Reimagining

Amazon.com
With "Reimagining," his first album for Savoy Jazz, pianist Vijay Iyer moves on up in terms of visibility -- and in terms of accomplishment. This is his strongest effort yet, balancing rapturous emotion and knotty intellect, melodic flow and rhythmic heft. Iyer works here, as he usually does, with alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. Mahanthappa, like Iyer an Indian-American who has mined Asian culture to rewarding effect, doesn't so much play songs as lay down shapely streams of consciousness, vamping with greater restraint and variety than he once did. Unlike many lyrically minded young pianists, Iyer is unafraid to attack the keys, but his percussive approach, marked by antic unfurling chords reminiscent of McCoy Tyner's (just as his close partnership with the instant-starting Mahanthappa is reminiscent of Tyner's with John Coltrane), has different levels of intensity. With bassist Stephan Crumb and drummer Marcus Gilmore establishing dense force fields, Iyer moves seamlessly from modal patterns to swing effects to subtle funk figures. His bands are known for their tightness and team concept and this quartet is no exception. --Lloyd Sachs

Product Description
Iyer brings a fresh perspective to the jazz idiom with a musical palette that blends African, Asian and European influences beyond to the worlds of hip-hop, dance and poetry. The acclaimed self-taught musician has recorded an album with his working quartet that includes long-time collaborators Rudresh Mahanthappa, an alto saxophone, and Stephan Crump on bass, and 18-year-old phenom Marcus Gilmore behind the drums. The new project is a set of original Iyer compositions and a striking take on John Lennon's "Imagine".

Reimagining,Vijay Iyer,Savoy Jazz,Avant-Garde,Jazz,M-Base,Pop,World Fusion

Average customer rating: Great structure Reimaging Raging Beauty As original as it can get... Iyer keeps on developing

Reimagining Vijay Iyer Manufacturer: Savoy Jazz ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD General | International | Styles | Music Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music General | Jazz | Styles | Music Jazz Fusion | Jazz | Styles | Music Similar Items: 7 Black Butterflies Raw Materials Blood Sutra Mother Tongue Panoptic Modes ASIN: B00094ARDW Release Date: 2005-05-17

Tracks:

1. Revolutions
2. Inertia
3. Song for Midwood
4. Infogee's Cakewalk
5. The Big Almost
6. Cardio
7. Experience
8. Composites
9. Phalanx
10. Imagine (John Lennon)

Amazon.com

With "Reimagining," his first album for Savoy Jazz, pianist Vijay Iyer moves on up in terms of visibility -- and in terms of accomplishment. This is his strongest effort yet, balancing rapturous emotion and knotty intellect, melodic flow and rhythmic heft. Iyer works here, as he usually does, with alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. Mahanthappa, like Iyer an Indian-American who has mined Asian culture to rewarding effect, doesn't so much play songs as lay down shapely streams of consciousness, vamping with greater restraint and variety than he once did. Unlike many lyrically minded young pianists, Iyer is unafraid to attack the keys, but his percussive approach, marked by antic unfurling chords reminiscent of McCoy Tyner's (just as his close partnership with the instant-starting Mahanthappa is reminiscent of Tyner's with John Coltrane), has different levels of intensity. With bassist Stephan Crumb and drummer Marcus Gilmore establishing dense force fields, Iyer moves seamlessly from modal patterns to swing effects to subtle funk figures. His bands are known for their tightness and team concept and this quartet is no exception. --Lloyd Sachs

Album Description

Iyer brings a fresh perspective to the jazz idiom with a musical palette that blends African, Asian and European influences beyond to the worlds of hip-hop, dance and poetry. The acclaimed self-taught musician has recorded an album with his working quartet that includes long-time collaborators Rudresh Mahanthappa, an alto saxophone, and Stephan Crump on bass, and 18-year-old phenom Marcus Gilmore behind the drums. The new project is a set of original Iyer compositions and a striking take on John Lennon's "Imagine".

Customer Reviews:

Great structure.......2005-11-29

"Reimaging" is the culmination of the compositional style developed by Iyer & Mahanthappa. It is the next level from "Fieldwork" and "Mother Tongue." I saw the quartet perform "Reimaging" at Chicago's Green Mill in the spring of 2005 and it was note-for-note the CD. After four decades of listening to improvision of every sort, I appreciate the deep, structured composition found here. The big question is: where do they go from here?

Reimaging.......2005-08-28

This is the first time I heard Vijay I was very impressed I would recommend this cd to anyone

Raging Beauty.......2005-06-29

Having made the leap to the majors, pianist and composer Vijay Iyer's Savoy debut "Reimagining" sounds no less intense than his previous independent releases than it does more fully realized. Where his previous quartet offerings, 2003's "Blood Sutra" and 2001's "Panoptic Modes" were youthful explorations full of brio, "Reimagining" inverts the equation by promoting tunefulness over unbridled enthusiasm. This recurrent focus on melody in all its bittersweet glory continues to arrive bolstered by an undercurrent of rhythmic turbulence.

