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- JazzStories: Vijay Iyer
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- 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: Mulgrew Miller
(11:02)
From: Murray Street Productions
“I think of a lot of things when I’m playing the piano and one of the last things I think about is the piano…you try to somehow think and feel like a singer or horn player ...
JazzStories: Michael Cuscuna
(17:26)
From: Murray Street Productions
"I guess it was about 3rd or 4th grade that I got hooked on R & B and early rock & roll. I just became a fanatical record collector even at that age. Not a massive ...
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 ...
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.
