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Review
The huge success of Vijay Iyer’s 2009 album Historicity shot the US pianist into the front rank of global jazz stars – and it’s likely his schedule got just a little bit busier, too. This latest album addresses the sense of life – his, ours, everyone’s – speeding up, becoming more hectic, more densely packed with incident and information. In the title-track, manic acceleration based around a puttering electronic beat clearly signals 21st century modern madness, of the universe rushing headlong towards maximum novelty. And on Actions Speak, his galloping Steve Reich-ian figures evoke the zooming headlights and crowded streets of the cult 1982 movie, Koyaanisqatsi.
But rather than dystopian warning, Accelerando is ultimately a statement of compassion and wide-eyed wonder. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Iyer’s take on the Michael Jackson hit Human Nature, which he previously tackled on his album Solo in 2010. Here, stretched out in a trio format, the tune becomes a love note to humanity, with Iyer’s huge, expansive arpeggios singing out a big-hearted joy of existence. Much of that warmth stems from the fact that it’s such a well-known melody, and Iyer clearly has a penchant for interpreting other people’s tunes. So, Mmmhmm re-imagines Flying Lotus’ sci-fi electronica as swiftly skipping piano ruminations, while the trio ramps up the intensity on Heatwave’s The Star of a Story, transforming it from sultry soul croon to a trancey jam with some of the off-centre propulsion of Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime. In fact, throughout the whole album, the rhythm team of bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore have an uncanny knack for unpicking rhythmic structures and reassembling them as oddly counter-intuitive and limping riffs that somehow still manage to maintain a satisfying sense of swing.
Still, for all the trio’s evident joy at sharing these adventures, there’s no denying this is Iyer’s date. His original compositions show a puckish intellect at work – from the light-footed vamp of Optimism to the dark funk of Lude – and his solos soar with a roaring confidence, authority and agility: in the space of one chorus he’s capable of throwing together hints of Latin, melodramatic flourishes and the kind of single-line linear logic Herbie Hancock perfected when he was working for Miles Davis.
This album is a gift from Vijay Iyer. We should be grateful.
--Daniel Spicer
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Review
Pianist Iyer's trio is a very different one to Brad Mehldau's, but this successor to 2009's Historicity still invites some comparisons in its strong rhythmic drive, ensemble strength and sense of jazz history balanced by an openminded contemporaneity. As with Historicity, Iyer mixes originals with angles on known and lesser-known jazz composers (Ellington, Herbie Nichols, Henry Threadgill). He also re-examines a personal favourite (the Michael Jackson song Human Nature), and vividly recasts Henry Threadgill's brass-and-guitars piece Little Pocket-Sized Demons for piano trio, using Stephan Crump's agile arco bass to suggest the original's tubas. Iyer's low piano rumble on Heatwave's The Star of a Story is pushed and pulled by Crump's darting bassline and drummer Marcus Gilmore's snare snap, and Flying Lotus' Mmmhmm emerges in liquid chords over a heartbeat bass-drum and a bowed-bass countermelody. For the jazz-rooted, Herbie Nichols' Wildflower swings in clanking, Monkish outbursts over shuffling brushes. The world's full of fine jazz piano trios, but Iyer's is way up the A-list. FOUR STARS --The Guardian
Influential New York pianist Vijay Iyer is a sorcerer of rhythm, with formidable intellectual as well as musical chops, and there s a satisfying complexity to his music, as though the playing is just the tip of the iceberg. One senses vast amounts of information and practice lurking just beneath the surface, which imparts a particular kind of density to the group s sound. The tunes are a mix of the pianist s jagged originals and choice covers ranging from Herbie Nichols s Wildflower to Michael Jackson s Human Nature. They build in waves of riff and melody, embedded in organic rhythms that spiral upwards out of the groove. Bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore have been active partners in the development of the trio s unique palette over the past decade, and Gilmore in particular has developed a knack for complex, lop-sided rhythms that constantly shift and surprise, whilst never straying too far from the groove. Music for the head and the feet, if not always the heart. FOUR STARS --Irish Times
Influential New York pianist Vijay Iyer is a sorcerer of rhythm, with formidable intellectual as well as musical chops, and there s a satisfying complexity to his music, as though the playing is just the tip of the iceberg. One senses vast amounts of information and practice lurking just beneath the surface, which imparts a particular kind of density to the group s sound. The tunes are a mix of the pianist s jagged originals and choice covers ranging from Herbie Nichols s Wildflower to Michael Jackson s Human Nature. They build in waves of riff and melody, embedded in organic rhythms that spiral upwards out of the groove. Bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore have been active partners in the development of the trio s unique palette over the past decade, and Gilmore in particular has developed a knack for complex, lop-sided rhythms that constantly shift and surprise, whilst never straying too far from the groove. Music for the head and the feet, if not always the heart. FOUR STARS --Irish Times
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It's almost impossible not to consider "Accelerando" ( by pianist Vijay Iyer's working trio with bassist Stephen Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore a companion to 2009's excellent "Historicity".
