In What Language? (2004)

2004 ALBUM OF THE YEAR in JAZZWISE (UK)

A triumph of a genre that doesn"t yet exist. The 80-minute ""song cycle" of human lives caught up in globalization"s swirl is a model of what makes good art connect: It is aggressively ambitious yet unfailingly accessible and deeply empathetic. - S. Mitter, Boston Globe

A song cycle of powerful narrative invention and ravishing trance-jazz, In What Language? is about nothing less than the death of trust. In the post-9/11 world, we are all suspects: probed, interrogated, x-rayed, doubted... Poet Mike Ladd vividly echoes that outrage and desperation in the raps and spoken-word reveries here, seventeen pointed fictions and candid reflections on exile, quarantine, suspicion and skin, performed by a moving corps of voices. Pianist-composer Vijay Iyer amplifies that tangle of anger, pain, and motion with a spinning-wheel score for jazz-rock septet: roiling outbreaks of fusion, lusty sighs of brass, jolts of electro hip-hop. There is a beautiful resilience here, too - in Iyer"s cleansing cascades of piano and Ladd"s declaration near the end of the album: "I swallow whole every complexity and digest all the answers / And no answers will emerge, only music, food and family in the air." In What Language? is a compelling, provocative record about a world grown smaller, meaner and more fearful. It is also an eloquent tribute to the stubborn, regenerative powers of the human spirit. - David Fricke, Rolling Stone

With a seven-piece band playing odd-meter funk, lulling ambient chords, blots of rhythm under Indian-accented raps, it"s that elusive thing, underground political music that sounds good. And though its points of origin are far from the mainstream of either hip-hop or jazz, let"s count it as a breakthrough hip-hop-jazz fusion. Because if we do, it"s one of the smartest I"ve heard, and one of the few that really works. - Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

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HEAR THE FEATURE ON NPR"S ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

Improvisational in nature and hybrid to the core, "In What Language?" is a 21st-century song cycle combining music by pianist-composer Vijay Iyer with spoken text by poet/hip-hop artist Mike Ladd. The piece depicts the interior monologues of various travelers and laborers of color confronting the hyper-globalized setting of an international airport. The work is scored for seven musicians and four speaking voices, is directed by Rachel Dickstein, and features lighting design and video projections by Clifton Taylor.

See the Asia Society PRESS RELEASE for last spring"s premiere of this multimedia performance.

Commissioned by the Asia Society with a grant from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and also a sponsored project of Creative Capital, this evening-length work premiered May 8-11, 2003 at The Asia Society in New York City. It was remounted at The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art"s First Annual Festival of Time-Based Art in September 2003. An excerpt of the production was presented at The Kitchen as a showcase for APAP on January 12, 2004, under the rubric "Burning issues: Contemporary Opera and Multimedia." In October 2004 the work was performed for a 3-night run at Roy & Edna Disney CalArts Theater in Los Angeles, followed by a performance in the San Francisco Jazz Festival at Herbst Theater.

The album version of In What Language? is available now from Pi Recordings and is distributed worldwide. On January 20, 2004, the ensemble gave a CD release performance at Joe"s Pub to a sold-out crowd.

See the press release for the album or the album liner notes.

The project has received rave reviews both as a performance and as a recording:

• NPR"s All Things Considered
• Rolling Stone
• The Village Voice
• The New York Times
• JazzTimes
• The Oregonian
• Down Beat Magazine (4 1/2 stars out of 5)
• Billboard
• feature on the Public Radio International syndicated show Studio 360

VIJAY IYER is a pianist and composer based in New York City. The son of Indian immigrants, Vijay draws from African, Asian, and European musical lineages to create music beyond category. His critically acclaimed compact discs include Memorophilia (Asian Improv), Architextures (Asian Improv/Red Giant), Panoptic Modes (Red Giant), Your Life Flashes (with the collaborative trio Fieldwork, on Pi Recordings), and Blood Sutra (Artists House), as well as In What Language? with Mike Ladd (Pi Recordings). Iyer performs frequently in the New York area, and tours internationally with his various ensembles and collaborations. He has also been a featured performer with artists such as Roscoe Mitchell, Steve Coleman, Amiri Baraka, Imani Uzuri, Butch Morris, Miya Masaoka, Will Power, and Greg Tate"s Burnt Sugar. For his own projects, Iyer has received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Arts International, Creative Capital, and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. He also lectures and publishes on various topics, including improvisation, cognitive science, and jazz studies. Iyer is recipient of the 2003 Alpert Award in the Arts.

Boston-born MICHAEL C. LADD received his BA in Black expatriates in the Nineteenth century from Hampshire college and an MA in poetry from Boston University. He has published in several literary magazines including "Long Shot Review" and Bostonia. His work is also featured in the book Swing Low, Black Men Writing and the anthologies, Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and In Defense of Mumia. Michael is the writer and producer of the pioneering albums Easy Listening For Armageddon (Scratchie/Mercury), Live From Paris (Home Style Cooking), Welcome to the Afterfuture (LikeMadd/Ozone), The Infesticons: Gun Hill Road (Big Da Da), and Majesticons: Beauty Party (Big Da Da), as well as In What Language? with Vijay Iyer (Pi Recordings). As a Fellow at the Institute for Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University, Mr. Ladd produced and directed "Blood Black and Blue," an audio documentary/performance about Black police officers in the United States. His forthcoming projects include Nostalgialator (!K7), Negrophilia: The Album (Thirsty Ear), and a dub album under the collective alias Father Divine (Roir). Michael currently lives in Paris and the Bronx.

Management/booking for In What Language?: Steve Cohen, Music and Art Management

Label: Pi Recordings

Promo photos: Pi Recordings - click on "downloads" Promo video MP3s from the album:
The Density of the 19th Century
The Color of My Circumference II

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