A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke – Iyer

   in Piano International (May, 2016)
Though a generation apart, Vijay Iyer (born 1971) and his ‘hero, friend, and teacher’ Wadada Leo Smith (born 1941), play with one accord on this remarkably beautiful album. They’ve worked together before in the trumpeter’s Golden Quartet, where, says Iyer, their ‘spontaneous duo episodes’ opened up ‘a space of possibility’ that led to this CD. Its centrepiece is a largely improvised, 50-minute suite inspired by the abstract drawings of Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-90), each image, according to Iyer, ‘a revelation of the infinite’. Smith’s trumpet, with its stark declamations and lyrical flourishes, is astutely balanced by Iyer’s discreet, more grounded yet wonderfully imaginative piano filigree. …
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