I then took some time with other Iyer albums that he recorded with his trio like Historicity and Accelerando and Tirtha, recorded with South Asian virtuosos Prasanna and Nitin Mitta. Besides Solo, Accelerando is probably my second favorite Iyer album, but these other albums are also sublime.
Iyer's version of Jazz is extremely percussive. We see music as movement in the way he lays down rhythms. And it's very exciting.
What I like about Iyer, about Jazz in general, is how it's such an American story. The son of parents from India, Vijay was expected to go into maths and sciences. Which he did. And he went really deep. He got his undergrad in Math from Yale, his Masters in Physics from UC Berkeley, where he also got a PhD in Technology and the Arts. Somewhere along the line he departed from Maths and Sciences, though it's not really a departure because his music is so mathematical. Like a series of patterns, each of the rhythms he creates is intricate and precise, syncopation taken to the nth degree. Iyer dissects music with a scientific precision that is still very heartfelt at the same time. His music pulses with life.
As a son of parents from India, Vijay didn't see himself as a Jazz pianist for a very long time. It certainly wasn't expected that a child of Indian parents play Jazz piano. He did start the violin very young at age 3. But for the most part, he became a self-taught pianist. You can hear influences from the Karnatic music from South India in some of his music's mathematical, hypnotic nature. But Vijay's music is decidedly American. Vijay is deeply rooted in the great legacy of American Jazz. He recalls seeing Dizzy Gillespie on Sesame Street as a kid and being influenced by Johnny Costas' piano work on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. He follows in the line of Thelonious Monk with a wonderful Harlem stride piano on his own version of Duke Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy." This sort of stuff isn't taught or learned. It's felt. And you can tell Vijay spent a long time just feeling the stride piano and making it his own. Like Monk, who taught himself Harlem stride and put his own unique angular spin on it, Iyer offers a unique angle on stride. Harlem stride is a deceptively rich style that gives performers a lot of leeway to add their own touches. And this version of "Black and Tan Fantasy" is extraordinary and haunting. What a fantastic American composer Ellington was and we gain a new perspective of his work through Iyer's interpretation.
Vijay has truly lived the American experience, the same one I grew up with, having grown up with Star Wars, Michael Jackson, Thelonious Monk, Sesame Street and Mister Rogers. He took that experience, along with his background, and made it his own, which is what the American art experience is all about.
You have to respect Iyer's ability to keep breaking into new territory as he did with Tirtha, playing with tablas and a guitarist, and the trio plays some mesmerizing Eastern tunes in celebration of the 60th anniversary of Indian independence. Iyer's latest effort is Mutations, recorded with strings and electronic instrumentation. And it is even a further departure, sounding like the more rhythmic recordings of Philip Glass, particularly the Kronos Quartet's recording of his work. Mutations isn't for a beginner, but it's daring and captivating.
There's a pervading view in our times that Jazz music is elitist or too intellectual (especially in a country that has turned very anti-intellectual)--I can't claim that I understand this view as I do not share it, but I think Vijay Iyer's music could break this mould if people gave it a chance. Vijay Iyer's music has the potential to be like the music of Duke Ellington's band in the 1940s, the last time in this country when the most popular music was also the best music being produced. I don't think Vijay Iyer will ever sell as many albums as say a Kanye West or a Katy Perry or a Jay-Z, which is fine. His latest work Mutations is certainly no aspiration for the sales numbers those artists have, but if people gave the time to listen to Iyer's version of "Human Nature" or Ellington's "Black and Tan Fantasy," people might give an extra minute or two to listen to Jazz and appreciate it as America's greatest indigenous art form.
