Jump to content

Vijay Iyer Sextet, FAR FROM OVER


Guy Berger

Recommended Posts

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

ECM

 

 

Vijay Iyer Sextet

Far From Over

 

Vijay Iyer: piano, Fender Rhodes

Graham Haynes: cornet, flugelhorn, electronics

Steve Lehman: alto saxophone

Mark Shim: tenor saxophone

Stephan Crump: double-bass

Tyshawn Sorey: drums

U.S Release date: August 25, 2017

ECM 2581                

B0027073-02

UPC: 6025 576 7386 9

 

TP_HI_TD_1.png

 

 

“Rambunctious, furiously funky…. [This sextet offers] the sort of head-bobbing drive and invention that has landed Iyer on multiple best-of lists over the years”

                                                                                                            — Los Angeles Times, June 2017

 

Keyboardist-composer Vijay Iyer’s energized sequence of ECM releases has garnered copious international praise. Yet his fifth for the label since 2014 – Far From Over, featuring his dynamically commanding sextet – finds Iyer reaching a new peak, furthering an artistry that led him to be voted DownBeat Artist of the Year in 2012, 2015 and 2016 and for The Guardian to dub his work the “dizzying pinnacle of contemporary jazz multitasking.” Far From Over features this sextet of virtuoso improvisers – with horn players Graham Haynes, Steve Lehman and Mark Shim alongside rhythm partners Stephan Crump and Tyshawn Sorey – leveraging a wealth of jazz history even as the group pushes boldly forward. The music ranges from the thrillingly explosive (“Down to the Wire,” “Good on the Ground”) to the cathartically elegiac (“For Amiri Baraka,” “Threnody”), with melodic hooks, entrancing atmosphere, rhythmic muscle and an elemental spirit all part of the allure. “This group has a lot of fire in it, but also a lot of earth, because the tones are so deep, the timbres and textures,” Iyer says. “There’s also air and water – the music moves.”

Iyer’s previous ECM releases include A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke, a duet album with iconic trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith from last year; Break Stuff from 2015, featuring his longstanding trio with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore; the ravishing 35-minute score to the 2013 film Radhe Radhe – Rites of Holi, presenting Iyer alongside the International Contemporary Ensemble; and Mutations, Iyer’s ECM debut as a leader, showcasing an extended suite for piano, string quartet and electronics. Far From Over found Iyer working in his sextet at New York City’s Avatar Studios, with Manfred Eicher producing the album. Throughout, the pianist plays off the melodic-rhythmic possibilities of the material in a characteristically engaging way – witness his solos in the grooving “In Action” and “Nope.” His orchestration of the horns is both textural and exciting, but in creating his sextet music, Iyer tends to “build from the rhythm first, from the identity of the groove,” he explains. “Many of the rhythms come from folk music – from West African drumming or Indian classical music. ‘Good on the Ground’ draws on South Indian folk rhythms, with this simple but rugged dance quality, a bounce that makes you feel like you might be at an outdoor festival of some kind.”

The member of the sextet with whom Iyer has had the longest relationship is bassist Stephan Crump. “I’ve played with Stephan since I moved to New York in 1999, contacting him out of the blue when he didn’t know me from Adam. Stephan is in my trio but was also in my quartet, so we’ve made a lot of records together. It’s often said that my music is complicated, but Stephan has a way of giving it this lyricism and simplicity, backing off technical details to treat the music as a shape and as a feeling.”

Drummer Tyshawn Sorey has long been an alternate member of Iyer’s trio, often subbing whenever Gilmore can’t make the gig. Iyer and Sorey have also worked together in various other configurations since 2001, including the sessions for Radhe Radhe. “Tyshawn has perfect pitch and total recall, this sort of omniscient listening skill,” Iyer says. “There are other drummers like that: Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts and Jack DeJohnette come to mind. Tony Williams was like that, too – just hyper-aware of everything that’s happening in the ensemble. Tyshawn is right in that legacy. He has this total view of music, with an understanding of how form and memory are related and how they work through time. He’s a wizard with that. And as a drummer, he has some of the most incredible technical virtuosity, but his groove, his pocket is so deep.”

