PRESS CLIPPINGS

"From Duke Ellington and John Coltrane to Henry Threadgill and John Zorn, jazz musicians have long flirted with Eastern influences. Yet these have been largely casual encounters, prompted by a desire to widen jazz's palette, rather than systematic attempts at fusion.

The latest seekers of Afro-Asian synthesis are different. They are Asian-American jazz musicians, passionate about jazz but eager to affirm their ancestral identity. Their body of work has grown to several dozen records, and the larger culture is starting to take notice.

Asian-American jazz ranges from [Jon] Jang's interpretations of classical Chinese songs to the experimentalisms of [Fred] Ho and [Jason] Hwang to Vijay Iyer's bracingly expressionist jazz...

For Mr. Hwang, 43, and Mr. Iyer, 26, combining Asian music and jazz is an almost subliminal process... "I've lived my own version of what Indian culture means," he says. "I refuse to dress up contemporary ideas in bangles and bindis." There is nothing antiquarian about Mr. Iyer... Full of pulsating blues, Mr. Iyer's own recordings suggest an ardent student of late-60's jazz -- which, in fact, he is. But on closer examination the rhythmic cycles of the South Indian music he absorbed as a child begin to appear. Mr. Iyer, who sees "the focus on rhythmic detail and improvisation" as a bridge between jazz and South Indian music, often builds suspense around a rhythmic cadence known as a tihai. (His new recording for octet, "Architextures," introduces a young Indian-American alto saxophonist, Rudresh Mahanthappa...)

-- Adam Shatz, The New York Times

MUSIC IN THE Bay Area is happening these days like it hasn't since the East Bay's hip-hop scene exploded in the mid-'80s. It's a constantly mutating world of jazz, techno, ambient, and improvisational experimentation, fueled by the creative energy and determination of young players like pianist-bandleader-composer Vijay Iyer.

Iyer has played and recorded with a wide range of musicians: he leads the Vijay Iyer Trio, Spirit Complex, and Poisonous Prophets; and he's worked with people such as M-Base leader Steve Coleman, iconoclastic hip-hop group Midnight Voices, trombonist George Lewis, and saxophonist Francis Wong.

While the young jazz players who have flourished in SoMa clubs during recent years have received more attention, Iyer, the son of South Indian immigrants, has taken the challenge of plowing new musical ground. As part of a generation of Indian Americans now growing into adulthood, Iyer is among those beginning to explore issues of social, political, and cultural identity.

"In South Indian music, like African music, the role of personal narrative is central," he says. "The sound becomes the carrier for the identity."

Iyer delineated his musical vision in the notes to his album Memorophilia, released last fall on Asian Improv Records: "I found myself most attracted to music that lay outside of conventional teachings: Ellington, Monk, Cecil Taylor.... To my ears, these artists possess a certain 'cry.' "

In a recent interview he elaborated on the point: "To me it is what this music is finally about: radical expressions of alternative identity, challenges to mainstream aesthetics, and expression of the collective voices of an oppressed group."

Memorophilia presents this challenge with a rich, warm, and compelling collection of songs. Iyer's playing manages to be understated and explosive at the same time -- a sonic tapestry that is full of invention and surprise.

Raised in Rochester, N.Y., Iyer was trained as a classical violinist but also played the piano while growing up. He went to Yale to study math and physics, and though his affinity with jazz blossomed in New Haven, he came to UC Berkeley after graduation to pursue doctoral studies in physics.

After receiving his masters, Iyer became "kind of disillusioned with physics academia, and I saw the musical part of my life at odds with the physics part of it. I couldn't devote enough time to either to be satisfied, and music offered me much more immediate gratification."

The decision meant two things: Iyer switched to an interdisciplinary graduate program he created that combines music, musicology, computer science, and cognitive science. And it meant that he was in a position to concentrate on his music.

The results are obvious. As Iyer puts it, "Things are just rolling along. I feel like I'm growing and playing with some amazing people."

-- J. H. Tompkins, San Francisco Bay Guardian

"All the elements in my music come from life experience," says pianist Vijay Iyer, whose parents emigrated from the south of India to the U.S. in the 1960s. Sitting at a battered upright in his small Berkeley apartment, Iyer demonstrates with an unlikely example -- a spare, captivating version of Thelonious Monk's standard, "Round Midnight."

"Monk's playing and his composition is how I learned this kind of music," Iyer says when the piece is finished. "The focus on rhythm, that's how I relate to South Indian music, although how this influence shapes my music is not immediately apparent to most people."

