Losing Jazz's Preconceptions With 'Historicity'

Losing Jazz's Preconceptions With 'Historicity' In the last few years, some enterprising younger players have reinvented the piano-bass-drums jazz combo. In Stevie Wonder's "Big Brother," Iyer reminds us that jazz versions of radio pop are nothing new, sneaking in a quote from Ramsey Lewis' '60s hit "The In Crowd." One more way Iyer breaks with tradition — or, rather, reconnects to an older jazz tradition — is by improvising from the melody more than a song's underlying chords. Iyer also covers a too-obscure jazz classic, the title track from one of the great un-reissued '70s albums, saxophonist Julius Hemphill's "Dogon A.D." The trio re-orchestrates the arid melody, but catches every rhythmic twist and hiccup in the original; bassist Crump gets the bluesy groan of Hemphill cellist Abdul Wadud. What's so impressive about Vijay Iyer's trio isn't that it plays venerable standards, forgotten jazz classics or hip-hop-inflected pop — it's that it hears all that as part of a single continuum, material equally adaptable to its methods.