The Vijay Iyer Quartet
rudresh mahanthappa, vijay iyer, stephan crump, marcus gilmore
"a formidable force... startlingly effective... Iyer and Mahanthappa for years have brought elements of their Indian cultural heritage to bear on their jazz improvisations, but never before has the merger sounded as persuasive or seamless as it did Friday night at the Green Mill. Rather than merely apply Indian scales and melodic patterns to jazz-improvisational techniques, they absorbed the spirit and sensibility of this music into the framework of an unflinchingly forward-looking jazz quartet. Imagine the fervor of Indian chant � with its hypnotically repeated, gloriously melismatic turns of phrase � pulsing in a music that"s already harmonically pungent and rhythmically alive, and you have a rough idea of the urgency and originality of this idiom... Yet this quartet wouldn"t be nearly so powerful were it not for the rhythmic collaboration among Iyer, pianist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore. The three players practically have become a single rhythmic organism; if they build on this achievement in coming years, they could emerge as one of the great rhythm units of the day."
- Howard Reich, The Chicago Tribune
LISTEN NOW:
The music player failed to load. Please make sure your browser's security settings allow active content and that you have Flash Player installed.
This is Vijay Iyer"s main working ensemble, featured on the critically hailed albums "Panoptic Modes" (2001) "Blood Sutra" (2003), "Reimagining" (2005), and "Tragicomic" (2008). The group has toured internationally since 1998, headlining at Banlieues Bleues Festival in Paris, the North Sea Jazz Festival, Italy"s Verona Jazz Festival, the Barcelona International Jazz Festival, the Newport Jazz Festival, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center, India"s JazzYatra Festival, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Wexner Center at Ohio State University, Princeton"s McCarter Theater, Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, and many others.
Here is an apt description of the group, from a feature on Vijay in Chamber Music magazine by Gene Santoro: "The first thing you feel is the energy. Sitting in a New York club where Vijay Iyer"s quartet is performing, you are buffeted by gusts of intensity, information encoded in such viscerally propulsive musical form it apparently won"t be denied -- even if, thanks to the elusive process of artistic refraction, that information can"t be fully decoded on the first, fifteenth, or fiftieth listening. When the group tears into a Jimi Hendrix tribute, "Hey Joe" ["Because of Guns"], the stunning ten minutes embodies homage without dwindling into mimicry: Iyer"s Monk-ish percussive piano and deft pedals mix and spread tones in a dense rainbow of harmonics, evoking the thick, chewy textures of Hendrix"s revolutionary guitar. The polyrhythms ride serrated edges, cluster and burst, evoking Hendrix"s rhythm section"s emulation of John Coltrane"s; the recurrent coil-and-release charges the music with fevered immediacy despite its intellectual structures, its often complex meters and harmonies. Though there isusually a soloist, mostly foregrounded is the group"s kinetic motion, the mobile interaction of its parts; foreground and background lap and dissolve. As physical assault, Iyer & Co. may not rival Metallica, but they rock this 150-seat venue the same way Trane inspired rockers like Hendrix with his rich art"s slash-to-the-soul cutting edge..."
Management: Steve Cohen, Music and Art Management
Booking: Myles Weinstein, Unlimited Myles, Inc.
Described in the The Village Voice as "the most commanding pianist and composer to emerge in recent years," VIJAY IYER was named #1 Rising Star Jazz Artist and #1 Rising Star Composer by the Downbeat International Critics Poll for both 2006 and 2007. The son of Indian immigrants, he has released twelve recordings, including Reimagining (2005) and Tragicomic (2008) with his trio and quartet; Simulated Progress (2005) and Door (2008) with the trio Fieldwork; Raw Materials (2006) in duo with saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa; and In What Language? (2004) and Still Life with Commentator (2007), his large-scale works with poet-performer Mike Ladd. Vijay performs constantly around the world with his projects and collaborations, and he has also joined forces with Steve Coleman, Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Amiri Baraka, Butch Morris, Ethel, Imani Winds, dead prez, Karsh Kale, George Lewis, DJ Spooky, John Zorn, Dennis Russell Davies, the American Composers Orchestra, and many others. He received the 2003 CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts, the 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and project grants from the Rockefeller Foundation MAP Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts, Chamber Music America, Creative Capital, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, Arts International, and The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. He is a faculty member at New York University, New School University, and the School for Improvisational Music, and has published articles in Music Perception, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Current Musicology, Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies, and Sound Unbound.
