Vijay Iyer experiments in Detroit

Music takes on all different shapes and sizes, and even jazz must sometimes take the road less travelled — a route the Vijay Iyer Trio confidently took at the Detroit Institute
of Arts.

The Trio included Iyer on piano, Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums. The three performed Jan. 23 in the Rivera Court under smooth purple, red and blue lights before a large backdrop of Diego Rivera’s celebrated Detroit Industry Murals.

Iyer’s music is not jazz as we know it: It is disjointed, difficult to tap your foot to and an acquired taste to some. However, it sticks with you. The style sets up camp inside your mind, and you eventually enjoy it.

Once understood, Iyer’s sound places the listener right there in the band. Because it is hard to find a distinct rhythm, as each member seems to play at a different tempo, listeners must find their beat and thus become part of the experience. It is not a sound to relax to, but anyone interested in innovative forms of the art will certainly find their time well spent.

“I think [the music] resonates with Detroiters,” said Rudy Lauerman, program director at the DIA. “I’m trying to work it into the Detroit tradition.

“We’ve had some real avant-garde jazz, and sometimes you get a less than enthusiastic response, but I try to get all the genres in there.

“I’m trying to continue the tradition of Detroit jazz and keep the jazz community working and vital to the city.”

Iyer certainly knows what he is doing, albeit bending the rules. He has been in the music world for 16 years and has played all around the world.

“Music isn’t something that pays you a lot of money,” said Iyer, a New York native, “but I’m doing it for the art and I’m doing what I want and on my terms.”

The title of Iyer’s latest album, “Tragicomic,” is a term used by author, professor and activist Cornell West to describe the African-American experience, and as Iyer interprets West, the immigrant experience.

It is a strong attitude that searches for the joy in even the worst conditions.

“The only way to confront and carry on in the face of such cruelty was to cultivate this outlook that you call a ‘tragicomic’ outlook to deal with absurdity,” Iyer said. “We all have something to learn from that, no matter what color or history we are.

“As Americans, we all participate in that history. It affects all of us.”

Music was not Iyer’s first choice of career. He did not get involved until his late 20s and can boast both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in physics and a doctorate in technology and the arts.

On the technical side of his music, he said “all music can be reduced to numbers in some way if you’re talking about rhythm, intervals, notes, dynamics and chords. These are all quantities really.”

Overall, Iyer’s sound pleased his Detroit crowd.

“I didn’t know much about his music, but I love it,” said Detroit resident Carol Aldridge-Daniels. “It’s very evocative.”