Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd: Still Life with Commentator April 20, 2007

A bass groove, deep and reassuring, lures us in like a subterranean heartbeat, only to be buried under a sublime, electro-acoustic fog of sounds competing for our attention - it's the perfect opening for Still Life with Commentator, a timely show about the disorienting effects of wartime media.

The composer is the brilliant pianist-improviser Vijay Iyer, recently named Down Beat "Rising Star Jazz Artist" and "Composer of the Year." Together with post-hip-hop poet Mike Ladd ("one of contemporary hip hops greatest innovators," The Village Voice) and conceptual artist Ibrahim Quraishi, the trio delivers a trenchant and darkly comic down-tempo distillation of our romance with the digital world.

More of a bittersweet contemplation than a one-sided critique, Still Life takes the chatter of the information age and translates it into art-if only to propose its redemptive possibilities.

* Note that Lisner is presenting the concert version of this rare event.

Official Website: http://www.lisner.org/