 

The track “Nope” has a deep funk to it, illustrating Iyer’s point about Sorey’s grooving abilities. Then there is the rhythm trio’s cohesive, high-energy base that the horns fly over ecstatically in “Far From Over,” “Good on the Ground” and “Down to the Wire” (the latter of which also includes a long, roiling solo by Sorey). The elegy “For Amiri Baraka” is given a dramatic trio performance, sans horns. Through touring as a trio, Iyer, Crump and Sorey have developed their own discrete character as a rhythm section, having spent much time “in the heat of things, finding ways to make music work,” the pianist says. “That’s given us a certain unity together. There aren’t many words for it, and there’s no shortcut to getting there. We’ve learned over the years how to hold something down and also how to grow something – how to create the arc of an experience for the audience and ourselves.” 

 

The three horn players on Far From Over – Graham Haynes (cornet, flugelhorn and electronics), Steve Lehman (alto saxophone) and Mark Shim (tenor sax) – “are some of my favorite musicians,” Iyer says. “Each of them has a unique identity, sound and vision.” About Shim, whose solo roars through album opener “Poles,” Iyer says: “I think Mark is the rare tenor player of his generation to have that depth and size of sound. With him, I hear all these references: Joe Henderson, Billy Harper, Coleman Hawkins. It’s like taking a sip of a certain wine, and it can have an association with all these flavors. Each of these guys has a sound that has so many nuances and textures that make me think of a lot of other music. Partly, it’s because each of them has had such a long, interesting career. Mark played with Betty Carter and Elvin Jones. He has a lot of wisdom from contact with some of the legends in this music.”

 

Haynes – whose horn pairs sensuously with Iyer’s Fender Rhodes in “Poles” (shades of late-’60 Miles Davis) and has extended atmospheric features with electronics in “End of the Tunnel” and “Wake” – enjoyed more than just working contact with jazz icons. “Graham’s father is drummer Roy Haynes, a true legend, so Graham comes directly from that musical legacy,” Iyer explains. “He has a certain relationship to time that’s mysterious. I remember when I had him up as faculty at Banff in Canada a few summers ago, he gave a workshop titled ‘Time Does Not Exist.’ There’s a quality to his playing where you hear that sensibility, in that he has this sense of form that’s really expansive. You hear in his improvisations that he takes the long view, and he achieves a lot with sound, where one note can speak volumes.”

 

Iyer has worked with Lehman – who gives an especially stirring, climactic performance in “Threnody” – nearly as long as his rhythm mates. “I met Steve when he was playing in Anthony Braxton’s group,” the pianist recalls. “Steve turned my head with his sound and his improvisational language. Again, it conjured up a lot of associations: Braxton himself, but also Jackie McLean, with whom he studied. I also heard a compositional wisdom in the way Steve improvised. There’s a burning alto-player sound that people are used to hearing, whether it’s Cannonball Adderley or Kenny Garrett. Steve can have that quality with his technical fluidity and an acerbic sound that can cut. But the way he puts solos and lines together, there’s a lot of other information in there, too. We’ve worked pretty steadily together for more than a dozen years, including in the trio Fieldwork that we’ve had with Tyshawn. So, with all of these guys, I have deep history and great admiration.”

 

In his liner note for Far From Over, Iyer hints at the driving, free-minded spirit of the album by quoting Wadada Leo Smith on the ideal function of music, saying that it should “transform” a listener’s life if only for an instant, “so that when they go back to the routine part of living, they carry with them a little bit of something else.”

 

Iyer expands on that notion while reflecting on the troubled socio-political climate around the world: “There’s a resistance in this music, an insistence on dignity and compassion, a refusal to be silenced. The music can hit hard while also having a searching quality, a yearning – which is basically a blues aesthetic that has been abstracted and then embodied in different ways by the different players in the group. There’s a defiance there, though it’s balanced by a unity the sextet achieves. Defiance and unity, somehow together – that’s the sound this band captures to me. Joy and danger – that spectrum of possibilities is in there, too. There’s real exuberance in the playing, though a lot of the music is fiendishly difficult to play. Sometimes we don’t know how we’re going to make it, which puts us in this vulnerable space. But that vulnerability enables us to access emotion and bring that into the music. It’s not about showing off a certain prowess or being ‘angry.’ It’s about being vulnerable – that has to be in the music. When I hear that in somebody else, I feel like it’s inviting me in. When you reveal something of yourself in the course of making music, it brings the listener right up close to you. It can make them feel involved in the music, so that it’s a shared experience. And that’s the idea.”

