Vijay Iyer on why jazz has always been political

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When you think of jazz, you might think of La La Land, luxury car commercials, or fancy dinner parties. Cool, sophisticated, complex, jazz today seems to signify the epitome of class and taste. For pianist Vijay Iyer, that view gets the music completely wrong. Jazz isn’t cool. Jazz is countercultural. Jazz is alive and relevant. Jazz fights racism and injustice. And for those reasons, maybe we shouldn’t be calling this music “jazz” at all. With a trio of Linda May Han Oh on bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, Iyer has recorded a new album, Uneasy, that continues the defiant political legacy of improvised music. Through songs that tackles the Flint water crisis, the murder of Eric Garner, and social unrest, Iyer connects to the key of issues of our day without saying a word. While his songs speak to our chaotic present and crackle with fierce urgency, they also reach back to elders like John Coltrane, Geri Allen, and Charles Mingus—musicians who never shied away from a fight. Songs discussed: Charlie Parker - Ko Ko Charles Mingus - Fables of Faubus, Original Faubus Fables Vijay Iyer - Children of Flint, Combat Breathing, Uneasy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Slack. With Slack, you can bring all your people and
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0:26.9	Slack.com slash DHQ.
0:42.9	Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm a musicologist, Nate Sloan. And I'm songwriter, Charlie
0:46.9	Harding. Okay, and this episode we're going to do something a little unusual. We're going
0:51.1	to talk about one of my favorite musical genres, jazz. Oh, fun. What does jazz have to do
0:56.9	with popular music? I hear you asking everything? Nothing? I don't know. Everything and nothing.
1:01.8	I mean, jazz was the popular music. It was synonymous. It was inseparable for a long time.
1:08.6	And that relationship has changed. But I think what's really exciting about a lot of jazz
1:14.2	musicians right now is that they're trying to make this music relevant to society again.
1:22.0	And one of the ways they're doing that is by tapping into the political history of this
1:30.2	music. Charlie, today I'm very excited because I'm talking to the pianist Vijay Iyer, who
1:37.0	has a new album of improvised music with his trio called Uneasy. He tackles themes of
1:59.5	injustice, the Flint water crisis, the murder of Eric Garner. I mean, heavy stuff, all
2:05.6	without saying a word. Wow, that's very powerful. It's a really striking album. And it makes
2:12.4	me think about the perception we have of jazz and improvised music and how it doesn't
2:19.5	really jive with what people are actually doing right now. Yeah, I'm interested to dive
2:25.3	into this conversation because I don't really see how live improvised instrumental music
2:32.1	can connect to larger themes. Like it feels like that could be a stretch. So how does
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