- Playing
- JazzStories: Vijay Iyer
- From
- Murray Street Productions
Self-taught pianist Vijay Iyer is one of the most original musicians currently working in jazz. His music is based firmly in the jazz tradition, but also encompasses a wide range of western and non-western sources including his South Asian roots. An accomplished electronic musician as well, Iyer's work is also informed by his academic background which includes a Phd. in music and technology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Also in the JazzStories series
JazzStories: Reid Anderson
(16:32)
From: Murray Street Productions
"Smells Like Teen Spirit," in particular sounds like a modal jazz tune. That's one of the funniest things to me. It says so much about people's attitudes in jazz towards rock ...
JazzStories: Mary Halvorson
(18:32)
From: Murray Street Productions
"I want to have clarity of ideas and I want to be able to execute ideas. So if I'm going to play something really sloppy, I want it to be sloppy on purpose, not sloppy ...
JazzStories: Stefon Harris
(07:39)
From: Murray Street Productions
"When I started to play jazz... I started in the middle. I wanted to play Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and all of that stuff first... When I started checking out Louis ...
JazzStories: Christian McBride
(16:39)
From: Murray Street Productions
"I always thought of the acoustic bass as the quintessential jazz instrument... I knew that jazz meant cool, and hip, and on the cutting edge, and to me that was my great ...
JazzStories: Freddie Hubbard
(11:41)
From: Murray Street Productions
"When people get two trumpet players it becomes very competitive...It was [Booker Little], Lee Morgan and myself at the time. We we're the young guys here. So it was very ...
JazzStories: The Three Cohens
(14:45)
From: Murray Street Productions
"We have a mixture of many elements from the world. The classical music from Europe- the sense of melody and deep harmonic sense- and on the other side we have people coming ...
JazzStories: Dr. Lonnie Smith
(10:19)
From: Murray Street Productions
"They name it -- they just come up with all kinds of names..."'Funk'... 'jazz' or... 'acid jazz.' Or they named it 'boogaloo.' We don't know anything about that. We just ...
JazzStories: Toshiko Akiyoshi
(12:08)
From: Murray Street Productions
"The fact is my parents lost all of their assets. If I didn't have something (I was) really into, in my case was piano and jazz, I think it would have been really difficult ...
JazzStories: Catherine Russell
(14:27)
From: Murray Street Productions
"Singing lead is all about you. The focus is on you. Your name is on the ticket. The people have paid to see you...So you are responsible for your audience. Kinda like, ...
JazzStories: Jonathan Batiste
(17:44)
From: Murray Street Productions
"I felt like I had to do more in order for people to think of what they would think of another musician—about the level of intellect or artistry of what I was doing…A big ...
Related Pieces
Piece Description
Self-taught pianist Vijay Iyer is one of the most original musicians currently working in jazz. His music is based firmly in the jazz tradition, but also encompasses a wide range of western and non-western sources including his South Asian roots. An accomplished electronic musician as well, Iyer's work is also informed by his academic background which includes a Phd. in music and technology from the University of California at Berkeley.
