An Interview With Improvisational Geniuses Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily

The Pitchfork Review

Pitchfork

Music, Music Commentary, Music Interviews, Music History

3.3 • 844 Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Puja Patel chats with the three musical masters about the winding road of jazz history, the magic of collaboration, and their new album as a trio, Love in Exile.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the pitchfork review. I'm Pooja Patel, the editor-in-chief. And today I want to start the show a little differently. So close To Remain to Return and hope.
0:37.2	And it's a meditation on longing, mourning,
0:39.7	mourning, and hope. The track is the first release from Love in Exile, a project created by three
0:47.1	insanely talented musicians, Aroujafthab, Vijayr, and Shazad Ismaili. And I'm lucky enough that all three of them are joining
0:56.8	me in the studio right now. Welcome. Thank you. What's happening? It is so exciting to have you here
1:02.8	in our studios, but let me first properly introduce everyone here. VJ. Iyer is a pianist, a composer,
1:10.6	a MacArthur Genius winner, and a Grammy Award
1:13.5	nominee who we have called, quote, one of the best in the world at what he does, which is to
1:20.4	constantly redefine contemporary jazz. Shazad Ismaili is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist who has picked up basically every instrument
1:30.0	and become a go-to musician, composer, engineer, and producer. He's played with legends
1:36.2	like Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, John Zorn, Bob Dylan, and Yoko Ono. And A Rouge of Tab is a Grammy
1:43.8	award-winning singer, composer, and producer, known for her blend of traditional South Asian music, songwriting, and jazz.
1:51.0	Her last record, Vulture Prince, was a best new music and one of our favorite albums of 2021.
1:57.0	So Love and Exile is your first project together.
2:01.5	And as artists, you come from pretty different musical and historical lineages.
2:07.4	I'm wondering how did this project really get started?
2:10.9	So Vijay, while he has his mainstay projects going on, he kind of puts together these like supergroups sort of, I think all
2:19.5	his friends are just really talented musicians. Like, we've performed with like Taishon and, you know,
2:25.3	Ambrose and More Mother and Aja and Linda. Like, it's ridiculous, right? I mean, just all stars.
2:31.7	In my mind, just like musical geniuses.
2:34.9	And then he had this other group with Rafiq Bhadya, Himanshu, Casa overall, and then,
2:41.8	you know, we kind of on the fly just from backstage, one of those gigs like played a
	...

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