 

 

 

VijaySextet MADMIMI

  

Vijay Iyer piano, Fender Rhodes; Graham Haynes cornet, flugelhorn, electronics 
Steve Lehman alto saxophone; Mark Shim tenor saxophone; Stephan Crump double-bass 
Tyshawn Sorey drums

 

Keyboardist-composer Vijay Iyer’s energized sequence of ECM releases has garnered copious international praise. Yet his fifth for the label since 2014 – Far From Over, featuring his dynamically commanding sextet – finds Iyer reaching a new peak, furthering an artistry that led The Guardian to call him “one of the world’s most inventive new-generation jazz pianists” and The New Yorker to describe him as “extravagantly gifted… brilliantly eclectic.” Far From Over features a sextet of virtuoso improvisers – with horn players Graham Haynes, Steve Lehman and Mark Shim alongside rhythm partners Stephan Crump and Tyshawn Sorey – leveraging a wealth of jazz history even as it pushes boldly forward. The music ranges from the thrillingly explosive (“Down to the Wire,” “Good on the Ground”) to the cathartically elegiac (“For Amiri Baraka,” “Threnody”), with melodic hooks, entrancing atmosphere, rhythmic muscle and an elemental spirit all part of the allure. “This group has a lot of fire in it, but also a lot of earth, because the tones are so deep, the timbres and textures,” Iyer says. “There’s also air and water – the music moves.”

 

ECM-2581 rev

 

amaz

 

***

 

Vijay Iyer Sextet On Tour

August 5 Newport, RI (Newport Jazz Festival)

September 4 Detroit, MI (Detroit Jazz Festival)

September 17 Monterey, CA (Monterey Jazz Festival) 

October 20 Brooklyn, NY (BRIC Festival)

January 9 - 13 New York, NY (Birdland)

January 20 San Francisco, CA (SFJAZZ, Miner Auditorium)

April 27 Los Angeles, CA (Disney Hall) 

May 11 Appleton, WI (Lawrence Memorial Chapel)

 

***

 

For information on these and other concerts between these dates, 
visit vijay-iyer.com

 

Top banner Photo © Lynne Harty/ECM Records

 

email twitter facebook_custom youtube_custom

  

 

© 2017 ECM | ECM Records USA | 1755 Broadway, 3rd floor | New York NY 10011 

 

 
 

 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

So I've only listened to this a few times and I may be overreacting, but dang, this is a good one.

Rhythmically it reminds me of Steve Coleman or Tim Berne's music at times (those pulsing, repeating ostinato rhythms), but the three-horn front line inevitably also recalls some of the inside/out BN efforts from the 1960s - Andrew Hill especially.

Edited by Guy Berger
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting thoughts which I share however I've come to a slightly different conclusion. I'm a bit disappointed that it does sound so like an inside/outside BN (which I love) - I find it a bit unadventurous on that front. I, too, hear the Coleman and Berne influences but find it doesn't quite stand up in comparison to recent releases of both.

Haynes is the standout player for me

I may also be overreacting, I was very excited by the line up and feel a little deflated after a few listens. I've tickets for their London gig in October which i'm still really looking forward to and by then the album may have "clicked" with me.

