Description du produit
Découvert aux côtés de Steve Coleman à la fin des années 90, le pianiste américain Vijay Iyer mène depuis une vibrante carrière en tant que leader et compositeur. Après son récent album en trio « Historicity », Vijay Iyer est de retour au disque avec un nouvel enregistrement en solo très attendu. L'album est dédié aux grands maîtres que Vijay Iyer a religieusement écoutés : Monk, Ellington, Randy Weston, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Andrew Hill, etc. Aussi, il rend hommage à certains de ses mentors et compagnons de route tels Wadada Leo Smith ou Steve Coleman. Ancré dans la grande histoire du jazz, le jeu de Vijay Iyer nous donne aussi à entendre du neuf, avec une parfaite maîtrise de la dialectique phrasé-rythme-mélodie. Complice du free de Roscoe Mitchell, du hip-hop de Mike Ladd ou de l'avant-garde de John Zorn, le pianiste s'inscrit dans un long continuum musical et fait résonner sur son Steinway des mélodies fugitives, abstraites, elliptiques, inventives, foisonnantes, toujours empreintes d'un fort lyrisme.
Critique
Pianist Vijay Iyer's wealth of traditional jazz experience might not always be apparent in the organised, intricate contemporary music he plays with his own groups. But the pianist is likely to widen his audience as well as surprising his regulars by the inclusion here of Duke Ellington's Black and Tan Fantasy (played with much of its traditional 1920s strut) and an account of the standard Darn That Dream. Iyer structures this programme cannily, beginning with an inviting interpretation of the pop ballad Human Nature, unfolding over a rocking left-hand vamp and briefly darkening into a hypnotic drone. Thelonious Monk's Epistrophy begins with a seamlessly churning rhythm, finding its way to the original's characteristic chord rumbles later. But halfway through, Iyer begins to merge those impressions into his music of today with a spindly, abstract melody and then whirling free-jazz on his own Prelude/Heartpeace, or the sitar-like melody of Patterns, which swells into a free-improv tour de force. The same energy bursts free on One for Blount, Iyer's dedication to Sun Ra as the finale of a commanding one-man show. FOUR STARS --Guardian
Perhaps the most important player to emerge on the US scene in a decade. FOUR STARS --Jazzwise magazine
There are few more towering contemporary talents to measure yourself against at the keyboard than Vijay Iyer. --Metro
