwise, de Jazzthetik, Jazz Podium, Concerto, et en trio avec Matthew Shipp et Jason Moran sur celle du magazine culte Downbeat, qui l’a par deux fois élu « Etoile montante de l’année », comme compositeur et comme artiste de jazz, il accumule les honneurs avec une régularité confondante. Full Article

All About Jazz :: CD Giveaway Contest

All About Jazz members are invited to enter the ACT Music “Vijay Iyer - Historicity“ giveaway contest starting today. We'll select FIVE winners at the conclusion of the contest on December 23rd.
Click here to enter the contest

JAZZHOUSE DIARIES :: TOP 25 OF 2009

1. David S. Ware, Shakti (Aum Fidelity)
2. Miguel Zenón, Esta Plena (Marsalis Music)
3. Gerald Clayton, Two-Shade (ArtistShare)
4. Vijay Iyer Trio, Historicity (ACT)

Full Article

NPR :: BEST OF 2009

Looking back on 2009, much of the focus naturally falls on younger musicians. Maybe they're just fresh in our minds because A Blog Supreme spent so much time addressing ways to get twentysomethings into modern jazz via the Jazz Now series. But folks like Vijay Iyer seemed ubiquitous, and with good reason: He made a standards record that didn't try to claim new jazz standards. Full Article

Groove News :: cd review

On his most recent recording, Historicity, pianist Vijay Iyer takes a look back in a very refreshing manner. On a program highlighted by covers from a range of genres including standards, pop music and the jazz avant garde, Iyer looks at the past as a means of informing how we got to where we are today and our place in the continuum of that history. The result is an engaging portrait combining seemingly incongruent sources into a singularly original presentation. Full Article

eyeweekly :: holiday cd review

Vijay Iyer is one of the few jazzers who not only breathes new life into the genre, but who cranks the defibrillators to 11 and gets jazz’s pulse racing like it was 50 years younger. The New York–based doctoral physicist/pianist is probably one of the most harmonically inventive and virtuosic musicians around. He’s also exquisitely tasteful and entirely listenable, to which his newest trio effort, Historicity, is another stunning testament. Full Article

Jazz Review :: Historicity

Pianist Vijay Iyer relates Historicity to “the simple fact of being placed in the stream of history,” here, on this 2009 trio date. Holding advanced degrees in physics and technology, the artist imparts an acute ideological perspective to serve as the underscore for these bustling and largely, energetic performances. A major talent within global jazz settings, Iyer’s divergent stylizations and superior technique spirals his stature to the upper echelon of jazz heroes, all embedded with his nouveau vision and spirited gait. Full Article

Strength in Numbers

Playing music sharpens the brain. It's proven. I'm a musician, but I've also spent a number of years studying mathematics and physics. That is unlikely to have made me a better musician or composer, but playing music from an early age has, quite possibly, made me better at maths. Today, I like to let both disciplines talk to each other, and use mathematical ideas in my composing. They help me find sounds and rhythms that I might never have made otherwise. I want to make music that hits me viscerally, but in surprising, unobvious ways. Full Article

freep.com :: 'Historicity' draws from eclectic sources

A lot of ideas that have been floating around jazz for the past decade find a compelling distillation here. Rhythmically the music deals in odd meters and dense textures anchored in souped-up funk, hip-hop and idioms from Africa, India and Latin America. Individual voices pursue aggressively independent paths. Prickly improvisations eschew standard forms without abandoning discipline or historical references. Full Article

THE Boston Globe :: Vijay Iyer Trio, 'Historicity'

Pianist Vijay Iyer has reached the point where aficionados spar over favorite works: the raw, scorching duets with saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa? The abstract, avant-garde Fieldwork project with Steve Lehman and Tyshawn Sorey? The large-group, multimedia pieces with spoken poet Mike Ladd? As the buzz about him grows, Iyer now offers a classic piano trio album - his first - and it’s a perfect point of introduction to one of the most challenging and satisfying talents in jazz today. Full Article

