I’ve been aware of the towering presence of jazz pianist Vijay Iyer for some time now but hadn’t felt quite ready to take on his music. I finally took the plunge with his 2015 trio release Break Stuff and find it about as I expected. From what I can tell, it’s among Iyer’s more accessible works.
Much of Break Stuff is “repurposed” from other projects. Of its 10 tracks, several are from a suite that the trio premiered at the New York Museum of Modern Art; several more, all with titles related to birds and flight, are from a collaboration that Iyer did with novelist Teju Cole and a large ensemble as a companion piece to Cole’s book Open City. And then there are some well-chosen covers, and an original piece dedicated to old-school hip-hop and techno.
Here’s a “trailer” or promo video about the project:
The Open City pieces are stunningly beautiful, from the somewhat somber opening track “Starlings” through the sublime “Taking Flight” that incorporates a reggae-like rhythm, to the delightfully off-balance but airy “Geese” and the final track “Wrens.” None of these are anything as crude as programmatic in nature, although the dark autumnal textures and dramatic cymbal washes of “Starlings” and the stutter-stepping piano-bass counterpoint of “Geese” at times suggest some avian imagery.
Keeping things grounded are covers of Thelonious Monk’s “Work” (Iyer counts Monk as one of his biggest influences) and John Coltrane’s “Countdown.” The former is a sublime exploration of Monk’s aesthetic, a bit of a deconstruction of Monk at his most minimal; the latter a head-on attack on a classic from Coltrane’s seminal “Giant Steps.” And there’s a lush (for Iyer) and deliberate solo piano exploration of Billy Strayhorn’s “Blood Count.”
Focal points for me are the title track and “Hood.” The former is one of the pieces from the MOMA suite. From near chamber jazz beginnings, it threatens to break out into actual swing every few bars, and bassist Stephan Crump keeps things grounded as Iyer plays lots of bop-stye passages crammed with 16th notes. “Hood” is simply a tour de force, drummer Marcus Gilmore pounding out West African-style rhythms and Crump a looping, syncopated line, while Iyer plays counterpoint with himself, his left and right hands picking out disparate rhythms – it pushes the ideas explored by Coltrane in “Airegin” almost as far as they will go. The full effect is similar to a marimba ensemble, with polyrhythms layered and layered into one coherent sound, until it finally unites into a glorious bop piano trio explosion for the piece’s final few bars.
This Iyer Trio album is so full of disparate textures and colors it’s hard to believe it’s just a trio. This is improvised music of a high order, exhilarating and challenging in equal measures.
(ECM, 2015)
