| Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | September 24, 2013 | |||
| Recorded | June 21–22, 2012 | |||
| Studio | The Bunker, Brooklyn, New York | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Length | 70:04 | |||
| Label | Pi Recordings | |||
| Producer | Vijay Iyer | |||
| Vijay Iyer chronology | ||||
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Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project is a collaborative studio album by American jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and American hip hop musician Mike Ladd. It was released on Pi Recordings in 2013.
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| All About Jazz |   [1] |
| Financial Times | [2] |
| The Irish Times | [3] |
| JazzTimes | favorable [4] |
| Los Angeles Times | [5] |
| MusicOMH |  [6] |
| PopMatters |   [7] |
| Tom Hull | B+ [8] |
Daniel Paton of MusicOMH gave the album 4.5 out of 5 stars, calling it "compelling and beautiful; troubling and moving in equal measure." [6] Mike Hobart of Financial Times gave the album 4 out of 5 stars, writing, "Each track is stalked by the fear, guilt and surrealism of the post-traumatic dreams that were culled from scores of interviews." [2]
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Here" (Mike, Cambridge) | 3:07 | |
| 2. | "Derelict Poetry" (Maurice, Brooklyn) |
| 4:15 |
| 3. | "Capacity" (Lynn, Bronx) |
| 3:56 |
| 4. | "Walking with the Duppy" (Rashan, Queens) |
| 3:42 |
| 5. | "There Is a Man Slouching in the Stairway" (Maurice, Brooklyn) |
| 3:59 |
| 6. | "My Fire" (Brad, Chester) |
| 3:09 |
| 7. | "On Patrol" (Maurice, Brooklyn) |
| 4:53 |
| 8. | "Dream of an Ex-Ranger" (William, Newton) |
| 3:09 |
| 9. | "Name" (Lynn, Bronx) |
| 3:37 |
| 10. | "Costume" (Mike, Cambridge) |
| 4:08 |
| 11. | "Tormented Star of Morning" (Maurice, Brooklyn) |
| 5:09 |
| 12. | "Patton" (Calvin, Massapequa) |
| 4:58 |
| 13. | "Shush" (Maurice, Brooklyn) |
| 4:06 |
| 14. | "REM Killer" (Kirk, Lexington) |
| 3:48 |
| 15. | "Requiem for an Insomniac" (Maurice, Brooklyn) |
| 5:14 |
| 16. | "Dreams in Color" (Lynn, Bronx) |
| 2:39 |
| 17. | "Mess Hall" (Merrin, San Diego) |
| 6:15 |
| Total length: | 70:04 | ||
Credits adapted from liner notes.
Guillermo E. Brown is a multi-disciplinary performer whose works include Soul at the Hands of the Machine, The Beat Kids' Open Rhythm System and Sound Magazine, Black Dreams 1.0,...Is Arturo Klauft, Handeheld, Shuffle Mode, WOOF TICKET EP, PwEP2, forthcoming full-length album Dream&Destroy and performance piece Bee Boy. His one-man theater piece, Robeson in Space, premiered at Luna Stage (2005).
Pi Recordings is a jazz record label founded by Seth Rosner in 2001. He was soon joined as partner by Yulun Wang. Pi specializes in avant-garde jazz. Its first two albums were by Henry Threadgill.
Mike Ladd is an American hip hop musician from Boston, Massachusetts. He is based in Paris, France. The Guardian described him as "the king of the hip-hop concept."
Vijay Iyer is an American composer, pianist, bandleader, producer and writer based in New York City. The New York Times has called him a "social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway". Iyer received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. He was voted Jazz Artist of the Year in the DownBeat magazine international critics' polls in 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2018. In 2014, he received a lifetime appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University, where he was jointly appointed in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies.
Craig Marvin Taborn is an American pianist, organist, keyboardist and composer. He works solo and in bands, mostly playing various forms of jazz. He started playing piano and Moog synthesizer as an adolescent and was influenced at an early stage by a wide range of music, including by the freedom expressed in recordings of free jazz and contemporary classical music.
Negrophilia: The Album is a studio album by American hip hop musician Mike Ladd. It was released on Thirsty Ear in 2005.
Mutations is a studio album by American jazz pianist Vijay Iyer recorded in 2013 and released on the ECM label in 2014.
Accelerando is a studio album by Indian-American pianist Vijay Iyer recorded in 2011 and released on the ACT label in 2012.
Memorophilia is the debut studio album by American jazz pianist Vijay Iyer, which was recorded in 1995 and released on the Asian Improv label.
Okkyung Lee is a South Korean cellist, improviser, and composer.
Tirtha is an album by pianist Vijay Iyer with Prasanna and Nitin Mitta recorded in 2008 and released on the ACT label in 2011.
Solo is a solo album by pianist Vijay Iyer recorded in 2010 and released on the ACT label.
Wiring is an album by Trio 3, a jazz group consisting of saxophonist Oliver Lake, bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Andrew Cyrille, with guest pianist Vijay Iyer. It was recorded in 2013 and released by Intakt Records.
A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke is an album by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Vijay Iyer which was released in March 2016 on ECM Records.
Simulated Progress is the second album by Fieldwork, a collective trio consisting of Vijay Iyer on piano, Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums, and Steve Lehman on alto and sopranino saxophone replacing former saxophonist Aaron Stewart, which was recorded in 2004 and released on Pi Recordings.
Door is the third album by Fieldwork, a collective trio consisting of Vijay Iyer on piano, Steve Lehman on alto saxophone and Tyshawn Sorey on drums replacing former drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee, which was recorded in 2007 and released on Pi Recordings.
Architextures is the second studio album by American jazz pianist Vijay Iyer recorded with eight musicians. The album was released on October 13, 1998 via Asian Improv Records label. The tracks 3, 4, 7, 9 were recorded by a trio of Iyer, Brock, and Hargreaves. The tracks 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11 were recorded by an octet. The tracks 1 and 12 were recorded solo by Iyer.
In What Language? is a collaborative studio album by American jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and American hip hop musician Mike Ladd. It was released on Pi Recordings in 2003.
Still Life with Commentator is a collaborative studio album by American jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and American hip hop musician Mike Ladd. It was released on Savoy Jazz in 2007.
The Transitory Poems is a live album by pianists Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn. The album was recorded in March 2018 and released a year later by ECM Records.