Pitchfork :: Vijay Iyer Trio

The classic Bill Evans Trio, with Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums, is sometimes cited as the best jazz piano trio ever. It's not a point I'd argue-- they were otherworldly. On Portrait in Jazz it doesn't even sound like three musicians playing. The record meets your ear like a feeling meets your brain-- you can't grasp it but you know it's there. Few pieces of music made by more than one person suggest quiet and solitude as powerfully. Full Article

East Bay Press :: The Best Music of 2009

While his peers try to propel the jazz tradition into contemporary hip-hop and R&B, pianist Vijay Iyer has burdened himself with an even riskier cross-pollination. His version of jazz bleeds into just about every pop genre that exists, but still takes itself seriously as jazz. Iyer's new album Historicity careens in every direction, with a riveting cover of the M.I.A. hit "Galang" (with the piano playing all her synthetic bleeps and blips), the oft-sampled Ronnie Foster fusion track "Mystic Brew," and even a zigzag-y version of Leonard Bernstein's ballad "Somewhere." Full Article

NPR MUSIC :: Vijay Iyer Trio: Colliding With The Jazz Dialectic

November 18, 2009I'm no critic, so I'm in no position to declare anything an "Album of the Year." I would simply direct your attention to Vijay Iyer's Historicity, and let you deduce what jazz can still achieve. Full Article

New York Times :: Mowing Down Bar Lines

Vijay Iyer Trio Mr. Iyer on piano, Stephan Crump on bass and Justin Brown on drums performing at the Jazz Standard on East 27th Street.

Vijay Iyer’s trio lights up through improvised, viruslike rhythms. It’s not a situation in which the drummer’s steady swing underpins whatever the pianist is doing; that did happen sometimes at the Jazz Standard on Friday, but it wasn’t where the action was. Full Article

NPR MUSIC :: Losing Jazz's Preconceptions With 'Historicity'

In the last few years, some enterprising younger players have reinvented the piano-bass-drums jazz combo. It's not just that these trios play contemporary pop; it's also a shift in attitude. Vijay Iyer's trio doesn't worry about swinging all the time, although the buoyancy of swing inflects its rhythms as much as hip-hop does. Some great pianists treat the instrument as a whispering sylvan harp. But Iyer treats piano — or the piano trio — like a boom box: a rhythm machine. In Stevie Wonder's "Big Brother," Iyer reminds us that jazz versions of radio pop are nothing new, sneaking in a quote from Ramsey Lewis' '60s hit "The In Crowd." Full Article

Straight No Chaser :: Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer is more than a sublimely gifted pianist. He reconfigures sound, fusing physicality and mystic resonance.

Whether trading abstractions with the brilliant and brooding saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, bopping free to the ‘prosody’ of Mike Ladd or dallying with the sci-fi beats of Anti-pop Consortium’s High Priest, Iyer has one trajectory – out.

Chaser recently caught up with the man, on the eve of his appearance at the London Jazz Festival to speak about roots, politics and his latest album ‘Historicity’, a stirring collection of covers “recast in his own language”. Full Article

No Treble :: Historicity

Historicity is an exciting and unique record. The album takes jazz music forward and is destined to be one of the classic piano trio albums, and is firmly within the stream of jazz but innovative and freewheeling as all the best jazz is. Full Article

NPR MUSIC :: Vijay Iyer At Newport

Viyay Iyer Trio performs at Newport Jazz.

I reached Vijay Iyer at the airport, heading for Zagreb, with plans for the flight.

"I'm reading Robin Kelley's book on Monk," Iyer says.

That would be Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D. G. Kelley.

