It is a bitter-sweet perquisite of art to sometimes find inspiration in the very depths of trauma and tragedy, especially in a time when we are perhaps conditioned to be insensitive to distant calamities. When I was six, I witnessed my first horrific traffic accident. It was a truck fire in the east-bound collector lanes of highway 401 near Yonge Street in Toronto. The driver was killed. I can recall vividly watching from the back seat of my mother’s car as greasy, black smoke billowed violently from the great, charred, metal carcass, staining the sky beige. What really repulsed me about the scene, however (at least in retrospect), was the traffic in the west-bound lanes. My mother had to slow to a crawl as the other vehicles paused to gawk at the carnage, satisfying that unspeakable (perhaps unknowable), grotesque intrigue with violence and death that we all seem to share; somehow made immune to the pain of the spectacle by the glass barrier of the windshield.

Of course, this was hardly my first experience of a horrific event, and in many ways it was probably among the mildest such spectacles that I have seen. The others have been filtered through another type of glass barrier: the television and computer screen. Daily, we are bombarded with images of atrocity – from the September 11th attacks on New York, to the 2004 tsunami, to the ongoing trial of alleged mass-murderer Robert Pickton – and we consume these images voraciously. And yet we are so rarely moved by what we see. We are simultaneously transfixed by and alienated from global disasters, in part because of the way they are filtered through news media whose mode of reporting is often hyperbolically spectacular, blurring the lines between information and entertainment.

It was the images of the torture perpetrated by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison that were the seed for Still Life with Commentator, a collaborative project between pianist/composer Vijay Iyer, hip hop artist/librettist Mike Ladd, and conceptual artist/theatre director Ibrahim Quraishi. Conceived as a kind of post-modern oratorio, the work consists of seventeen separate pieces which, while they do not form a coherent narrative, are linked by a common concern with the way our perception of warfare and atrocity is mediated by both the traditional news industry, as well as modern internet-based sources. Featuring Iyer on piano and computer effects, cellist Okkyung Lee, and vocalists Ladd, Pamela Z, Guillermo E. Brown, Palina Jonsdottir, and Masa Nakanishi, the recording (released in early 2007) is an audio representation of the live version, which was premiered at the Next Wave Festival in Brooklyn, NY in October of 2006. Quraishi’s staging (excerpts of which can be seen, ironically, on YouTube) reflects our alienation back at the audience through stark presentation and jarring lighting effects. Quraishi explains,

We live in a world where, every single day, newspapers and television reports are telling us what’s happening, let’s say, in Iraq and other parts of the world. And yet, at the same time, we’re totally immune to it and all we want to do is go shopping. So what does it take…in a formal theatre space, [to make] you…totally touched by it and horrified by it? And maybe, maybe, through this immense sense of visual weight and this completely cold aesthetic…you [will] come out totally moved by it. So I think the aim is that, actually.¹

This concern with our alienation from atrocity is manifest throughout Ladd’s poetry, which is generally spoken or sung arrhythmically, floating over top Iyer’s rhythmically dense score. In “Edward L. Bernays Flies the Hindenburg,” Ladd describes an imaginary meeting between himself and Bernays, the apparent inventor of media “spin:” “I am drunk with Edward Bernays atop a doomed Hindenburg. He’s laughing, I’m screaming, ‘You’re not even a doctor, professional charlatan, master of sham.’ With a jig he replies, ‘It’s the new wave of advertising, governance and war.’” “Jon Stewart on Crossfire” is written in tribute to the comedian’s now-legendary appearance on the CNN political debate programme, where he berates the programme’s hosts for obfuscating viewers with partisan rhetoric rather than engaging in honest debate. Stewart’s appeal, “Please stop, you’re hurting America,” becomes an R&B hook in the Iyer/Ladd piece. In “Holocaust Blog,” Ladd uses astronomy as a metaphor for our alienation from atrocity: “The distance of atrocity. As far away as stars. Calculated weaponry gazed out of range. Look, the milky railway. Himmler’s belt. The bear. The big and little gas chamber.” The final piece, “The Last Atrocity,” concludes with a reference to the television studio: “Red light’s on. Atrocity in five…four…three…,” reminding the listener of the role that the news media plays in creating spectacle out of atrocity.