Iyer's 1995 album Memorophilia (AsianImprov) is an impressive, sometimes stunning debut that includes work with a trio, a quintet and a quartet called the Poisonous Prophets, featuring electric guitar and bass. (Iyer recently finished the follow-up, Architextures, but is still looking for a label.) And though he regularly performs with a diverse cast of musicians -- from saxophonist Steve Coleman to the hip-hop group Midnight Voices -- Iyer's playing is always marked by an acute sensitivity to his environment and a style that is understated but powerful.

On "Peripatetics," one of Memorophilia's strongest original compositions, raw, dissonant clusters give way to swinging bursts of notes up and down the keyboard before the piece settles into thick, angular chords. Despite near-constant changes in style, tempo and key, "Peripatetics" -- like all Iyer's work -- contains a deeply personal quality that he says links him to the tradition of jazz.

"In South Asian music, like African music, the role of personal narrative in music is important," he says. "The improviser has a sound, which is more than just the timbre -- it's the whole approach to making music. I'm working in this music which is basically an African-American form, but it's one that's very accomodating. It lets you be yourself."

-- J. H. Tompkins, Option

• "His rhythmic imagination is fresh and exciting... He is an audacious and original player who has not only absorbed the African-American jazz tradition but has put his own personal stamp on it in ways rare for a 24-year-old."

  -- Teed Rockwell, India Currents

• "... (T)he powerful album ... reveal(s) Iyer's adventurous jazz concepts, eclectic sources of inspiration, and creative approaches to rhythm and space."

  -- Derk Richardson, East Bay Express, Berkeley

• "... Pianist Iyer has brought both his south Indian cultural sensibility and his angular, occasionally funk-driven M-Base propensity to the Bay Area's Asian-American jazz scene, and his superb debut CD displays multiple facets of his eclectic jazz personality. The core group ... is Iyer's trio (but) the personnel changes ... give Iyer different contexts for his intelligent compositions and thoughtful piano work."

  -- Derk Richardson, San Francisco Guardian

• "Iyer's auspicious debut album ... of his original compositions is vibrant with an Ellingtonian elegance. The music is thoughtfully conceived and gorgeously executed, its engaging melodicism and harmonic sophistication belying the composer's youth."

  -- Sam Prestianni, The Montclarion, Oakland

• "... mature and fluent ... Iyer shows off a prodigious technique and an acute improvisational ear on nine diverse selections... a genuine talent."

  -- Caspar Melville, On the One

• "... Iyer courageously combines the influences of jazz mavericks like Coltrane, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Cecil Taylor, as well as the classical Carnatic music of his Indian heritage... Iyer's compositions weave these traditions together in fascinating rhythmic development and harmonic progression. Iyer's compositions vary in mood and instrumental texture from the restless 'March and Epilogue' to the contemplative solo piano piece 'Algebra,' in which he takes a journey from the expanses of jazz to the inner musings of his mind."

  -- Lumi Rolley, A. Magazine

• "Piano marvel... Throughout the recording, Iyer's fiery playing remains constant, a forceful though melodic style that owes as much to Randy Weston as it does to the rhythms of tabla master Zakir Hussain."

  -- Matt Galloway, NOW Magazine, Toronto

• "Judging by the company he keeps, pianist Iyer is heading for a substantial career... Iyer reminds me of several other younger pianists (Armen Donelian, Brad Meldhau, Renee Rosnees) who have absorbed a considerable variety of harmonic languages, from the obvious Monk and Ellington to Herbie Nichols, Elmo Hope and Andrew Hill... and can easily call up any of them. In Iyer's case, he augments this with a keen interest in the classical music of South India (Iyer is of Indian descent)."

  -- John Baxter, Option magazine

• "This is an impressive debut... There is little flash in his playing. It's all substance. It's most noticeable in the trio pieces "Stars Over Mars" and "Memorophilia" where he simply wades into the rhythm section with both hands, digging for the expressive core of the music. A member of a generation of pianists that often opts for style over substance, Iyer refers instead to the lineage of probing pianists, like Elmo Hope and Andrew Hill, who keep jabbing at the keyboard until they find something that wasn't there before. The approach is essentially contrapuntal, sometimes even in the way it plays ideas against expectations.