"It's so inspiring," Iyer says. "I've been thinking about Monk constantly. [The book] digs in deep from page one. The opening two pages, he drops this kind of bomb that's incredible. You start with that." Full Article

ALL MUSIC :: Historicity

Vijay Iyer has captured the ears of critics and listeners like only a handful of the most elite jazz pianists since McCoy Tyner, Cecil Taylor, or Misha Mengelberg initially burst onto the scene. There's no other single player who sounds even remotely like him, few who can match his inventive and whimsical sense of play or seriousness, and absolutely nobody who presents the stunning, highly intelligent music he dishes out. With Historicity, he touches on many different levels of acumen, influenced by contemporary alternative rock, Motown, show tunes, pop fusion, the early creative music of the '70s, and ethnic strains. Full Article

About.com :: Historicity Review

Searching for new sounds by way of crushing dissonances and dexterous rhythmic underpinnings, pianist Vijay Iyer has become a progressive jazz luminary. On his trio album Historicity, Iyer’s music maintains its otherworldliness, but is familiar and relatable in a way it hasn’t been previously. Full Article

Los Angeles Times :: Vijay Iyer Trio's Historicity

Never let it be said that pianist Vijay Iyer is one to shy away from a challenge. And, frankly, when you've got the chops he has, why would you? Not content to simply be regarded as one of the most promising up-and-coming jazz pianists of his generation, Iyer's latest recording's mix of audacious covers and originals should mark his group as one of the top piano trios in the game. Full Article

Chicago Tribune :: Piano Original - The Inventive Vijay Iyer

Why has pianist Vijay Iyer become one of the most discussed young musicians in jazz?
Listen to his trio on his latest release, "Historicity" (ACT Music), or check out his appearance this weekend at Symphony Center, and you'll start to understand why. Full Article

PopMasters :: Historicity

Pianist Vijay Iyer is happy to stun you, to knock you into awe, to blow your mind. He brings technique, imagination, and wide perspective to his art. Historicity, the first recording wholly devoted to Iyer’s trio with bassist Stephen Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore, is a jewel. Full Article

courant :: CD Reviews - Memory and "The New Thing"

Historicity - Vijay Iyer Trio - (ACT) - In a year that has been filled with excellent recordings, few have received more press than pianist Vijay Iyer's first piano trio CD. Deservedly so - this is an impressive program, filled with sparkling interplay, visceral intensity, and songs that make one think about the creative musician's role in the arts and society. Full Article

Keyboard magazine :: Vijay Iyer CD Review

thejazzbreakfast - Disc of the day: 24-09-09

Why is it that whenever I listen to a Vijay Iyer disc, the future looks brighter? More complex than ever, sure, but filled with new possibilities, new conundrums, fresh ways of looking at what I had thought were familiar things – or rather fresh ways of hearing… Full Article

Concerto :: Vijay Iyer October - November 09

The Jazz Session #87: Vijay Iyer

Pianist Vijay Iyer navigates the stream of history on his new trio recording, Historicity (ACT, 2009). Joined by bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore, Iyer unravels and rebuilds compositions of his own, and those of a cast as diverse as Stevie Wonder, Andrew Hill, Leonard Bernstein and M.I.A. In this interview, Iyer tackles everything from mirror neurons to math jazz, Fibonacci numbers to the legacy of Roy Haynes. Full Article

Vijay Iyer - Day Three at Monterey

We’ll hear the end of the set—and the expected, beloved, thunderously applauded performance of “Take Five”—over the speakers inside the Coffee House, where we’ve gone to hear the Vijay Iyer Trio. Remember, Monterey is about choices, often hard choices. I’ve seen Brubeck often, Iyer only once, and I’ve been reading so much about Iyer’s trio and their new CD Historicity that I’m dying of curiosity. Full Articles

Guardian :: Vijay Iyer - Historicity

Indian-American Vijay Iyer was a Yale student before M-Base sax pioneer Steve Coleman hired him as a self-taught piano sideman, and a fascination with the spiritual/ emotional implications of those rigorously rational disciplines and the patterns they identify drives his work. Full Article

NEW YORK TIMES:: IT'S HIS MOMENT: LISTEN

VIJAY IYER’S piano trio sneaked up on listeners when they weren’t really paying much attention to it. It was there in some of the best parts of Mr. Iyer’s impressive recent quartet album, “Tragicomic” (Sunnyside), that don’t include the group’s saxophonist, Rudresh Mahanthappa; it surfaced in occasional gigs or commissions over the past four years for the band’s three other musicians, the pianist Mr. Iyer, the bassist Stephan Crump and the drummer Marcus Gilmore. But “Historicity,” to be released on Oct. 13 by the German label ACT, is piano-bass-drums from beginning to end, and so it’s probably the moment to say: Presto! Here is the great new jazz piano trio. Full Article

