Vijay Iyer Quartet

at the Kennedy Center "KC Jazz Club," 2/23/2006


Pianist / Composer / Genius Vijay Iyer came to town with his quartet, which included: Rudresh Mahanthappa (alto sax), Stephan Crump (bass), and Marcus Gilmore (drums).

Yow. It was quite a performance. Olympics O'schmipics... the real skillz were on display right here at home. This was a group of virtuoso players / improvisers. Iyer's music is pretty damn complicated: intricate layers of polyrhythms, thorny twisting melodic lines, and surprising harmonic changes -- but woven together with real purpose and meaning. This wasn't simply a show of cerebral-dexterity-pyrotechnics, this was some heady music that also had great depth.

I'd love to write something that explains the rhythmic complexity in simple terms, but honestly, I couldn't do the math... lots of odd meters and cool juxtapositions, but that was just the basis for further exploration, not an end in itself. These players have all been in the orbit of Steve Coleman, and his M-Base collective. I think the rhythmic vocabulary, especially, is heavily influenced by that work.

Most of the set was devoted to a suite of pieces called "Tragicomedy" (he explained the title as a reference to Cornel West's use of the term to describe our current situation in the world). It was powerful and effective stuff - very well played. I don't know how these guys could solo over all of these tricky rhythmic patterns. The through-composed form also caused some confusion in the audience - people who wanted to applaud after every solo were somewhat stymied by the unconventional forms. It wasn't always clear when one solo had ended, or even started for that matter... It wasn't always obvious what was composed and what was being improvised.

Anyway, there's been a lot written about Vijay, and particularly about this group, since their album, "Reimagining" was on so many top-ten lists of last year (JazzTimes, ArtForum, Village Voice, and many more) - so I don't have to duplicate anything... I guess all I have to say is: damn. That was something. I'm dizzy.

Chris Porter wrote a review in the Post. Also up on his blog.