  "Iyer is blessed by the quality of his guests. Steve Coleman joins the trio on two pieces and provides concentrated, analytical focus. The band that Iyer calls Spirit Complex -- with Lewis, Wong, and Kavee -- is present for just two remarkable tracks, but on them it establishes a powerful ensemble identity, with an orchestral power coming from the trombone and tenor. Wong almost blows the house down on 'March and Epilogue,' and the closing 'Segment for Sentiment #2' is serene and profound."

  -- Stuart Broomer, Cadence magazine

• "This jazz recording is, without a doubt, one of the most outstanding examples of original contemporary jazz I can remember hearing in a long, long while. Vijay Iyer is a brilliant young pianist who, with his compliment of outstanding musical companions, serves up a delightful smorgasbord of jazz colors, harmonies, textures, and rhythms that make you think you're in a surreal dream of jazz fantasy and excitement. I make that statement boldly, without reservation... The music is not your typical straight-ahead jazz jam session. It is a work of art with orchestral balance and dignity."

  -- Rob Fisch, Jazz Friends Review

• "The title 'Memorophilia' -- coined by young jazz artist Vijay Iyer's father -- perfectly describes the remembering of African and Asian histories and the love for both cultures. Iyer, in the true tradition of jazz, has a critical socio-political outlook which underpins his musical being. At age 25, the self-taught musician has accumulated a vast talent; his influences include such avant-garde jazz kings as Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Steve Coleman, George Lewis, and local heroes Kash Killion and Francis Wong. In his relatively short Bay Area stint, Iyer has carved himself a position that radiates a musical expertise and a deep commitment to progressive ideals.

  "Having recovered from studying physics at Yale, Iyer has gone on to a Ph.D. program in music technology at the University of California, Berkeley. His integrity and iconoclascism can be off-putting to the mainstream who are used to easy-listening and non-thinking music. Indeed, his compositions have a high aesthetic IQ that demands a discerning ear paying close attention. This CD is not for background listening; it is instead an education in harmony and melody. There are off-the-wall pieces that can sound cacaphonous to the casual listener, as well as gorgeous, elaborate piano solos.

  "...His live shows at Yoshi's in Oakland have been mesmerizing in their impeccable improvisations with his trio. The sonic sophistication makes him a rare architect of sound that as yet is still considered too fringe for the status quo.

  "Jazz performers are historically strongly individualistic and serve as voices for the down-trodden. Iyer is forging a new language that incorporates his South-Indian roots and a deep respect for African culture. These experiments in artistic truth forge a palette of the soul: a much-needed panacea for the social ills of scientific-rational thinking that have come to overtake contemporary society.

  "Iyer has cultivated a new freedom for his spirit in musical canvasses. His world is serious yet charming, real yet illusory, imaginative yet practical. Finally, I venerate Vijay as a true artiste whose positivistic and healing nature make him a modern shaman."

  -- Sanxe Loveji, Infusion (a webzine for the global, mobile, cyber South Asian)

Pianist Vijay Iyer, the son of immigrants from southern India, takes his heritage quite seriously; that he has managed to honor it while creating vital and thought-provoking jazz suggests that we should take him seriously in turn. In his liner notes for his debut album, Memorophilia (Asian Improv Records), Iyer stresses two themes: his affinity, as a person of color, to the African-American musical tradition, and the impact of karnatak classical music of southern India -- specifically its complex yet soulful rhythms. You hear the latter perhaps most clearly on "Algebra," a solo piano track from Iyer's album, but it informs a great deal of his music, finding a common ground with the propulsive Africanized rhythms that Art Blakey and John Coltrane brought to jazz in the 50s and 60s. [The 25-year-old] already shows maturity with respect to technique, a fair amount of restraint as an improviser, and a willingness to dig more deeply than many musicians of his experience. These things -- along with his ability to convincingly lead on jams that range from the catchily accessible to the fiercely atonal -- make his album a delightfully strong document. Iyer attracted some impressive hired guns to play on Memorophilia, including trombonist George Lewis and alto saxist Steve Coleman, both former Chicagoans...

• "I'd heard Vijay with his trio a few times locally... and loved it. He's got a dark, thoughtful, quirky sound. Sounds to me like 1/3 Monk, 1/3 McCoy, 1/3 all new. I picked up 'Memorophilia' at the CD release party here... Great stuff... The biggest surprise to me was the non-trio tracks. There's good stuff from Steve Coleman, George Lewis, Kash Killion and more, in a few interesting settings... The liner notes are almost as good as the music... [He] has a great deal of respect and admiration for an impressive number of influences... Buy. Listen. Read. Repeat."

