Aquarium Drunkard - Sidecar (transmissions) - Podcast

This week on the show, a conversation with pianist, composer, bandleader, and writer, Vijay Iyer. He’s been at it since 1995, recording for labels like Savoy, Pi, and ECM, and he’s collaborated with a diverse and inspiring roster along the way including Amiri Baraka, Matana Roberts, Das Racist, previous Transmissions guest Wadada Leo Smith, and many more. His records have incorporated electronic music and spoken word, chamber jazz reverence and loose, free falling blues.  Last year, in collaboration with vocalist Arooj Aftab and bassist Shazhad Ismaily, he released Love in Exile on the Verve label. Writing about the album for our 2023 Year in Review, we called it “A spectral meeting of the minds. This haunting and luminous se…locates a nexus between ambient, jazz, and classical, all while feeling entirely conjured in the moment—because it was.”  Now he’s back with a new ECM release, Compassion, and in another trio, reuniting with his bandmates on 2021’s stirring Uneasy, bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer T