Not for nothing was Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith’s Defiant Life lauded last year. Iyer read mathematics and physics as an undergraduate, and I think it helps to know that when listening. The volume in Smith’s trumpet has nothing to do with loudness and everything to do with space, and the feeling that there are many dimensions very close at hand. A set can be vanishingly thin and still enclose an enormous space. Smith plays a few notes at the threshold of audibility and it feels like they could fill a cathedral. Iyer has discussed all of this here.
Which is why I’m looking forward to Fifteen, out on Nonesuch on 21 August, the first record from the trio Iyer has kept with Henry Threadgill and Dafnis Prieto since 2012. Two pieces are already on YouTube. Prieto’s “Gently Trapped” is a skittering through key changes looking for the exits. Iyer’s “I Wanted a Map” borrows its title from an Eve Ewing poem. Every map is a projection and every projection discards a dimension. Iyer goes looking for one, and always finds several.
So, this weekend, tune in, and pre-order your copy here.