Vijay Iyer Trio . Galang (trio riot version) .

[tidalkingv]

the velocity, the fury. keep an open mind, this is fantastic stuff.

[Qball9311]

That was amazing

[JEdgarGroover]

I love Paul Desmond and Joe Pass and The Poll Winners...and I think that this is fantastic. I celebrate the past and embrace the forward movement of music. Iyer is one of the individuals who is moving jazz forward. Hey, when Charlie Parker started out people said he wasn't playing "real" jazz. You always know the pioneers from the arrows in their backs.

[richardsull119]

To the jazz "purists": How many times do you really need to hear "All the Things You Are"? Thank goodness there are people doing new things in music.

[jcracker]

wow this guy is fucking awesome

[simasuma]

Some idiot in this thread actually thinks this guy and the other modern cats cannot play over the standard changes to My Funny Valentine! I get the argument about emotion (or lack thereof) with which I disagree, but to assume that this guy or another like jean michel pilc couldn't play the junior high jazz band version is ridiculous. By all means we must keep one foot rooted firmly in the past but with the other we must EVOLVE.

[skulleton]

just listen to the music, stop over-analyzing everything. It detracts from the beauty.

[nestletreb]

@skulleton

right

[scubasandy1]

no he adapted a song from a rap artist named MIA. Not sure she sampled the tuen, but shes pretty talented in her own right

[hikojosa]

La hostia

[nestletreb]

Wait a minute... I think I've heard this one before.

Was this on "Giant Steps?" No - "Juju," right?  It's gotta be a Wayne Shorter tune.

[skulleton]

@nestletreb

wrong

[nestletreb]

@skulleton

sorry - forgot the sarcasm font ;)

[outlawv]

This stud pianist will be chatting with me on The New Jazz Thing, 6-8 PM PT Thursday, January 27, 2011 on Jazz88 KSDS San Diego 88.3 FM JAzz88.org

[camusmonamour]

étonnant ce tapis sur le piano ! Quelqu'un serait-il pourquoi ?

[camdenlurch]

@camusmonamour

pour amortir le bruit dans la chambre

[elevedesfb]

@camusmonamour

Il a froid

[newdawg100]

Similarly, young punk-ass kids born in the 90s wonder what all the fuss was about as they listen to old Joy Division records. They got Interpol on their Ipods!

[mookooable]

If I could see just ONE video of these modern cats jamming over some standard changes to any standard ("My Funny Valentine", etc.), I'd never say another word against them, but I've yet to see any proof of deep musicianship.

[MrGovindaLadyGodiva]

is vijay indian or srilankan? :)

[Djangoblackbird]

@MrGovindaLadyGodiva

Vijay is Indian American.

[toptenhits]

@camdenlurch right back at at ya baby - go all the way

[toptenhits]

Well done guys - u hit six thousand

[toptenhits]

@toptenhits that would be 60 thousand - my bad

[hpssoni]

.. These guys are just " Solid " .. very unique .. time for something fresh and this is the stuff . Great Work..!!

[sfrber2003]

Vijay is a nice guy. Nice guy does not equal a good musician of which he is not. His lack of emotion is replaced with math. His math knowledge is very good but math does not equal good music. Emotion determines dynamics of which he greatly lacks. If he could come out of denial about who he is and confront he fear of his own heart he would have a chance. It is up to him

[isaacstarling]

@sfrber2003 I respect your opnion but i completly disagree. If your hear historicity you are going to figure out a cd with lots of emotion, great compositions and high level improvisation. Vijay has a unique sence of rhythmic and a diferent touch, for me that`s nothing to do with math but a different approach for music and improvisation.

[r3ck0rd]

@isaacstarling agree.

[xGutturaLoungex]

God, jazz purists sicken me. This is fantastic.

[caponsacchi]

People making music, or writing poems and novels, or painting pictures, or making movies will never die. But without respectful heed to the traditions, to the masters, the art form itself is as vulnerable as anything in human existence. Jazz as a tradition culminated with Burns' PBS series, and ever since has splintered into atomistic pieces. An art form relies on a cohesive "canon" (in jazz from Louis/Hines to Duke/Tatum to Bird/Bud to Coltrane/Bill Evans).

[prpfunk]

@caponsacchi so you mean jazz died after the 70s? if one were to follow your definition, any painting made after the 19th century couldn't be considered painting because it doesn't follow the "canon" of "the masters." You should catch up on what's happened in music and musical scholarship over the past 60 years, then maybe revisit Vijay Iyer's music. Hard to believe, but sometimes jazz fans can be more narrow minded than heavy metal fans when it comes to talking about their favorite genre...

[newdawg100]

@caponsacchi "Jazz as a tradition culminated with Burns' PBS series, and ever since has splintered into atomistic pieces."

Can you spell "hyperbole?" What evidence can you cite when making the claim that the jazz tradition culminated with Ken Burns' series?! (Now, THAT'S funny.) Moreover, I suppose late period Coltrane doesn't inform your understanding of the canon, lest we assume Bill Evans directly informed Coltrane's decision to jam with Pharoah Sanders and Rashied Ali?