Guggenheim fellow RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA is one of the most innovative young musicians and composers in jazz today. Named a Rising Star of the alto saxophone by the Downbeat International Critics Poll for the past four years, #2 in 2006, he leads/co-leads seven groups to critical acclaim. His most recent release for Pi Recordings Codebook (2006) was named one of the Top Jazz Albums of 2006 by The Village Voice, Jazztimes, and The Denver Post to name only a few and received rave reviews from Downbeat, Jazztimes, wired.com and Science Magazine. In Europe, Codebook received the “Choc†(highest) rating in France’s Jazzman, 4 stars in the UK’s Jazzwise, and received the “Bollino di Marzo†from Italy’s Musica Jazz. As a saxophonist, Mahanthappa has achieved international recognition performing regularly at jazz festivals and clubs worldwide. As a composer, Rudresh has received commission grants from the Rockefeller Foundation MAP Fund, American Composers Forum, Chamber Music America, and the New York State Council on the Arts to develop new work. Mahanthappa holds a Bachelors of Music Degree in jazz performance from Berklee College of Music and a Masters of Music degree in jazz composition from Chicago"s DePaul University. He now teaches at The New School University. Rudresh Mahanthappa currently lives in New York where he is clearly regarded as an important and influential voice in the jazz world. Rudresh uses Vandoren reeds exclusively. Mahanthappa is also a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow. www.rudreshm.com
STEPHAN CRUMP is a Memphis-bred bassist/composer whose music can be heard on his two acclaimed albums and in numerous films and television shows. He has performed and recorded in the US and across the globe with a diverse list of musicians - from late blues legend Johnny Clyde Copeland to Portishead"s Dave McDonald, The Violent Femmes" Gordon Gano, Big Ass Truck, Dave Liebman, Sonny Fortune, Eddie Henderson and Bobby Previte, among others. Stephan is currently a member of groups led by guitarists Joel Harrison and Liberty Ellman, and singer/songwriter Jen Chapin"s band.
MARCUS GILMORE (born 1986) was inspired by the music of his grandfather, legendary jazz drummer Roy Haynes, who gave him his first set of drums at age 10. He took naturally to jazz as well as classical theory and percussion. He has performed around the world with some of today"s best known jazz artists, including Chick Corea, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Natalie Cole, Clark Terry, Cassandra Wilson, Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, Dave Douglas, John Clayton, Christian Scott, Najee and many others. Gilmore joined Vijay Iyer"s group in 2003, at the age of 16. He also leads his own ensemble, and recently debuted a commissioned suite of his music, titled "American Perspicacity."
Praise for the Vijay Iyer Quartet:
astonishing- K. Leander Williams, Time Out New York
An ironclad sense of purpose built on strong communication - Ben Ratliff, The New York Times
The group is more than just tight...[Iyer and Mahanthappa] played with a tremendous exuberance... This band glows with purpose. - Gary Giddins, Village Voice
This is exciting and eminently listenable stuff, intuitive in bearing and dynamic in execution. An essential for adventurous listeners.- Nate Chinen, JazzTimes
[Blood Sutra] highlights the strength of his hard-driving, forward-thinking quartet. With formidable saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, bassist Stephan Crump and the hard-hitting Tyshawn Sorey on drums, the pianist leads the group through a complex and constantly shifting compositions that are gracefully rendered by a band that"s spent time really playing to together.- Tad Hendrickson, CMJ Weekly
Iyer is an extravagantly gifted new-jazz pianist and a quick-witted composer, but his greatest strength is his skill as a bandleader. On this captivating quartet recording, he establishes a lock-tight rapport with his energetic rhythm section and a cognitive interaction with the alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, another talent to keep a steady eye on.- Steve Futterman, "BEST JAZZ ALBUMS OF 2001," The New Yorker
**** (FOUR STARS) With each year, jazz increasingly becomes an international music, and pianist Iyer"s release dramatically underscores the point. Leading a one-of-a-kind quartet, Iyer--whose heritage is Indian--orchestrates a heady mix of jazz improvisation, traditional Indian scales and elements of Western classical composition. The result is a music so rhythmically gripping and harmonically provocative that one hardly can wait to hear what outlandish idea these players will hit upon next. On most tracks, Iyer"s vast waves of keyboard sounds inspire alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, whose heaven-storming, post-Coltrane blasts show more discipline and clarity than ever before� This recording captures the unit at its best, digging deeply into the musical terrain where multiple ethnic styles converge. But even apart from its stylistic breakthroughs, "Panoptic Modes" offers a sensuousness of sound and vividness of performances that will seduce even the casual listener. - Howard Reich, The Los Angeles Times
...serious, introspective... telling tales of their own unique experiences with musical sensitivity and virtuosity... sure to be a sound one hears a lot in the future.- Times of India
fabulous... an amazing display of musicianship... raw and powerful - The Sunday Mid-Day
...a brilliant performance by young musicians with great chops and not afraid to come onstage with a personal, original vision.� AVANT magazine
This group should take jazz into a new direction, the only way for this music to survive.- The Examiner(Mumbai)
...boldly shaping the direction of jazz to come.� Sonicnet.com
select album for more info.
