Still Life with Commentator

The Still Life with Commentator CD is out now. Downbeat Magazine gives it FOUR STARS!

From the Savoy press release:
//The songs of Still Life with Commentator consider our addiction to the opiate of personal testimony: live newscasts, blogs, reality TV. Addressing our participatory role as eager spectators, Ladd"s lyrics decode our post-9/11 culture of surveillance and spin, forming an ironic counterpoint to Iyer"s cycling rhythms and poignant harmonies.

Ladd says of his lyrics, "My intention was not to condemn the media or vilify it, but to try and better understand something so massive and all-encompassing by treating it as an environmental phenomenon, much like the weather -- i.e. sunny in one place and absolutely tempestuous and devastating in another. I hope that Still Life functions as a type of respiratory device for this new atmosphere."//

• "As grandiose in scope as "In What Language?"... At times beautiful or bewildering, but entirely bewitching, it offers nuanced insights with each listen." --John Murph, Downbeat
• "elegiac and sardonic... a swirl of ominous textures and hypnotic rhythms... it draws you in." -- Nate Chinen, The New York Times
• "...these Iyer-Ladd creations are unfailingly imaginative and significant... Still Life is awash in "post-human" beatmaking but often pulses with lyricism... By refusing categorization in an overly rigid jazz field, these musicians further jazz"s purpose by ingraining its sensibility among different publics -- one important way for the music to operate in the 21st century." -- David Adler, JazzTimes
• "Once again keyboardist Vijay Iyer and vocalist Mike Ladd have collaborated brilliantly... The meaning of every segment of this work is transported with a musical richness that is absolutely perfect... Iyer has outdone himself in this extraordinary exposition. His versatility extends within the piece from playing the piano to sculpting highly ornamental yet structurally strong, formalized and rhythmic programming and sequencing. From the heartbeat-like pulse that introduces the dramatically edgy vocalization by Ladd to the dense diversified layering that expands and contracts throughout to the very last hint of explosive sound that closes the recording, this music transcends what any other contemporary classical composer could do... it is free and flexible and blends inextricably with the moments.
  Ladd�s poetry pierces with raw pungency. He lets very little escape attention or examination. That is the beauty, intelligence and attraction of his poetry. The poetry intertwines disparate references and correlates them within numerous metaphors. When combined with the music, the poetry unites with a tempo that renders it unforgettable and haunting... Iyer has taken Ladd�s poetry into his being and transformed starkly political and razor-sharp criticism into a stunning reflection of our jagged cultural disconnections. Ladd and Iyer have humanized our world and remind us to believe in and practice what we know instinctually to be good." - Lyn Horton, All About Jazz

A collaboration of composer-pianist Vijay Iyer, poet-performer Mike Ladd, and conceptual artist/theater director Ibrahim Quraishi, Still Life with Commentator is a lyrical, darkly comic transmedia oratorio examining our relationship to the media in a time of war. Also featuring experimental vocal artist Pamela Z, percussionist-vocalist Guillermo E. Brown, cellist Okkyung Lee, guitarist Liberty Ellman, and actors Palina Jonsdottir and Masa Nakanishi.

Description from the Brooklyn Academy of Music:

A bass groove, deep and reassuring, lures us in like a subterranean heartbeat, only to be buried under a sublime, electro-acoustic fog of sounds competing for our attention - it"s the perfect opening for Still Life with Commentator, a timely show about the disorienting effects of wartime media. The composer is the brilliant pianist-improviser Vijay Iyer, recently named Down Beat Rising Star Jazz Artist and Composer of the Year. Together with post-hip-hop poet Mike Ladd (�one of contemporary hip hop�s greatest innovators,� The Village Voice) and world renowned conceptual artist and director Ibrahim Quraishi, the trio delivers a trenchant and darkly comic down-tempo distillation of our romance with the digital world.

Introspective and articulate, Still Life builds upon Iyer and Ladd�s In What Language? (�simply a masterpiece,� Signal to Noise; 2004 Album of the Year, Jazzwise), fortifying it with live actors, video, and music in a way that seduces us from every sensory angle�just like the media-saturated world it seeks to elucidate. Here, the objects of our sustenance come as much from a virtual landscape as they do from a physical one: Jon Stewart is an action figure with posable limbs. Animated cable news graphics are souped-up thrill rides. And televised atrocity, pixilated and bloodless, competes with sitcoms for prime- time ratings. More of a bittersweet contemplation than a one-sided critique, Still Life takes the chatter of the information age and translates it into compelling, collaborative art.

This project has performed in staged and concert versions around the world. It had its world premiere at UNC Chapel Hill on March 24, 2006 [see photos]. Its European premiere was at the "KontraCom" Festival in the multi-arts venue Republic in Salzburg, Austria in June 2006, as part of the Mozart Year [see more photos].

Still Life with Commentator had its New York City debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music"s Next Wave Festival in December 2006 [info/tickets].

Recent and upcoming concert performances include Sons d"Hiver Festival/Paris (9 Feb "07), George Washington University (20 Apr "07), Joe"s Pub (21 April "07), and Stanford Lively Arts (16-17 Jan "08).



See an interview with Mike Ladd and Vijay Iyer about the project.

Still Life with Commentator is possible through generous support from the Rockefeller Foundation MAP Fund, American Composers Forum/Jerome Composers Commissioning Program, and UNC Chapel Hill/Carolina Performing Arts.

Staged production managed by J. Ryan Graves. Set design by Robert Pyzocha. Lighting design by Stephen Arnold. Video by Aron Deyo (live mix), Prashant Bhargava, and Sebastien Derenoncourt.


vijay iyer, mike ladd, ibrahim quraishi

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