{"id":5692,"date":"2016-03-18T18:30:31","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T18:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5692"},"modified":"2016-03-18T18:30:31","modified_gmt":"2016-03-18T18:30:31","slug":"vijay-iyers-new-day-gig-at-the-met-breuer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/18\/vijay-iyers-new-day-gig-at-the-met-breuer\/","title":{"rendered":"Vijay Iyer's New Day Gig at the Met Breuer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vijay<\/a>
Vijay Iyer performing at the Met Breuer opening with Mark Turner\/ PHOTO: SAMANTHA NANDEZ\/BFA<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nSeated at a Steinway grand piano in a dark, intimate room in early March,\u00a0Vijay Iyer<\/a>wasn\u2019t simply playing another gig.
\nAficionados in attendance could recognize a loose medley of familiar jazz themes, including Wayne Shorter\u2019s \u201c\u00a0Nefertiti\u201d and\u00a0Billy Strayhorn\u2019s \u201cChelsea Bridge.\u201d Mostly, Mr. Iyer and his duet partner, tenor saxophonist\u00a0Mark Turner,\u00a0issued an unbroken and largely abstract flow, moving easily from dense dissonances to languid melodies.
\nMusically, the scene wasn\u2019t unlike Mr. Iyer\u2019s performances at any number of Manhattan jazz clubs and concert halls. Except here, the listeners were gathered in a small gallery behind the lobby of the Met Breuer, the celebrated five-story hulk of a building that serves as the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s new outpost for modern and contemporary art.
\nThe audience was witnessing the first installment of \u201cRelation<\/a>,\u201d a performance residency showcasing Mr. Iyer, who is equally distinguished as a pianist, composer and educator. His ongoing performances open to the general public Friday and run through the end of the month.
\n\u201cIt\u2019ll be my day gig,\u201d said Mr. Iyer, in an interview at his Harlem home. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like having an office.\u201d
\nThat’s how I opened yesterday’s Wall Street Journal piece<\/a> about Iyer’s residency.
\nI’d like to return for one of Iyer’s collaborations with writer and photographer Teju Cole. There’s a wealth of great stuff going on not least the films, which include Prashant Bhargava\u2019s film, \u201cRadhe Radhe: Rites of Holi,\u201d which depicts the colorful intensity of a Hindu ritual festival and features a score by Mr. Iyer based upon Stravinsky\u2019s \u201cRite of Spring,” and “Eclipse” a documentary about trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quaret, filmed when Iyer had just joined that band, about a decade ago.
\nThe gem of Iyer’s “Relation” residency will be a\u00a0\u201cA Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke,\u201d a collaborative suite from Iyer and Smith, commissioned by the Met Breuer, and offered in response to an exhibition dedicated to the Indian modernist artist\u00a0Nasreen Mohamedi,\u00a0which occupies the Met Breuer\u2019s second floor. They’ll perform teh suite in premiere on March 30 and 31 in the Met Breuer’s fifth-floor gallery. (ECM will release a studio recording of this music on March 25.)
\nThe recording is beautiful and often strikingly spare. Mohamedi’s art affectly me deeply when I walked through the exhibition earlier this month. Through its meticulous and diligent aesthetic, its use of space and implications about time, its sense of inner search, Mohamedi’s work resonates deeply with what Smith and Iyer are after musically, or at least what I hear in their music.
\nWhen I wrote about Iyer in the Journal two years ago<\/a> he told me:\u00a0“I’m here because of a series of generous African-American people who let me be here.” He was pointing to, among others, Smith, who is one of his closest mentors.
\nIyer describes \u201cRelation\u201d most clearly in terms of what Mr. Smith, who is an important AACM figure, calls \u201ccreative music”:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe history of creative music is kind of like the history of storming places,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing. We\u2019re announcing that we\u2019re here. And if you hadn\u2019t thought that we belong in what you call an art world, you\u2019ll have to deal with us now.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seated at a Steinway grand piano in a dark, intimate room in early March,\u00a0Vijay Iyerwasn\u2019t simply playing another gig. Aficionados in attendance could recognize a loose medley of familiar jazz themes, including Wayne Shorter\u2019s \u201c\u00a0Nefertiti\u201d and\u00a0Billy Strayhorn\u2019s \u201cChelsea Bridge.\u201d Mostly, Mr. Iyer and his duet partner, tenor saxophonist\u00a0Mark Turner,\u00a0issued an unbroken and largely abstract flow, … <\/p>\n

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