  -- Charles Lawrence, posting to rec.music.bluenote

• "Allow me to say that Vijay's album is IMO excellent -- fine playing, and compositions that are rather more than just blowing heads. All the Andrew Hill fans here might especially want to try it on, as Vijay is one of comparatively few pianists I've heard with a strong & honest Hill influence... The disc also offers a rare glimpse of new trombone by George Lewis in an open-jazz framework... Vijay is a talented cat who deserves wide availability, and has done a lot for the SF/Berkeley new music scene."

  -- P. Murphy, also on rec.music.bluenote

• "Many of you have already heard 'Off the Top' which is on the rmb compilation and the other track with Coleman works just as well. The trio tracks are generally quiet and introspective and the [Poisonous Prophets] track is also excellent with some nice guitar work from Liberty Ellman. But, for me, the prize tracks are the quintet tracks which are delightfully intricate and packed with emotion. ... Very recommended."

  -- Walt Davis, also on rec.music.bluenote

• "Vijay Iyer is a hip, young, bay area pianist. His style is exciting, invigorating and fresh... You can hear many influences in his music such as Geri Allen or McCoy Tyner ... but Vijay's no copycat; he sucks in his influences and spreads them into his own sound."

  -- Cathy Austin, "Nubian Roots," KZSU Stanford

• "The Oakland Museum's James Moore Theater was only about two-thirds full for last Saturday night's doubleheader of pianist Vijay Iyer with bassist Kevin Mingus and pianist Horace Tapscott with saxophonist Michael Session, but the 120 people on hand were treated to two superb examples of exploratory improvisation... 25-year-old Indian-American Iyer, attired in a brilliant white tunic and sandals, and 20-year-old Los-Angeles-born Mingus, equally but differently natty in a suit and two-tone shoes, began from a place of quiet reflection -- spare, angular notes and chords on the piano, long bowed tones from the bass -- and took each other on a sixty-minute journey through snapping funk, stormy post-bebop, romantic Gershwin-like rhapsodies, and sharp-edged blues... [They] achieved occasional mind-melding moments that eclipsed their obvious technical facility. Iyer, prominent on the local scene with his [bands] and his excellent Memorophilia CD, is a strikingly cerebral player who scatters fascinating, question-raising references -- Herbie Hancock? McCoy Tyner? Ran Blake? -- into his multifaceted approach. Mingus... has already developed an impressive mastery of the instrument."

  --Derk Richardson, East Bay Express

• " Another young player from the West Coast, Vijay Iyer, set the stage on fire with his melodic finger work, drawing strong similarities with the loose and free piano playing of Cecil Taylor and the complexities of Thelonious Monk, combined with Indian influences."

  -- K. McCall & D. Sora, Nichibei Journal

• " Skilled musicians in their own right, pianist Iyer and alto saxophonist [Rudresh] Manhanthappa also represented two of the South Asian American community's brightest talents. The pairing of the two, Iyer from San Francisco, Manhanthappa from Chicago, seemed almost natural as the two played harmoniously on rich ballads and scintillating free bop sessions."

  -- O. Wang, Asian Week

• "In the 1970s, the music of Iyer's Poisonous Prophets ... might have been called fusion. But during its set before eighty to one hundred people at Yoshi's, the band transcended jazz-rock by seamlessly integrating a wide array of influences, from Herbie Hancock to George Clinton, from acoustic and electric Miles to the stop-and-go time signatures of Steve Coleman's M-Base collective. With Bilmes and Kavee laying down funky grooves, Iyer swerving from judiciously-placed chords to cleanly-articulated runs, and Ellman injecting mostly linear solos and counterpoints, the group had no difficulty balancing dynamics or juggling styles. Nothing ever sounded forced or out of whack, even [the] trickiest time shifts, and the pieces, mostly newly composed by Iyer and Bilmes strung together in three long segments, appealed to both the body and the mind. The interplay was jazz-rooted, and Iyer is one of the most fascinating jazz pianists around...

  "But Iyer was onto something closer to the heart of the 'new jazz thing' when he explained that he came up with the name Poisonous Prophets because of the 'hallucinogenic' quality of the band's sound. These musicians are using all the musical resources at their command to distort time and space to alter consciousness, and allow new possibilities to manifest themselves with all the surprise and wonder demanded of jazz."

  -- Derk Richardson, East Bay Express