Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa and pianist Vijay Iyer, a pair of composers and improvisers of Indian lineage, have been making some of the sharpest and most exhilarating creative music anywhere in recent years.
Working as a team (on Mahanthappa’s 2004 “Mother Tongue” (Pi) or this year’s offering from Iyer, “Reimagining” (Savoy), they challenge each other to strive for new ideas, like other past masters who worked as duos. Think of John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner or Thelonious Monk and Charlie Rouse and you’ll get the picture: They make admirable music on their individual terms, but together they’re something more, letting us in on a language that they’ve created themselves.
The Mahanthappa-Iyer duo, dubbed Raw Materials, which will play a few area dates next weekend, should be of interest to anyone with open ears and a desire to discover where jazz is headed. They’re well established in New York, where they’re both based, but I was happy to learn from Seth Rosner, the proprietor of the impressive Pi record label on which both artists record, that Mahanthappa grew up in Boulder.
“I used to play on the Pearl Street Mall,” Mahanthappa tells me. “I started out with a book of TV show themes and moved on to Charlie Parker transcriptions. I made a ton of money,” he says of his high school busking days in the ’80s.
“There was even a time when I dabbled in smooth jazz with a funk trio,” he confesses with a laugh.
The pull of more challenging music led him to where he is now, playing in an engaging post-Coltrane style while establishing his own mark on the music.
He describes what he does as “contemporary modern jazz that’s influenced by my identity and the culture of my ancestry. Children of immigrants are trying to come to terms with what they are (in America).
“My composing and playing serves as a way of dealing with that. I always avoid the word ‘fusion,’ but I’m definitely influenced by Indian music.”
Mahanthappa-Iyer music is hard to classify. There are numerous elements of jazz (including improvisation and, yes, swing), attributes of modern composition and a symbiosis that only the best creative teams have. And Mahanthappa is fine with the difficulty in labeling what he and Iyer do.
“We’ve had better luck (with attracting an audience) when the promoter doesn’t use the ‘avant-garde’ tag line,” he says. “People come and groove on the energy.
“He’s like a brother,” Mahanthappa says of Iyer. “When we were introduced, we couldn’t believe that the other person existed. We’re both Indian-American children of intellectual parents. We weren’t supposed to be musicians.”
Raw Materials performs at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the King Center Recital Hall, 855 Lawrence Way on the Auraria campus. Tickets are $15. Call 303-556-2296. The duo plays at CU-Boulder’s Old Main Chapel at 7 p.m. Oct. 30.
Set list
Colorado trombonist Darren Kramer celebrates the release of his “In the Now” CD at Boulder’s Trilogy Lounge Thursday. … The audacious piano trio The Bad Plus, touring to support its new “Suspicious Activity?” CD plays the Boulder Theater Halloween night. … Fusion guitar pioneer Larry Coryell is scheduled for the Mount Vernon Country Club Nov. 3. … Ira Sullivan, equally accomplished on trumpet and saxophone, performs two nights at Dazzle Nov. 4-5. … Banjo whiz Bela Fleck and bassist Edgar Meyer team up at CU’s Macky Auditorium Nov. 10.
Bret Saunders’ column on jazz appears every other Sunday in A&E. Saunders is host of the “KBCO Morning Show,” 5:30-10 a.m. weekdays at 97.3-FM.