Edited by mjazzg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll be reviewing this, I like it so far.  I did note the Steve Coleman esque influence too, and now that you mention it, the Hill.  ECM's New York recordings balance the cinematic presentation with intensity perfectly.  I really liked the Iyer/Wadada "A Cosmic Rhythm In Each Stroke" last year, beautiful and on edge.  I'll put it out again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Outstanding disc, in my opinion. There's lots in there - I have to think of Andrew Hill often when I hear these guys (Steve Lehman live can really channel Jackie McLean, btw) ... Marh Shim has an amazing solo towards the end, and it's great to hear Graham Haynes again ... Crump is very much alright, though not a guy whose presence would lead me to buy discs, it's usually the others he's with (Iyer, Lehman, Halvorson, Laubrock/Smythe), Tyshawn Sorey may suffer just a bit from ECM's sound, but in general this is a very good production (listening to the CD, heard the LP wasn't so good, but the friend reporting that isn't sure if his copy was bad - so bad it seems to sound, maybe it's indeed his copy, who knows).

Anyway, other than that BN vibe, there's of course the spectral stuff (which doesn't need a vibraphone as in Lehman's octet), there's Coleman and that M-Base vibe, and there's lots of hip hop, too - "Break Stuff" was going in that direction even more so, and was brilliant already, I found. The entire mixture here is really something of its own. Way to go, Mr. Iyer!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, king ubu said:

Outstanding disc, in my opinion. There's lots in there - I have to think of Andrew Hill often when I hear these guys (Steve Lehman live can really channel Jackie McLean, btw) ... Marh Shim has an amazing solo towards the end, and it's great to hear Graham Haynes again ... Crump is very much alright, though not a guy whose presence would lead me to buy discs, it's usually the others he's with (Iyer, Lehman, Halvorson, Laubrock/Smythe), Tyshawn Sorey may suffer just a bit from ECM's sound, but in general this is a very good production (listening to the CD, heard the LP wasn't so good, but the friend reporting that isn't sure if his copy was bad - so bad it seems to sound, maybe it's indeed his copy, who knows).

Anyway, other than that BN vibe, there's of course the spectral stuff (which doesn't need a vibraphone as in Lehman's octet), there's Coleman and that M-Base vibe, and there's lots of hip hop, too - "Break Stuff" was going in that direction even more so, and was brilliant already, I found. The entire mixture here is really something of its own. Way to go, Mr. Iyer!

I agree - outstanding IMO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, king ubu said:

One other thought that crossed my mind: I would like to get an alternate version of the entire album with Marcus Gilmore's hip shit drumming, which is fiercer, lighter, and punchier than Sorey's more horizontal, expansive playing.

Just noticed that Gilmour's now listed as playing with the sextet on Friday when I'm due to see them. I had been looking forward to seeing Sorey but Gilmour's a hell of a dep

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Sorey is the dep, not quite sure though ... when I heard Lehman at Berlin Jazzfest last year, Gilmore was with Wadada's "Great Lakes Quartet" and was effin' awesome! Sorey was with Myra Melford's "Snowy Egret", and Lehman had a terrific sub (for Sorey) in Cody Brown, whose name I'd not noticed before.

Plenty great drummers around these days! :tup

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Makes sense that Gilmour should be the regular drummer if the sextet's an expansion of the trio, I guess.

I've only seen Sorey once, with the Lehman Octet, and he took the roof off the Vortex that night. I see Sorey's the artist-in-residence at this year's Berlin Jazzfest. Should bode well

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Late to the party on this one. Despite it looking good on paper the teaser videos left me cold and i struggled to get in to it when listening on Spotify. With it appearing on so many board favourites and critics 'best of' lists i decided to buy the CD and give it a fair go.

Really enjoying it. Hope that the group continues to work together, would be nice for them to be a thing and have a sequence of albums. It's tempting to read in to the title and project on it, but when listening to this i can't help but feel that it's a bit of a celebration (for want of a better way of putting it) of contemporary jazz/improv. Intentional or not it definitely feels good to me.

Not sure who wrote the press release above but isn't that Lehman rather than Shim soloing on Poles?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 23.12.2017 at 0:29 PM, Scott Dolan said:

IMO, Stephan Crump is the most outstanding bassist in Jazz right now. I’ve been listening to the trio a lot lately. He is truly next level. 

His new one on Intakt - a live recording with Kris Davis and Eric McPherson - is mighty good! 

http://www.intaktrec.ch/295-a.htm

Edited by king ubu
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...