{"id":3137,"date":"2014-01-16T15:09:25","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T15:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=3137"},"modified":"2014-01-16T15:09:25","modified_gmt":"2014-01-16T15:09:25","slug":"jazz-pianism-takes-hold-at-harvard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2014\/01\/16\/jazz-pianism-takes-hold-at-harvard\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz Pianism Takes Hold at Harvard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Pianists Herbie Hancock (l.) and Vijay Iyer<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nIf you\u2019re walking around the campus of Harvard University<\/strong> in the coming months, you might bump into Herbie Hancock<\/strong>, a pianist whose harmonic and stylistic innovations are essential to any full understanding of modern jazz. Or you might pass by Vijay Iyer, who is among the bright and bold generations of pianists to absorb Hancock\u2019s legacy along with those of other pianists\u2014in Iyer\u2019s case, prominently including Randy Weston, Thelonious Monk and Andrew Hill\u2014before crafting individualized pianistic languages rooted in yet not defined by jazz.
\nYou might well find Hancock and Iyer together.
\nTheir paths will intersect at the university as each exerts a powerful influence on how music is made, heard and considered there, as well as how culture in general is construed, beginning this Spring semester.
\nHancock has been named the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor Of Poetry<\/strong> at Harvard. Iyer will serve as the university’s inaugural Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts<\/strong>. In Hancock’s role, the pianist will give his six Norton Lectures,\u00a0\u201cThe Ethics Of Jazz,\u201d in February and March.\u00a0As a university press release described, \u201cThe Ethics Of Jazz\u201d will examine topics including \u201cThe Wisdom Of Miles Davis,\u201d \u201cBreaking The Rules,\u201d\u00a0\u201cCultural Diplomacy And The Voice Of Freedom,\u201d and \u201cInnovation And New Technologies.\u201d
\nEstablished in 1925, the Norton Professorship of Poetry has been awarded to important figures from across the arts. Past Norton Professors have included composers Igor Stravinsky<\/strong>, Leonard Bernstein<\/strong>, John Cage <\/strong>and Luciano Berio. <\/strong> <\/strong>
\nHancock\u2019s Norton Lectures will take place at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University on Monday, February 3; Wednesday, February 12; Thursday,\u00a0February 27; Monday, March 10; Monday, March 24; and Monday, March 31.\u00a0Lectures begin at 4 p.m. and are open to the public. More information can be found here<\/a>.
\nIyer’s new position a tenured spot, will begin later this month with a half-semester course titled \u201cCreative Music: Critical Practice Studio.\u201d Here\u2019s how the Harvard website describes the course, which will accept up to 20 students based upon submissions:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026an intensive, research-oriented workshop environment for advanced improviser-composers. Through critical listening, readings, term papers, and collaborative musical projects, students will engage with a range of contemporary musical perspectives and practices.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That sounds a good deal like the way in which Iyer has shaped a career that, to date, has earned him widespread critical acclaim for his recordings and performances in many contexts, a strong academic readership for his scholarly papers and essays, and, last year, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
\nHancock\u2019s position is short-term and he is likely to speak in broad strokes and metaphoric terms. Iyer\u2019s seems bent on establishing a lasting beachhead within the university, and working in direct and practical ways with musicians, other artists and scholars of all types (he also holds degrees in math and physics, and designed his own interdisciplinary course of PhD. study in the cognitive science of music while at the University of California, Berkeley).
\nYet the two will likely stress some important themes in common.
\nHere\u2019s what musicians told me about Hancock for this Wall Street Journal piece<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Herbie told me that the question isn’t, ‘What are you going to play?'” said guitarist Lionel Loueke<\/strong>, who first met Mr. Hancock while studying at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. “It’s ‘Why are you going to play it?’ To what end?”
\nTrumpeter Terence Blanchard<\/strong> recalls that, while on tour with Mr. Hancock in 2009, “Herbie talked about how a recording can be more than just music. He asked, ‘What can this project send into the world? What type of offering will it be?'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here\u2019s what Iyer told Harvard Gazette writer Peter Reuell<\/strong> for a story about the pianist\u2019s appointment<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“I especially look forward to connecting all of what we do to the world beyond the University, because a life in the arts means a life of service to those around us\u2026. I\u2019m a living, working artist who is interested in asking broad, interdisciplinary questions \u2014 about what music is, how we make it, and how we listen \u2014 in order to reimagine what music can do in the world, and then to put those ideas into practice.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(l-r) Photo by\u00a0Lester Cohen\/Getty Images for Wonder Productions, Inc\/ Courtesy Vijay Iyer Facebook<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re walking around the campus of Harvard University in the coming months, you might bump into Herbie Hancock, a pianist whose harmonic and stylistic innovations are essential to any full understanding of modern jazz. Or you might pass by Vijay Iyer, who is among the bright and bold generations of pianists to absorb Hancock\u2019s … <\/p>\n

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