Vijay Iyer
Compassion

Vijay Iyer piano
Linda May Han Oh double bass
Tyshawn Sorey drums
Recorded May 2022 at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY
Engineer: Ryan Streber
Mixed July/August 2022
Cover photo: Jan Kricke
Produced by Vijay Iyer and Manfred Eicher
Release date: February 2, 2024

In this follow-up to 2021’s Uneasy, the debut of pianist-composer Vijay Iyer’s trio with bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, the humanity quotient has been exponentially magnified. The resulting session is a kaleidoscope of inspirations that constantly redefines itself without ever losing touch with the center. As Iyer puts it in his liner notes, “music is always about, animated by, and giving expression to the world around us: people, relations, circumstances, revelations.” We might add to this list its importance as a sacred gift of communication. In that respect, the title track looks through the world as if through eyes screened by eyelashes knitted together until now by coma. Light that once seemed quotidian and unremarkable feels so bright that it illuminates the soul. As the first in a chain of mostly originals, it speaks of the pianist’s willingness to seek revelation in his physical and spiritual travels. “Arch,” for example, references the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a champion for abolishing apartheid in South Africa who also saw music as something we were made to enjoy. Oh’s bassing is a joy in and of itself, articulating shapes of reason in a world seemingly devoid of it. Rather than use the master’s tools, she draws her own from within. That same duality of spirit carries over into “Overjoyed” (Stevie Wonder), the choice of which was inspired by a piano loaned to Iyer that once belonged to the late Chick Corea, who had played the song as part of his final livestream before his death in 2021. The result is a meta-statement of the album’s M.O., in which the trio communes by intertwining personal histories into a collective truth. Iyer’s balance of staccato motifs in the left hand and abstract runs in the right, ever anchored by a sense of rhythm, embodies this worldview to the fullest. Oh’s solo suspends cuts an emotional snapshot into pieces and reassembles in the image of love. “Maelstrom,” “Tempest,” and “Panegyric” all come from Tempest, which is dedicated to victims of the pandemic. These pieces shower themselves in unity, catching the runoff so as not to waste even a single droplet. Nestled between them is “Prelude: Orison,” a nod to Iyer’s father that treats the expanse between stars not as an excuse to draw lines in mimicry of all that we see (or wish to see) but as an invitation to meditate. “Where I Am,” “Ghostrumental,” and “It Goes” hark to Ghosts Everywhere I Go, a 2022 ensemble project inspired by the writings of Chicago poet Eve L. Ewing. Smooth and rough textures abound in this triptych, from gliding figure-eights and groove-laden romps to the latter tune’s dawn-lit wonders. How fitting that this should have accompanied verses that saw Emmett Till as “an elder still among us, enjoying the ordinary life that should have been his.” Such is a life we should all be able to live in a world punched in the stomach daily by things even more indiscriminate than a virus. If anything, Roscoe Mitchell’s “Nonaah” (Roscoe Mitchell) is a maelstrom in which chaos breeds order. It is creation incarnate, a navigator in the swirling molecular business of survival. The double-header of “Free Spirits / Drummer’s Song” (John Stubblefield/Geri Allen) delineates a safe groove space. In it, we recognize that behind every smile is the tension of all who died to make it possible. And so, when Iyer claims, “I am no more qualified than anyone else to tell you anything new about compassion,” this is no statement of false humility but rather an honest realization that music tells us what is old about compassion, for without it, there would be no creation in which to set flame to its wick. Like the block paragraph of these words, it stands firm in the face of our temptation to parse it, resolved to be itself.