​For more than a decade, cellist Okkyung Lee has been an integral figure in New York's experimental music scene. The Korean native moved to Manhattan in 2000 after studying at Boston's Berklee College of Music and quickly became a fixture at venues such as Tonic and the Stone; she played with the likes of Ikue Mori, Vijay Iyer, and Laurie Anderson and made albums for John Zorn's Tzadik and Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace.

On her latest release (and second for Tzadik), Noisy Love Songs, she leads an ensemble that includes trumpeter Peter Evans and pianist Craig Taborn; Lee crafts a wordless narrative, shifting seamlessly from subdued reverence to chilling atmospheres to cathartic aggression. Her cello playing is equally capable of melodic subtlety and unfettered abstraction, but it is always grounded in consistent moods and--more than ever before--accessible melodies.

We recently talked to Lee about writing Noisy Love Songs, how New York has changed in the past decade, and her current Artist-in-Residence gig at Brooklyn's Issue Project Room.

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Vijay Iyer; Robert Glasper.

​Robert Glasper Trio + Vijay Iyer Trio
Skirball Center at NYU
Thursday, April 28

Better than: Having another tornado warning to contend with.

What's the difference between "jazz fame" and the kind of recognition that gets you on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon? Whatever it is, it wasn't enough to produce a jam-packed house for this splendid double bill of new-jack jazz piano. That's not to say that NYU's big hall was empty by any stretch; you'd hardly have noticed until you spied the rows of vacancies up in the cheap seats. But what the turnout suggested is that last night that distinction was probably clearer to Vijay Iyer--who voiced it while taking his bows and readying the applauding crowd for fellow keys whiz Robert Glasper--than to the folks who showed up for a rare opportunity to hear both pianists and simultaneously check the hype on jazz's next wave.

Given that Iyer was once on track to be a physicist (and has the doctorate to prove it), right here is where I'm s'posed to turn how relative such distinctions are into a joke about the theory of relativity. But Glasper, who'd sat in with his sometime employers the Roots on TV the previous evening, had all the wit anyone needed. "Did y'all see me last night?" he asked as he sat down at the piano, his good-natured smile feigning excitement. Silence. "Yup, that's fame. I'll have to remember that the next time I'm riding with "F"--that's what we call Fallon, in case y'all didn't know."

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Where the magic happens

Das Racist's new mixtape, Sit Down, Man, is out next week; among its many delights is "Free Jazzmatazz," a self-explanatory collaboration with wildly feted jazz pianist Vijay Iyer. It seemed like a good idea to a) ask Iyer if we could chat about how this unlikely (?) union came to pass, and b) ask Heems and Victor of Das Racist if we could post the result a few days early. Both parties graciously accepted.

So: Download "Free Jazzmatazz" -- without question the druggiest-sounding DR track to date -- below, and enjoy a Q&A wherein Iyer, while recalling the recording process, admits that "I don't think I've felt that old in a long time." Spoiler alert: This song is better than "Für Elise."

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​Jazz pianist Vijay Iyer's trio disc Historicity was the consensus 2009 pick for album of the year (says the Voice's own poll, anyway); if not the highlight, his spry cover of M.I.A.'s "Galang" is certainly the first thing to jump out at you. Now, the inimitable Wayne and Wax has taken the liberty of mashing the homage and the original together. Behold:

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Here we have a video described simply as "Audience member steals my watch off of the piano, July 23, 2009." The victim is Vijay Iyer, whose outstanding piano-trio record Historicity triumphed in our just-completed, fourth-annual Voice Jazz Critics' Poll. Which makes this blatant theft even more galling. Iyer first announced this violation (which occurred at the Stone) via his Twitter, though he's since noted that it cost $20 and he's not looking to get anyone killed or anything. Still, there's a principle here. Anyone with any info, just post it on the Internet, which'll take care of the rest.