The Transitory Poems (Live at Liszt Academy, Budapest, 2018)

The Transitory Poems (Live at Liszt Academy, Budapest, 2018)

The piano duo project of New Yorkers Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn has always been a creature of the concert hall, not the studio. So it’s fitting for their recorded debut to capture one such concert, in Hungary, with satisfied applause at the end and the occasional deep-lung cough in the quiet parts. Iyer and Taborn don’t play prepared songs so much as journey together into the unknown, with a harmonically advanced palette and a forceful approach to rhythm, particularly on “S.H.A.R.D.S.” and “Shake Down.” Sound emerges as if from a primordial nothingness on “Life Line (Seven Tensions),” somewhat like the (albeit more staccato) opening of “Clear Monolith.” Paying homage to avant-garde role models including Cecil Taylor and Muhal Richard Abrams, the two also show love for the late Geri Allen with “When Kabuya Dances,” a solo piano stunner from her 1984 debut, The Printmakers, here a bracing, expressive 21st-century reboot from two of Allen’s foremost creative heirs.

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