Vijay Iyer Solo

    This album is a CD that I got for Christmas from the folks. This albums from 2010 and features Vijay Iyer doing solo recordings. They also got me Ornette Coleman's at the 'golden circle' stockholm volume 1. My dad first showed me Vijay Iyer playing with Steve Coleman awhile back on YouTube. They did an amazing duet together! Anyways, I just wanted to do a short post about this album. I am not a fan of piano nor do I enjoy listening to too much piano as I prefer saxophones playing without chordal instruments but this record is great! Vijay Iyer is a great virtuoso musician that has years of both classical training and jazz fundamentals under his belt. He's a monster on the piano but it never sounds like virtuoso ramblings. All of this is soulful and spiritually uplifting to the listener. It's that good. He puts so much heart into this music, it sounds like he's right in my living room playing on my home piano. The album starts with some standards like Human Nature and Epistrophy before going into some original compositions. The opening with Human Nature just knocks me out man. It's just beautiful. You could say that this sounds like something that would be playing in some rich or person of status's home. It has that cool, chill, and relaxed vibe with a lot of class. While I think he doesn't sound 'jazzy' like how McCoy Tyner sounds jazzy, he brings some great sounds here. As Miles Davis would say, "Nice touch." Definitely listen to this record if you like straight-ahead solo piano. Check out the last song One for Blount if you can find it on YouTube. Now that's what I call jazz!