Its obvious similarities are that it places a handful of originals alongside a host of cover versions. These come from well-known artists from the worlds of jazz, 21st century dance music, and R&B.
But there are key differences, too: for starters, this trio has been together longer; nowhere does that matter more than it does in jazz.
The intuitive interplay and collective mindset that this trio possesses are exponentially more mature than they were on "Historicity", despite its sharpness and musical acumen. The willingness to take chances is greater, as is the ability to make those risks pay off.
Take the reading of "Human Nature", a tune recorded by Michael Jackson for the iconic "Thriller". The melody is irresistible and Iyer maintains its framework while he builds on it by syncopating, extrapolating, and coloring it so that it becomes rich with complexity and textures, all the while keeping its melodic integrity. The rhythmic pulse is doubled on the snare, hi-hat, and bass drum. Crump's bass accompanies rather than propels, so his bass is where the groove lies. Heatwave's "The Star of a Story" is likewise melodically intact, but its rhythmic basics are set on a groove that finds funk in waltz time. Iyer discovers subtleties and hidden harmonic corners in his middle register that are remarkable to anyone familiar with the tune.
"Mmmhmm", by Flying Lotus and singing bassist Thundercat, is realized with bowed basslines by Crump that both accompany the melody and state it, sparse chordal suggestions by Iyer in the higher register, and a gradually increasing vamp by Gilmore (that sounds like a defective loop because of its intentional slippage), all of which enchant the listener enough to provide Iyer the opportunity to solo using knotty clusters of post-bop dissonance and lyricism.
Herbie Nichols' "Wildflower" swings hard with its lean angular line accenting his use of the piano as both a palette of tonal colors and a rhythm instrument.
Iyer's own tunes, such as the title track and "Lude". reveal an extensive, purposeful build on jazz history from Thelonious Monk (in the latter) to the future (in the former), where dynamic repetition and gradually complex harmonic multiplications result from simple beginnings.
What's most remarkable about these tunes, and the others here, are how consciously danceable they are.
The set closes with Duke Ellington's "The Village of the Virgins", from his and Alvin Ailey's jazz ballet entitled "The River". The river is obviously the Mississippi: gospel, blues, early jazz, swing, and even 1940s R&B make their voices heard in a nearly processional strut. The trio's interplay takes the structure -- originally performed by a jazz orchestra -- and boils it down to its essences, leaving space for nuance, grace, and elegance.
"Accelerando" is a triumph in creativity and expert musicianship, and further underscores Iyer's status as a genuine jazz innovator. T. Jurek
Historicity
Tirtha - Vijay Iyer
Its obvious similarities are that it places a handful of originals alongside a host of cover versions. These come from well-known artists from the worlds of jazz, 21st century dance music, and R&B.
But there are key differences, too: for starters, this trio has been together longer; nowhere does that matter more than it does in jazz.
The intuitive interplay and collective mindset that this trio possesses are exponentially more mature than they were on "Historicity", despite its sharpness and musical acumen. The willingness to take chances is greater, as is the ability to make those risks pay off.
Take the reading of "Human Nature", a tune recorded by Michael Jackson for the iconic "Thriller". The melody is irresistible and Iyer maintains its framework while he builds on it by syncopating, extrapolating, and coloring it so that it becomes rich with complexity and textures, all the while keeping its melodic integrity. The rhythmic pulse is doubled on the snare, hi-hat, and bass drum. Crump's bass accompanies rather than propels, so his bass is where the groove lies. Heatwave's "The Star of a Story" is likewise melodically intact, but its rhythmic basics are set on a groove that finds funk in waltz time. Iyer discovers subtleties and hidden harmonic corners in his middle register that are remarkable to anyone familiar with the tune.
"Mmmhmm", by Flying Lotus and singing bassist Thundercat, is realized with bowed basslines by Crump that both accompany the melody and state it, sparse chordal suggestions by Iyer in the higher register, and a gradually increasing vamp by Gilmore (that sounds like a defective loop because of its intentional slippage), all of which enchant the listener enough to provide Iyer the opportunity to solo using knotty clusters of post-bop dissonance and lyricism.
Herbie Nichols' "Wildflower" swings hard with its lean angular line accenting his use of the piano as both a palette of tonal colors and a rhythm instrument.
Iyer's own tunes, such as the title track and "Lude". reveal an extensive, purposeful build on jazz history from Thelonious Monk (in the latter) to the future (in the former), where dynamic repetition and gradually complex harmonic multiplications result from simple beginnings.
