Vijay Iyer is the kind of 21st century improvised music performer you can’t sum up in a blurb. His corpus demands something more formal—a cv, or a testimonial, something like that. I’m not teasing—Iyer is one of the finest examples of the new breed of musician, equally at home in the academy or the club, committed to an overarching vision that hews to no particular style. He’s done the trad thing, he’s done the jazz with electronics thing, he’s done all manner of unclassifiable in-between things. His latest trio album, Uneasy, with bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, is a good place to start if you’re curious, and as long as you realize that its music may give you no guidance as to where he’ll go in his Dakota performance. (RACKET)
Vijay Iyer
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