The son of Indian immigrants, like his long-term foil, altoist Rudresh Mahanthappa, Iyer has a truly equitable worldview in regards to the jazz canon and its influences. Abstracted break beats, funky ostinatos, splintery tone clusters, knotty angularity, even introspective melody all make their way into his systematic structures. Iyer employs one of the most tireless rhythm sections in contemporary jazz, capable of supporting harmonic counterpoint, modulating time signatures and layered polyrhythms all at once. Long term bassist Stephan Crump holds down the low end while 19 year old newcomer (and grandson of Roy Haynes) Marcus Gilmore more than holds his own in the company of giants. Altoist Rudresh Mahanthappa is a distinctive stylist with a most cerebral approach. Like the free-er cousin of former M-Basers Greg Osby and Steve Coleman, releasing waves of cyclical arpeggios with his searing white-hot tone, he is the perfect match for Iyer's own ecstatic excursions. Hammered left hand root notes and dissonant block chords intermingle with swirling right hand pyrotechnics. Industrious without being flamboyant, Iyer occasionally reveals a deft sense of touch, especially on his deconstructed, darkly minimalist solo interpretation of John Lennon's "Imagine."

Iyer's seminal involvement with Steve Coleman's M-Base school of hyper rhythmic metric modulation and its structural dependence on polyrythms is still evident in his quartet writing. Iyer's M-Base roots come to the fore on the jaunty trio workout "Cardio" and the aggressive, show stopping quartet set piece, "Phalanx." But this time out, melody is given not only a nod, but precedent over angularity and odd time signatures. "Song For Midwood" utilizes a throbbing modal bass pulse that rides a steady vamp only to be occasionally interrupted by hyper-kinetic stints of double-timed improvisation. Mahanthappa's scorching, thematic variations and Iyer's kaleidoscopic keyboard runs drive the quartet into a frenzy of collective fury, without ever leaving the plaintive melody behind. This new found focus on song forms adds one more layer to the quartet's already heady brew. Some of Iyer's most emotionally resonant playing arrives in the few trio pieces, such as the spartan, melancholy "Inertia" and the upbeat, optimistic "Composites." "Experience" contains some of the quartet's most beautiful playing despite the rhythm's insistent forward momentum. Full of angular linearity and mind-numbing time shifts, "Revolutions" opens the album with a roiling, syncopated undertow that is so intricate it practically defies standard time signatures. The quartet's intricate level of interplay embodies a sense of adventurousness to it that is sorely missing in most contemporary acoustic jazz.

While Iyer and his peers Jason Moran and Matthew Shipp have long been touted as the Second Coming for post-free-jazz pianists, they have all taken pains to mature their craft and in so doing creating a body of work that is thrilling on more than just a primal level. "Reimagining" officially announces Iyer has fully arrived as a player to be reckoned with.

As original as it can get..........2005-06-25

I love these guys from their two most recent CDs, and I'm thrilled that Reimagining is as strong as both of them. Panoptic Modes and Blood Sutra introduced me to a "jazz" sound that I'd never heard before. So, with this release I am more familiar with the players, but also still surprised. The word "tapestry" keeps coming to mind; there is a weaving and interweaving, sometimes straight sometimes delightfully uneven. Vijay will come on and then drift away from the drums, and it's very moving when I really try to hear it all and take it all in. Another thing is the "orchestration" that they achieve. Vijay and Rudresh really get a unique sax/piano thing going, almost in unison, but then not.

I've been talking of the "sound", but something else I find very special (and it may be my imagination here) is the honesty and awareness of mankind that comes across. Certainly, their "cover" of Imagine doesn't convey a naive optimism, and although "heavy" seems to ask "shouldn't we not give up". And on Experience, (my favorite) although a very short piece, you can sense immensity.

This is a fabulous CD.

Iyer keeps on developing.......2005-06-13

This disc is still very much in the mold of Iyer & Mahanthappa's quartet recordings--white-hot intensity, incredibly dense metrical layerings, a serious political/postcolonial agenda simmering in the background--but it also shows how Iyer keeps refining & reworking his music. I was struck, listening to Mahanthappa's earlier _Black Water_ just after listening to this one, how this CD is much less obviously "like" Coltrane, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, or whoever than their earlier work--Iyer & Mahanthappa are starting to make jazz that's completely sui generis. If anything the new ingredient here is an influx of classical influences--maybe I just hadn't noticed this before in his music, but on this disc it's pretty obvious, especially on "Inertia" which strongly recalls Messiaen's "Louanges" in the _Quartet for the End of Time_. Stephan Crump remains on bass from Iyer's previous discs but _Blood Sutra_'s Tyshawn Sorey is replaced by drummer Marcus Gilmore, who's less teeth-grittingly intense than Sorey but equally adept at handling the exacting compound metres & subdivisions of Iyer's grooves. It's a less full-bore album than _Blood Sutra_ or its predecessor _Panoptic Modes_ but it's still a pretty heady brew, & hardly restful (as Francis Davis noted in a review, there are no weak beats in this music, giving even the more spacious & restrained pieces a sense of continuous pressure). The disc ends with a solo-piano reworking of John Lennon's "Imagine", with the song's original mood made much darker & more tenuous, though not utterly subverted. (The track makes me wonder if Iyer will ever get around to a solo album or a duo album with Mahanthappa--it would be an interesting pendent to the series of quartet albums.)

On balance I think I still slightly prefer _Blood Sutra_ but this is still a very strong album. Check it out.

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