CD ECM Records Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith: A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke

2016

Vijay Iyer - pian, Fender Rhodes, electronice
Wadada Leo Smith - trompeta

a cosmic rhythm with each stroke features pianist Viay Iyer and the musician he has described as his “hero, friend and teacher”, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. Vijay has previously played extensively with Wadada in Smith’s Golden Quartet, but the present album is the first documentation of their duo work, produced by Manfred Eicher at New York’s Avatar Studios in October 2015. The centre-piece of the album is the spellbinding title suite, dedicated to Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-1990), the innovative Indian artist whose improvisatory imagery evokes abstracted rhythms. Trumpet and piano interact here with creative sensitivity to tone, texture and space. Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith will be premiering a cosmic rhythm with each stroke at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in March 2016 in the context of a major exhibition dedicated to Nasreen Mohamedi’s art and writings. The “suite for Nasreen” is framed on the album by Iyer’s composition “Passage” and Smith’s concluding piece “Marian Anderson”, inspired by the great US contralto.

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A trumpet/piano duo is a tough call, but the two operate with a charismatic delicacy and subtle force. The centrepiece is a largely improvised seven-part suite dedicated to Indian visual artist Nasreen Mohamedi. Smith’s tone and phrasing often reflect mid-period Miles Davis, but he blends free jazz into those resources with a unique poetic focus. Long high squeals and tumbling unfold over Iyer’s humming electronics, a bright brass fanfare soars over a chordal rumble, and a lamenting muted-trumpet descent invokes ‘Sketches of Spain’. Iyer mostly functions as a discreet foil, but this intimate conversation swells from interesting to enthralling as it unfolds.
John Fordham, The Guardian


One of the album’s most compelling features is its logical framework, which is especially the case on the suite. Whether agreeing upon a rough roadmap beforehand, or working it out in the moment (that it is unclear makes the feat even more impressive), Iyer and Smith create a narrative that captivates and draws the listener ever closer to the music. Given the album’s excellence and amount of critical acclaim Iyer and Smith have received in recent years, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a cosmic rhythm with each stroke at the top of several year-end best of lists and critics polls. It is a significant accomplishment.
Chris Robinson, Point of Departure

The new record takes its title from a line in the diaries of Nasreen Mohamedi, the Indian visual artist who died in 1990, and whose drawings and photographs are being exhibited at the Met Breuer. A large part of the record — a seven-part suite with the same title as the album — is inspired by that work and shares some of its characteristics: repetition and mysticism, bold purpose and open space, abstraction and gorgeousness. […] The album is bookended with compositions by Mr. Iyer and Mr. Smith, and in the middle comes the suite, credited to them both: delicate improvised music with an arc, from rigor practiced in turns to a more impassioned, breathing-together quality.
Ben Ratliff, The New York Times


On ‘a cosmic rhythm with each stroke’ Iyer reconnects with Smith in a studio for the first time since appearing as a sideman on the trumpeter’s 2009 album Spiritual Dimensions. Their meeting here results in a frequently gorgeous, sometimes roiling set that stands out in each artist’s catalog.
Seth Colter Walls, Pitchfork


At times, the two reach a level of delicacy approaching silence, while at other times, they enter a slightly louder zone, utilizing freer rhythms and tonalities. Smith’s trumpet sings plaintively and is often the most immediate presence to the casual listener. But Iyer never sinks completely into the background. His lines simultaneously show great sensitivity and independence. These two musicians demonstrate a wonderful telepathy, and exemplify the kind of egalitarian beauty possible in the duo format. […] one can only hope these two will continue to work together, both as a duo and in a larger group context.
Allen Griffin, Burning Ambulance

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