DIE ZEIT: MATHEMATISCHE ELEGANZ

Zwei Töne nur, auf dem Klavier im Bassregister gespielt – mehr braucht es nicht, um eine Bewegung zu schaffen. Vijay Iyer nimmt sie mit der rechten Hand auf, verformt sie schnell zu eckigen Floskeln aus dem Schatzkästlein des Bebop und begibt sich auf eine Reise durch die Geschichte des Jazzpianos: Historicity, Titelstück und Opener des neuen Albums des Vijay Iyer Trios. Full Article

E METRO UK - Tempo tinkling is arresting

It's not often that Italian philosopher and Marxist political theorist Antonio Gramsci gets namechecked in album liner notes. But then Vijay Iyer isn't your average musician. Full Article

Jazz Podium September 2009

Vijay is featured on the cover of the September 2009 issue of the German magazine Jazz Podium.

JazzThetik September 2009

Vijay is featured on the cover of the September 2009 issue of the German magazine JazzThetik.

JAZZ GETS A WAKE-UP CALL

The audience for jazz is shrinking and growing older fast, says Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout. His words have set off a heated debate in jazz circles. Today, Teachout joins us along with jazz pianist Vijay Iyer to discuss the future of America's great art form and ask what needs to be done. Also: guitarist Smokey Hormel joins us for a live performance. Full Article

Highlights From The 2009 Newport Jazz Festival

Like many, pianist Vijay Iyer first heard Ronnie Foster's "Mystic Brew" as a sample in A Tribe Called Quest's "Electric Relaxation." For ATCQ, Foster's playful soul-jazz melody anchors a nodding beat. At Newport (and on the upcoming Historicity), Iyer takes that beat as a bed to his own version. It's a strongly percussive take on an otherwise easygoing tune, and right around the 1:50 mark, Iyer absolutely soars. Thankfully, he repeats that ecstatic glide of keys at the song's conclusion. --LG Full Article

Vijay Iyer Trio: Newport Jazz Festival 2009

Vijay Iyer might be a genius. He has a master's degree in physics, an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Technology and the Arts from Berkeley. He's also a largely self-taught pianist — and a powerhouse player at that — and composer for string quartet, theatre, film, orchestra, spoken-word multimedia, free improvisation, ESPN commercials, etc. And as a jazz bandleader, his quartets and trios translate his post-idiomatic artistic outlook into spiky, supercharged songs. Full Article

CThreePO_ Fieldwork summons robojazz fury at the Stone

The Stone was sweltering tonight. I attended Fieldwork's late set and the heat and the music aligned to induce a very heavenly sort of delirium. Fieldwork is a band without a leader, still a rare thing in jazz. The members--saxist Steve Lehman, pianist Vijay Iyer and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, the latter of whom curates the Stone this month--are all well known for fronting various projects and generally being on forefront of contemporary-jazz bad-ass-ness. Together what they are is a machine. Full Article

Jazzwise UK - Historicity

Perhaps more than any other format in jazz the piano trio offers the greatest interactivity for rhythm, melody and harmony and some of its iconic exponents, from Garner and Powell to Monk and Jarret, have shown that magic can arise from moments when all three of the instruments appear to be one sound split into three, or possibly six or more constituent parts. Full Article

Vijay Iyer - "Eine gewisse mathematische Eleganz" jazz Dimensions (Germany)

"Historicity" heißt das neue Album des Vijay Iyer Trios und seine Beschäftigung mit den Ursprüngen der Musik, mit ihrer in die Gegenwart reichenden Vergangenheit wird bereits durch den Titel des Albums offenbar. Vijay Iyer, amerikanischer Pianist mit indischen Wurzeln, hat das, was wir auf Neudeutsch "Migrationshintergrund" nennen. Full Article

Concerto magazine (Austria) :: Vijay Iyer concerto

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Citizen Jazz :: Entretien avec Vijay Iyer