What's most remarkable about these tunes, and the others here, are how consciously danceable they are.
The set closes with Duke Ellington's "The Village of the Virgins", from his and Alvin Ailey's jazz ballet entitled "The River". The river is obviously the Mississippi: gospel, blues, early jazz, swing, and even 1940s R&B make their voices heard in a nearly processional strut. The trio's interplay takes the structure -- originally performed by a jazz orchestra -- and boils it down to its essences, leaving space for nuance, grace, and elegance.
"Accelerando" is a triumph in creativity and expert musicianship, and further underscores Iyer's status as a genuine jazz innovator. T. Jurek
Historicity
Tirtha - Vijay Iyer
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
His Best So Far
20 Mar 2012
Amazon Verified Purchase
Here we have the newest offering from one of jazz music's most creative & original piano trios the Vijay Iyer Trio. Last year their previous trio album Historicity was on many best of lists. The trio features the talents of Marcus Gilmore on drums, one of the most in demand drummers on the modern jazz scene. Gilmore slices & dices the beat with mathematical prowess but above all makes the music groove. Stephen Crump on acoustic bass is the glue holding it together. On this album Vijay gives the listener his usual singular arrangements of interesting cover material such as Michael Jackson's "Human Nature" which Iyer investigated on his first solo piano albumSolo & Duke Ellington's "The Village of the Virgins" which closes the album on a grooving note. The title track "Accelerando" demonstrates that musical term to a tee using tempo shifts allowing the whole group to slow down & accelerate perfectly in sync with eachother. It makes for some of the coolest piano jazz & ensemble concecpts that I'v ever heard. The music plays almost like a suite each piece moving into the next with a continuos flow. In my opinion this trio has surpassed all their previous efforts with this new release. I also think this is Iyer's most accessible music to date with melody & feel taking top priority within the trio. Also of note is the development of Vijay's piano voice which to my ears has reached a certain maturity which allows him to express whatever emotion he happens to be feeling. If your already a fan of this trio than have no fear & buy this cd. If your looking for a fresh approach to jazz piano than you should check this out.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Tempo Creativity at the Frontier
10 April 2012
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Vijay Iyer's previous albums were opaque to me, but for some reason this album, Accelerando, is accessible, and it captured my interest. In the eclectic selection of tunes and Iyer's own compositions a jaggedness of melody compounded by strong staccato piano strokes emphasize the tempo and measures. The extended bass solo of Stephan Crump in Optimism becomes a crystal on which piano and drums coalesce. Marcus Gilmore's consistent drumming of the following track does create a fascinating epic narration over which Iyer's piano work becomes an anthem. The familiar Porcaro/Bettis tune Human Nature is chopped into various syncopated rhythmic and improvisational sections. The uncultivated randomness of a wildflower is manifested in the performance of the tune of the same name. Track 6, mmmhmm, rests on a pleasnt repeating descending phrase, but the demons of the next track play havoc far too long for my taste. Lude, the next piece, is a relief from the din but bass and drums create a downer sense of foreboding. Iyer's title track would probably make Stravinsky and Thelonious Monk smile with its play of tempo variation. This propulsion continues with Actions Speak (which I presume are louder than words), and it is here that we hear the album's drum solo. The last track is Duke Ellington's obscure work, The Village of the Virgins, which is from his 1970 ballet score, The River. It is taken slow and dignified. Together, the album demonstrates the Vijay Iyer Trio's unique creativity. Their sound, that of the late E.S.T., and the current The Bad Plus are moving jazz into interesting frontiers of the avant-garde. [I dig Anish Kapoor's sculpture on the cover, though I found the e.e. cummings-like absence of capitals throughout the textual notes a tad affected.]
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
INCREDIBLE EXERCISES OF TEMPO
24 Mar 2012
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Vijay Iyer is now one of the more interesting pianist in the world. He says that "tempo is measured in beats per minute: time divided by time" and this CD is the demostration of this. The use of different tempos in the same composition is a adventure of sound and life. In flamenco exist one word for this; "compas". Each musician plays at different tempos but the music exist in another space. Stephan Crump at bass a Marcus Gilmore at drums make possible this exercise of creativity . Iyer play and play in different levels and different references. From "Human Nature" to Henry Threadgill or Duke Ellinton or his own composition. Is eloquent how is possible the descostruccion of the song of Mikel Jakson, from melody to simples beats, really incredible . "Accelerando" is a master piece of jazz today, you can feel inside you ,how work music in the time , in our time. Brillant, apasionate, sensory and inexhaustible. Every time you heart the album you can find different things. If you like jazz you must buy this record sure will be one of the best of this 20012.
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