A cosmic rhythm with each stroke

Description

For his new album, Vijay Iyer teams up with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, whom the pianist considers his "hero, friend, and teacher." While Vijay had previously played with Wadada in Smith's Golden Quartet, this album is the first testament to their work as a duo, produced by Manfred Eicher at Avatar Studios in New York in October 2015. The enchanting eponymous suite of the album, which constitutes its central piece, is dedicated to Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-1990), the innovative Indian artist whose improvised imagery evokes distracted rhythms. Trumpet and piano interact here with a creative sensitivity related to sound, texture, and space. Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith will create A cosmic rhythm with each stroke at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in March 2016 during a major exhibition dedicated to the art and writing of Nasreen Mohamedi. The suite is surrounded by Iyer's composition "Passage" and Smith's piece "Marian Anderson," inspired by the great American contralto.