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Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd: In What Language?

Thirty-year-old Manhattan jazz pianist Vijay Iyer compares himself to "an architect who provides a physical structure for ideas, a structure that's present but can be played with, improvised upon." He fine-tunes the metaphor. "You have to know where the furniture is, so you can navigate the space with confidence and ease." Iyer's vivid descriptions reveal thinking that, like his music, is clear and focused -- no surprise, for Iyer has a master's degree in physics and a doctorate in music and cognitive sciences. He has been praised by jazz critic Gary Giddins as "an accomplished musician," his third and latest CD, Panoptic Modes, as "handsomely voiced," the music being "very smart and without a need to show off or push a point. [H]is music is all music."

Iyer's latest project is In What Language?, done in collaboration with experimental rapper and poet Mike Ladd and commissioned by the Asia Society in New York City and set to premiere there in May of 2003. Combining experimental jazz performance and spoken word poetry, the piece depicts interior monologues of travelers and workers at an international airport. With its departures and arrivals, the airport is a universally recognizable symbol of globalization. To Iyer, it is also "a monolithic structure, where individuals cling to their identities and their languages," perhaps as a way of resisting globalization's threatened homogeneity. For Ladd, a 31-year-old from Boston who now lives in the Bronx, a place like John F. Kennedy Airport is where "we witness the language of class [and] of race, as well as or more so than the physical language. I'm interested in finding out, how does an airport affect one's consciousness? What is the difference between a Third World and a First World airport?"

Aware of each other's work, Ladd and Iyer happened to be part of a Hard Rock Café double bill in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1997. Ladd recounts how Iyer approached him that evening and broached the possibility of working together, "for which I'm terribly grateful to him." Iyer, who played in rock bands in high school, says, "I've always listened to hip-hop; that stuff infuses my sense. I may not create it, but I am very aware of it." Among his primary jazz influences have been such greats as Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and Cecil Taylor. Being the son of Indian imigrants, he has also been exposed to classical Indian music. Asked if and how this figures in his music, Iyer replies, "I have listened a lot to South Indian music. It's very vigorous and precise, with a strong rhythmic foundation" -- like jazz and hip-hop. "My dealing with it is more mediated, nothing overt, but it's there in cross-rhythmic exchanges."

Beyond their shared musical tastes and progressive politics, the pair view American society with a critical eye, Iyer as part of the South Asian diaspora and Ladd as an African American, who incidentally spent his high school years in New Delhi. A holder of an MFA in Creative Writing, the hip-hop artist released his most recent CD, Welcome to the Afterfuture, last year, showcasing his spoken word skills and his social consciousness. He'll provide the spoken libretto to Iyer's music, basing his monologues on real-life characters from his Bronx neighborhood news articles, INS documents, other interviews he's conducting in international airports, and autobiographical material.

A veteran of spoken-word venues such as the NuYorican Poets Café in Manhattan and Brooklyn's Moon Café, Ladd acknowledges a range of litarary influences, from the 17^th century poet Ben Jonson, to James Dickey and Yusuf Komunyakaa. Ladd eschews the glam life and and the gangsta 'tude, emphasizing hip-hop's political roots, calling it "the most progressive music on the planet."

With the passion, disciplined artistry, and fresh ideas they bring to their collaboration, In What Language? is shaping up as a work sure to be marked by its powerful and eloquent musical and textual vocabulary.

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THIS PROJECT'S CATEGORIES: Performance > Music | Asian Themes | History | Politics | New York | 2002