Découvert il y a quelques années aux côtés de Steve Coleman, le pianiste Indo-Américain s’est forgé une solide réputation à la tête de ses différents trios ou lors ses collaborations avec Rudresh Mahanthappa. Il a déjà à son actif plus de onze albums en tant que leader ou co-leader. Il était de passage à Bruges lors de sa récente tournée européenne avec son trio, composé de Stephan Crump et Marcus Gilmore. Full Article

Downbeat Magazine :: Blindfold Test

Vijay Iyer has obsessively explored less-traveled territory on his dozen leader albums over the past decade, which document his innovative trio, quartet and duo projects with Rudresh Mahanthappa, the experimental collective trio Fieldwork with Steve Lehman and Tyshawn Sorey, and collaborations with poets Amiri Baraka and Mike Ladd. Full Article

Once a physicist:: Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer is a jazz pianist based in New York, US, who was voted the number one rising-star jazz artist and composer in Down Beat magazine’s international critics’ poll for 2006 and 2007. Full Article

Chicago Tribune :: Visionary musician defies expectations

Today, visionary artists such as Danilo Perez, Jason Moran, Marcus Roberts and Gonzalo Rubalcaba ignore contemporary musical expectations. Instead, each creates a world of sound according to his own rules, blithely defying conventions that lesser pianists venerate. Full Article

Chicago Reader :: Vijay Iyer Trio

Pianist Vijay Iyer is one of the most intellectually restless improvising musicians in the world these days, and the rigorous compositional focus and fascinating conceptual depth in many of his projects can make it easy to overlook what a fantastic pianist he is. Full Article

Timeout Chicago :: Vijay Iyer Trio

The native New Yorker’s elegant, lyrical approach to improvisation is startling from the instant his fingers press upon the keys. Full Article

Vijay Iyer & Fieldwork

The hype surrounding jazz pianist Vijay Iyer is frighteningly reminiscent of the ocean of ink that greeted the arrival of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the “young lions” back in the ‘80s. But Iyer delivers the goods. The son of Indian immigrants and a holder of two doctoral degrees, he’s a largely self-taught musician who apprenticed under creative leaders like Steve Coleman and Roscoe Mitchell. Full Article

Vijay Iyer’s Mehndi Trio enchants Palermo

Intention, tension, extension. These three words may represent the show of Vijay Iyer’s Mehndi trio and its music too. Full Article

Word of Mouth :: Jazz Pianist Vijay Iyer

At 37 years old, Vijay Iyer is one of the new stars of jazz. Downbeat Magazine’s International Critics’ Poll named him the number one rising star jazz artist and composer in 2006 and 2007, and The Village Voice described him as "the most commanding pianist and composer to emerge in recent years." Listen to MP3

metro times :: Talking about his music

"I'm interested in what happens when the traditions collide, I love to be at that juncture," pianist Vijay Iyer said the other day, in a conversation that ranged from his doctoral research to a new tune that draws on the work of the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Full Article

Vijay Iyer: Intellect Meets Creativity

Pianist Vijay Iyer's latest release, Tragicomic, has seen the tops of numerous Best of 2008 lists. The album features his trio (with Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums) and quartet (add Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto saxophone) and is a spectacle of brilliant compositions paired with masterful playing on both individual and collective levels. Full Article

Piano Man, Ph.D.

Does music matter? Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, in his popular book “How the Mind Works,” wrote that “music is auditory cheesecake,” a biologically inessential “pleasure technology” that developed as a serendipitous byproduct of behavioral evolution. Full Article

Pi Recordings :: Vijay Iyer

!t has been my distinct honor to interview the boundlessly innovative pianist/composer Vijay Iyer for the Pi Recordings Blog over the past week. Mr. Iyer’s most recent recordings, Tragicomic (Sunnyside Records) and Door (from the collaborative trio Fieldwork, Pi Recordings), are racking up rave reviews and positions on best-of 2008 lists as we near the end of the year. Full Article

Vijay Iyer :: Best of 2008

2008
2007
2006 & before