 Vijay Iyer © Andrea Canter
2012 has been a remarkable year for Vijay Iyer. Iyer received top honors in five categories of the 2012 Down Beat International Critics Poll, including Jazz Artist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year (for Accelerando), Jazz Group of the Year (for the Vijay Iyer Trio), Pianist of the Year and Rising Star Composer. No other artist in the sixty-year history of the magazine’s poll has ever taken five titles simultaneously For his UCLA concert he will perform in three contexts. His trio, featuring Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums, starts out the evening, pushing the classic combo configuration to entirely new territories. Vijay’s new sextet, featuring the core trio plus legendarily influential alto-saxophonist Steve Coleman, with the addition of Graham Haynes on trumpet and cornet, and Mark Shim on tenor sax, will close out the evening. The Concert takes place at 7:00 p.m.on Sunday, October 14th at UCLA - Royce Hall in Los Angeles.
Grammy-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer was described by Pitchfork as "one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today," by The New Yorker as one of "today's most important pianists... extravagantly gifted... brilliantly eclectic," and by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star.” His most recent honors include an unprecedented “quintuple crown” in the Down Beat International Critics Poll (winning Jazz Artist of the Year, Pianist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year, Jazz Group of the Year, and Rising Star Composer categories), as well as the $275,000 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and the $30,000 Greenfield Prize, all awarded in 2012. He was voted the 2010 Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association, and named one of the “50 Most Influential Global Indians” by GQ India. Iyer has released sixteen albums as a leader; his most recent, Accelerando (2012), an “early front-runner for jazz album of the year” (The New York Times), is an intense, visceral, and widely acclaimed follow-up to the multiple- award-winning Historicity (2009), both featuring the Vijay Iyer Trio (Iyer, piano; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Stephan Crump, bass). Historicity was a 2010 Grammy Nominee for Best Instrumental Jazz Album, and was named #1 Jazz Album of the Year in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Metro Times, National Public Radio, PopMatters.com, the Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll, and the Downbeat International Critics Poll. The trio won the 2010 Echo Award (the "German Grammy") for best international ensemble and the 2012 Downbeat Critics Poll for jazz group of the year. Iyer’s many other honors include the Alpert Award in the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and numerous composer commissions.  Steve Coleman © Luciano Rossetti Steve Coleman joins Vijay Iyer in the second set for a rare guest appearance. The sonic impact of Coleman’s playing cannot be understated. For more than four decades, he has pushed the concept of jazz in ways few others have. With more than 20 records as leader and as part of the visionary collective of composers known as M-Base, Coleman remains a vital part of the exploratory, improvised sound that is contemporary jazz. As Iyer puts it: “To me, Steve is as important as Coltrane ... What sits behind his influence is this global perspective on music and life. He has a point of view of what he does and why he does it ….”
UCLA - Royce Hall is located at 340 Royce Drive in Los Angeles. For tickets visit www.angelcityjazz.com/artists/vijay-iyer-special-guest-steve-coleman.
Special price for bundled Bill Frisell and Vijay Iyer/Steve Coleman concerts Oct 13 & 14. Click Here. |
Los Angeles 
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
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