Uneasy is
Vijay Iyer's first piano trio outing since 2015's
Break Stuff. It marks the recorded debut of this group with drummer
Tyshawn Sorey and bassist
Linda May Han Oh. The trio played live across 2019 in the run-up to this December recording.
Sorey has been in
Iyer's orbit for 20 years; they first recorded together on 2003's
Blood Sutra, and also collaborated on
Iyer's
Far from Over in 2017.
Oh got to know both men while serving as guest faculty at the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music in Alberta, Canada, where
Sorey and
Iyer are artistic co-directors. Among these nine selections are reworkings of catalog pieces including
Iyer's early "Configurations," new works, and interpretations of
Cole Porters "Night and Day," and "Drummer's Song" by pianist, mentor, and friend
Geri Allen.
The title of set-opener "Children of Flint" refers to an environmental and humanitarian crisis that occurred when the Michigan city's water supply was poisoned with lead due to neglect from its state government, which then attempted a cover-up. An ongoing investigation resulted in charges against the state's former governor. The song begins as a spectral dirge before
Sorey opens it up with ticking ride cymbals and malleted tom-toms.
Iyer asserts a loping modal melody that
Oh responds to with a driving, circular pulse before delivering a deeply melodic solo. The topical direction continues with "Combat Breathing," which
Iyer composed for a 2014 Black Lives Matter action. It offers a knotty cascade of open tonalities, resonant arpeggios, and focused harmonic interplay amid a dynamic rhythmic flow.
Iyer balances the elegant changes with angular articulations of them amid percussive left-hand infusions.
Sorey dances along his snare with his hi-hat reverberating around
Oh's swinging pizzicato fills and accents, while
Iyer responds joyously with detailed harmonic inquiry.
Allen's "Drummer's Song" begins with complex interlocking rhythms from
Iyer and
Sorey.
Oh bridges their staggered, complex, head-to-head post-bop assertions with a commanding authority. She controls the swirl of harmonic and rhythmic tension, then metes it out a little at a time, acceding to the music's own dictates regarding flow and spark. "Augury" is a solo piano meditation displaying the piano's polyphonic possibilities in
Iyer's work across the middle register. The title piece not only infers but illustrates a dramatic paradox. Its rhythmic urgency contrasts with the trio's assertion of color, mode, and dynamic. Fat chords meet driving snares as
Oh contrasts with alternating elongated and clipped bassline pulses. Closer "Entrustment" is a processional.
Iyer plays droning chords as an intro before
Sorey's tom-toms and
Oh's bass supply heft and direction. The motion is ever-widening, circular, and constant, dripping with force and poignancy.
Uneasy offers a portrait of an emergent trio discovering a multivalently complex language while simultaneously articulating its myriad possibilities. The end result is centered, action-oriented music that is at once gloriously colorful and brilliantly articulated. ~ Thom Jurek