[newdawg100]

@caponsacchi wrote: "People making music, or writing poems and novels, or painting pictures, or making movies will never die. But without respectful heed to the traditions, to the masters, the art form itself is as vulnerable as anything in human existence.  Jazz as a tradition culminated with Burns' PBS series, and ever since has splintered into atomistic pieces. An art form relies on a cohesive "canon" (in jazz from Louis/Hines to Duke/Tatum to Bird/Bud to Coltrane/Bill Evans). "

[TeenAngst73]

and people music never has or never will "die"; it just evolves. There's always good music out there.

[TeenAngst73]

This is awesome!! Has M.I.A. heard this?!?

[caponsacchi]

This guy lacks touch, technique, melodic inventiveness, harmonic and voicing sophistication, genuine passion, soul and swing. He must run for cover whenever Hiromi or Chick plays. And out of self-protection he must pretend that Tatum, Oscar, Bud and Bill Evans never performed or recorded. That combination of ignorance along with the academic degree, sophomoric grad school jargon, and unmitigated chutzpah have led to the valorization of rank amateurism and the death of the jazz tradition.

[SoICanWeighIt]

@caponsacchi LMAO at "sophmoric grad school jargon"

Your entire post is nothing more than just that.

[dojomania]

@SoICanWeighIt I doubt you understood caponsacchi's meaning. Someone who can write about music as assuredly as he just did has far more experience than you can grasp..

[SoICanWeighIt]

@dojomania Frankly, I don't care what this armchair critic has to say. There are many respected members of the jazz community who are completely captivated by Iyer and respect him immensely. Look at the amount of time he has spent dissecting what so many people enjoy. Furthermore, I doubt you have any grasp of what I do and do not understand. Another arm chair jockey heard from....feel free to keep patronizing me.

[GGIANTNUT]

@caponsacchi Yep concur with that--there's a lot of these instrumentalists worldwide who are riding on the back of the sheep that gave their wool to be pulled over not only over the critics eyes but every other person who wants to like jazz but doesn't really----give em a backbeat and a 'cool' video------music reflects the time--ain't it true!

[dojomania]

@caponsacchi Thank you,for your superb comment,I thought everyone had not noticed, that this guy's awful, and the fact that people 'think" this is jazz is an affront to those who play and listen honestly to jazz. Iyer dared to compare himself to Monk ! It seems all the posters here have never heard of the greats you have mentioned ( may I add Herbie, and Errol, Kenny Barron ). I think it should be required that the masters you mentioned should be listened to by all the Iyer fans.

[Djangoblackbird]

@dojomania

When did he "compare himself to Monk"? And from what evidence did you gather that Vijay Iyer's fans don't know who Herbie Hancock or Bill Evans are? Not only is that comment absurdly false, I haven't yet met a Vijay Iyer fan who doesn't actively listen to recording upon recording of Herbie Hancock, or Bill Evans or Chick Corea

[r3ck0rd]

@Djangoblackbird Then I'm one example. I'm a huge fan of Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock (even some people told me that my playing was so Chick-ish), then I know Bill Evans, then I know Vijay Iyer when he was invited to one of Chick Corea's concert, and from a list of 100 most influential pianist. All of them play music. That's why I like them.

[Djangoblackbird]

@caponsacchi

I would prefer a thousand people with Vijay Iyer's unique sense of musicality than a thousand Bud Powell clones. Some people choose to root themselves in the lineage of the piano (like Mulgrew Miller or Bill Charlap) and some, like Iyer, have chosen to divert from linear history and draw from all historical influences simultaneously.

[dojomania]

@caponsacchi note also that no significant jazz artists have performed with Iyer. You can't make music in a vacuum.

[fergman333]

@dojomania That is unbelievably inaccurate.  Get your facts straight, dude.

[TehWinnerz]

@dojomania hahaha are you fucking kidding me?!

[mookooable]

@caponsacchi Right on, man. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if he could even improv over "Satin Doll", one of the easiest jazz tunes. It's called a tradiiton for a reason. I think a lot of these folks go their own way because they don't want to put in the long, hard slog of mastering their instrument (scales, arpeggios, chord inversions, etc.). A different approach to jazz? Fine, but listen to him and listen to someone like Tatum-it's obvious who has a real mastery of the keyboard.

[newdawg100]

@mookooable

Why criticize Iyer’s desire to engage the jazz tradition by choosing to innovate rather than mimic? Or, if this were the 1950s, would you be extolling the virtues of The Firehouse Five Plus Two while slamming Parker and Gillespie for their ignorance of “tradition?”

[newdawg100]

@koreankayagum You are speaking from a 2011 perspective. In 1950, Parker & Gillespie were likely too “radical” for those who saw themselves—as you and mookooable do now—as the then-keepers of the flame. For those who saw the tradition informed by New Orleans and Chicago styles, bop WAS a radical attempt at redefining everything. [Contemporary listeners have had several decades to aurally assimilate bop, so it becomes difficult to hear such “radical” aspects in the music today.]