Iyer’s score works with and against Ladd’s words to amplify the listener’s sense of alienation. The pianist, whose pedigree includes a stint with M-BASE saxophonist Steve Coleman, an incomplete PhD in solid state physics, and a complete one in cognitive science and music at the University of California, Berkeley, is known for his bewilderingly complex rhythmic conception.² Much of Iyer’s work grows out of his fascination for mathematics and Carnatic music. In his tune “Triangulation,” for instance, he uses what he calls “third level polyrhythms:” single eighth notes constitute one level of pulsation (implying a 15/8 meter), groupings of three eighth notes constitute another (implying a quintuple meter), and groupings of five eighth notes constitute a third (implying a triple meter). The musicians move freely between the three levels of pulsation, generating a sense that three different tempi are operating simultaneously. While I am intrigued by Iyer’s mathematical approach to composition and improvisation, I have always found the listening experience somewhat disorienting. In Still Life with Commentator, however, this effect acts as a sort of auditory mimesis, mirroring and enhancing the messages in Ladd’s poetry. Moreover, the metric ambiguity of much of Iyer’s music effectively complements Ladd’s (and the other singer’s) rhythmically ambiguous declamation, leaving the listener with a sensation of rhythmic fluidity, rather than bewilderment. As a result, this is some of Iyer’s most approachable music to date.

At the same time, his music sometimes operates in ironic counterpoint to the intense directness with which Ladd delivers his message. Iyer explains:

We might be creating something very sensuous and atmospheric, but what he’s talking about is atrocity. And that, actually, is a lot like our experience of TV news. To me, that sensation of security and titillation that you get from watching the news was something that I was actually trying to recreate as an oral experience.³

This is particularly apparent in “Cleaning Up the Mess,” where Iyer’s gospel-infused score shifts back and forth between Bb-minor and Ab-major (a typical gospel/R&B progression). Meanwhile, Ladd references atrocities such as the FBI attack on David Koresh’s Waco, TX compound, starving children, and the September 11th attacks. This juxtaposition left me feeling uncomfortable, which is presumably the desired effect.

Nevertheless, I doubt that this effect is nearly as overwhelming listening to the recording as it would have been attending the live performance. I can safely say that I was not “completely moved” by the experience of listening, at least not in the way that I imagine Ibrahim Quraishi intended for me to be. Without the visual element of Quraishi’s staging, Still Life with Commentator loses (at least for me) much of its visceral impact. Of course, this is inevitable for a multi-media work that is missing a medium. Still, I was left wondering whether a DVD release would not have been more appropriate, given the nature of the work.

I was also left confused, to some extent, by the breadth of Still Life’s critique. While I appreciated the neo-Delillo aspect of the critique regarding human alienation from atrocity, I was somewhat baffled by Ladd’s (and Iyer’s) fixation on the blog. Pieces like “Holocaust Blog,” and “Blog Mom’s Anthem” seem to suggest an ambivalence on Ladd’s part towards the blogging phenomenon. In interviews, Ladd adds harsh words for YouTube:

This stuff with YouTube, you have this tiny screen inside your screen now that’s almost like opening up a little music box from the 19th century, you know? Now you see this tiny little precious thing. You go on YouTube and you type in “sniper attack,” right. It comes up, and you see your fellow American getting shot at, probably getting hit, and falling down, and it’s on this tiny little screen, and it’s all pixilated, and you really could have opened a little box and watched a horse go around in a circle. And shut the box.⁴

His criticism is especially apropos at the present time, given the recent controversy surrounding the video of Saddam Hussein’s execution. Even so, it seems to me that blogs and YouTube provide at least the potential for honest, informed debate that Ladd perceives (rightly) as lacking in the traditional news media.

In spite of these minor shortcomings, Still Life with Commentator delivers a nuanced critique of our engagement with atrocity through the news media. Perhaps more importantly, the critique is approachable, even enjoyable, appealing to hip hop and jazz audiences alike. As Iyer says, “I think music needs, especially at this moment in history, music needs to grab people by the lapels and say ‘look around you and listen to what’s happening.’”⁵ Still Life entertains, while leading the listener to important questions.