May 6

May 6 Vijay Iyer

Demonstrations, Musicians, Jazz, Performance, Things to Do in Chicago

MacArthur Genius Award-winning pianist Vijay Iyer has a spectacular resume, filled with awards, commissions, albums, collaborations, and academic appointments. He currently releases his new works on ECM, joining a long roster of ECM artists who over the last 50 years have leveraged jazz’s past to create unique musical experiences. Iyer has worked with Jack DeJohnette, Roscoe Mitchell, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Wadada Leo Smith, Craig Taborn, and countless other equally talented musicians in a variety of configurations. So his concert at the University of Chicago’s Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts was a must-see event. Would he perform with a trio or lead an orchestra? Maybe a solo recital?

Iyer chose an orchestra filled with musicians deeply rooted in Chicago’s jazz heritage, many of whom have achieved international acclaim themselves. He was premiering a commissioned work entitled Ghosts Everywhere I Go, which included eight selections intended to reflect the Black experience in Chicago. It featured texts written by Dr. Eve L. Ewing, a University of Chicago Professor and comic book author.

Joining Iyer were Nick Dunston (bass), Jeremy Dutton (drums), Eden Girma (vocals), Nicole Mitchell (flute), Julian Terrell Otis (vocals), Jeff Parker (guitar), and Joel Ross (vibraphone).

Before addressing the performance, I want to recognize Iyer’s self-effacing nature, as well as his generosity of spirit. Before playing a single note, Iyer addressed the audience, telling them that they should applaud when they liked something — or, he added, to let them know when to stop, drawing laughter from the crowd. Iyer then sung the praises of each ensemble member. At the end of the evening’s performance, he again name-checked each musician on stage, as well as offering appreciative praise for the production staff, including the sound and lighting crew.

I am not a trained musician or a music reviewer, so I can only offer cursory observations. The entire evening took me back to the early 1970s. Overall, there was a lightness to the work—given all the speakers on stage, I had expected to be blown out with overpowering sound.

Parts of it sounded like something that might have appeared on a CTI record album. At first, the reference to CTI might be taken as pejorative because the label issued easily digestible jazz that was anything but whacked. But with CTI’s stable of artists, including George Benson, Joe Farrell, Freddie Hubbard, Herbert Laws, Stanley Turrentine, and Grover Washington, Jr., the music was always first class.

At the same time, particularly if you listened to Iyer, who played both acoustic and electric pianos, you heard stylings that could easily have been on any number of early ECM recordings. At times I thought of Eberhard Weber’s The Colour of Chloe—a tone poem; at other times, Chick Corea’s Light as a Feather album came to mind (the original one issued on ECM, not the second take on Polydor).

The ensemble offered a wide variety of aural delights. The vocalists occasionally took on a serious demeanor, but the last number might have appeared on a 1972 album that topped the R & B charts, with its gospel inflections. For me the two most notable players were Joel Ross, who is the IT vibraphonist these days, and bassist Nick Dunston. I highlight Ross’s performance tonight because it was appropriately subdued, which meant it meshed nicely with Mitchell’s efforts.

Dunston delivered the solo of the evening. This was not just deep plucking. The guy inhabited a Juan Gris painting, with Cubist rectangles spiraling upward, supported by a solid bottom.

Neither Nicole Mitchell nor Jeff Parker were slouches. Mitchell was in top form, and toward the end of the concert joined Otis and Girma on vocals. All three had trouble sitting still, as they danced in place. Parker did not go in for flashy guitar solos, but if you listened he was adding color to the festivities. Unfortunately for photographers, at times he wasn’t visible, hiding in back of everyone else and surrounded by mike and music stands on all sides.

Given Iyer’s stated intent, I was not surprised to see several on-point titles projected on the screen during the performance, including Four Boys on Ellis, True Stories About the Great Fire, I Wanted a Map Not to Know Where Things Are, But to Know Where I Am, The Negro in Chicago: A Study in Race Relations and a Race Riot (1922), Affirmation To Youth Living in Prison After Assata Shakur, and a title referencing Emmett Till.

But for me, one of the most impressive aspects of the performance was John B. White’s photography, which was also projected on the screen. I immediately recognized one of the images: A small boy and a young girl running toward the camera, with a Cabrini-Green high rise in the background. The image graces the cover of Ben Austen’s book High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing.

I did find one omission a bit odd. In the program notes Iyer added an Artist’s Statement, which focused on the great Captain Walter Dyett, the music director at DuSable High School. He then provided a long list of Dyett’s students, who include many greats from the mid-20th Century. Curiously, Iyer did not include a saxophonist or trumpeter in the mix.

The audience for this two-year Covid-delayed premiere enthusiastically expressed their appreciation of the evening’s fare. It will be interesting to see whether this work is released commercially.

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