Vijay's way

A JazzTimes piece on pianist and composer Vijay Iyer, who's got to be the only jazz musician with a PhD in music AND cognitive science, prompted me to pick up his new CD "Reimagining." It's one of the most interesting things I've heard this year, adventurous 21st century jazz bordering on, and sometimes in, the avant-garde.

"Revolutions" and "Inertia," which open the session, remind me of The Bad Plus, high volume, dense, group-oriented sonic explorations in a jazz context. "Song for Midwood" works some Indian rhythms (Iyer's parents are Indian immigrants) into a McCoy Tynerish-sounding piece and he continues to do so elsewhere ("The Big Almost") on the disk, which is attention grabbing from beginning to end. All the compositions are Iyer's, except for a near-classical recasting of John Lennon's "Imagine."

As a pianist, I don't believe Iyer can be pigeonholed, but if you think of a mix of Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Dave Brubeck you've got an idea. Rudresh Mahanthappa is powerful and creative on alto sax in a Tony Malaby or Joshua Redman way and Stephan Crump and Marcus Gilmore are a perfect fit on bass and drums. This is special stuff.