[newdawg100]

@mookooable

Why should Iyer have to validate his art by playing over standard changes?

Surely, those folks who hired him to teach at institutions like the New School, New York University, and the Manhattan School of Music must have thought he had SOME measure of technical ability.

[newdawg100]

@koreankayagum I doubt music programs are informed by the controversies surrounding the “infiltration” of cultural studies in academia. Hell, I’M impressed by his resume. Have you seen a list of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, where Iyer teaches “jazz piano?” His colleagues include C. Bridgewater, Garry Dial, D. Liebman, J. McNeely, John Mosca, T. Rosenthal, Jack Wilkins, Steve Wilson, & others. I’m sure they all yell “heretic” at Iyer every time they pass by him in the hallways.

[newdawg100]

@koreankayagum wrote: "Well, given the current state of academia, what with courses on the 'significance' of comic books and third-rate writers (who are only being taught so the school can be 'politically correct'), I must say that I'm not too terribly impressed by one's resume in that regard. Hell, even John Cage managed to somehow land a teaching gig, so that should tell you something."

[newdawg100]

@koreankayagum While the current state of academia is not perfect, it has been democratized by cultural studies, to the extent that it has shed light on how “high” / “low” art were largely manifestations of class (as well as racial, ethnic, and gender) disparities among social groups. Pop culture IS significant because it is multi-layered, and its study has much to tell us not solely for its aesthetic value, but also for its sociological, pedagogical, and historical values as well.

[koreankayagum]

@newdawg100 OK, I wrote that down.

[newdawg100]

@koreankayagum "Hell, even John Cage managed to somehow land a teaching gig, so that should tell you something."

Yes, I'm not the only one who believes Cage was a very original thinker.

[newdawg100]

@mookooable & @koreankayagum

You are musical necrophiliacs—you are so obsessed with fu*king the musical past, that you forget that the “jazz tradition” is also based in part on the act of transcending tradition.

[susanvonseggern]

Come see Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet with Vijay Iyer at the Angel City Jazz Festival at the Ford Amphitheater in LA on 10/3.

[tincan77]

the original sounds like a bunch of racket compared to this. love it.

[r3ck0rd]

how did Iyer make that click sound?

did he mute the Eb3 strings?

[r3ck0rd]

@r3ck0rd nah, I've figured it out :)

staccato with quick sustain

[Pervvi]

M.I.A. - the one from the soundtrack for "Slumdog Millionaire'?

[kipknots]

@Pervvi Yep. Love both the original and this cover. 

[maidoodesu]

very nice !  ですね.

[jneelt]

why is the piano covered in moving blankets

[rainerclouds]

@jneelt To keep the sound from the other instruments from bleeding into the microphones that are on the piano.

[Skankingbass]

@jneelt The microphones are probably inside the piano, with the blankets on the outside to minimize the amount of sound that escapes, because that sound might be picked up on the bass or drum microphones, which could sound messy in a final mix.

[jamesL]

not sure what to make of this...

[WretchedArt]

great cover

[chompypunk890]

¡¡Amazing!!

[sharatmalhotra]

One word "AWESOME"

Vijay this is such great stuff. So proud of u.

There is so much feel and that is what music is all about.

sharat malhotra

musician

los angeles

[bertbuttmuffin]

Just when you thought music as dead......

[jophus82]

Who thought music was dead. There are bucket loads of people with extremely rich talent now that access has opened up so much. Check out Andrew Bird from my city. He's all over youtube. That is just another example of near prodigy.

[skulleton]

@jophus82

I certainly didn't think music was dead, but then, I grew up in the late 90's(and 00's). I think if you limit yourself to only a few genres, you are bound to sometimes think "music is dead". The 90's saw the rise of some staggeringly talented electronic artists. Just look up Squarepusher ("Tetra Sync") or Richard D. James ("Avril 14th" "Flim") who is both a prodigy and a musical genius.

[djflowerz]

Love it!

[dilanka1977]

amo ogni cosa faccia quest'uomo!

[schoolofspool]

Love what you did here. Most excellent.

Heard this on WPRB FM during Dan Buskirk's show this morning. A little ways through the song I'm thinking, "This sounds like an M.I.A. joint." Lo and behold...

[cheekymonkey1979]

Afro-beat dis! I like this a lot.

[MorbidSnail]

Stumbled across this looking for a gift for my aunt that's a fan of jazz...

Jesus, this stuff is great, I'M a fan now!

[Benwade90]

it's about damn time that somebody bring some innovation to jazz that doesn't involve cacophonous noise. this is the shit.

[unfurth]

this shit is bananas!!!!!!!!!!!!

[banananana33333]

@unfurth how'd u kno....? damn skool lunches...

[mah385]

one of my favorites, tnx 4 share

[kafcin]

nice......

[vmingoa]

this absolutely rocks. when are you going to gig in India?

[tulku108]

magnificent