THE GIG

Another (Live) Top 10

Pop and Jazz Concert Highs of 2011

(With Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Ben Ratliff)

Kind Folk

Jennifer Taylor for The New York Times

Kenny Wheeler Quintet

Jazz Standard, Oct. 23

The Piano, at Night, with You

 

Lonely Voyage of Player, Piano and Audience

Arts & Leisure, July 3

(More on this topic here next week)

Last Songs

Angela Jimenez for the New York Times

Tomasz Stanko Quartet featuring Chris Potter

Jazz Standard, Jan. 13

Advanced Studies

 File under: self-promotion, duologue, pianism. This weekend I will be in Princeton, N.J. for a pair of concerts featuring Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn. The two pianists, former section-mates in the superb new-music ensemble Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory, will perform back-to-back solo sets, followed by new works for duo piano. To quote from the program notes: “Both pianists share an enthusiasm for structural rigor and rhythmic precision, but also maintain a more gestural, interpretive and intuitive approach to improvisation.”

 The event(s) comes courtesy of the Institute for Advanced Study, a center for theoretical research with a distinguished history. (Einstein is among the more prominent former faculty.) Iyer and Taborn are appearing at the invitation of composer Derek Bermel, the Institute’s current Artist-in-Residence. My contribution will be a post-concert conversation on Friday and a pre-concert talk on Saturday.

Tickets are free, but way gone. (I’m told that the waiting list is substantial.) No word on whether this collaboration will yield a future spate of bookings, but as precedent has taught us, it could happen.