Vijay Iyer introduced the Ritual Ensemble’s concert in his Wigmore Hall composer-in-residence series by observing: “We all have an affiliation with Harvard University. But don’t hold that against us” – an acknowledgement of jazz listeners’ admiration for the unpremeditated here-and-now. The Indian-American jazz/classical artist and academic is a masterly juggler of polymathic erudition, improv’s strange detours and communally infectious grooving. But if this performance was skewed more toward hooky buildups and incantatory singing than back-doubles jazz deviations, the music was often sonically rich and sometimes thrilling, particularly from multi-talented young vocalist Ganavya.
Formed on the postgrad Harvard arts course Iyer runs, the Ritual Ensemble features Ganavya, virtuosic percussionist and mridangam-drummer Rajna Swaminathan, and richly experienced Cuba-born saxophonist/composer Yosvany Terry. Swaminathan’s opener of churning low tones and snapping accents led via a piano/sax dialogue to a gently melancholy theme, drawing in Ganavya’s rapturously keening sound – and a pattern of rising climaxes and quiet descents emerged, with Iyer’s precise but jazzily asymmetrical piano solos often spurring Terry into soulfully beboppish variations.
Quiet, spacey episodes often brought the best from a band that occasionally lost their clarity when the intensifying wail of vocals and polyphony of upper-end sax and piano blurred too closely together, but a haunting Ganavya a capella passage – softly duetting with her own harmonising vocal loops – and the finale’s cascade of bell-like piano chimes, tonally startling drumming and vocal exhortations falling to whispers were enthralling highlights. The repetitions of ritual dominate the curveballs of improvisation in this band, but Iyer’s sweeping take across the range of contemporary musicality is always uplifting to witness.
• Vijay Iyer’s third Wigmore Hall composer-in-residence concert, with London’s Aurora chamber orchestra, is on 10 June.
