The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts is one of the few places on campus where the general public is willing to intermingle with us scrubby college kids. It is just a classy place — the perfect venue for jazz music. 

On Thursday night when I stepped onto Krannert’s glossy floors for the Vijay Iyer Trio’s jazz concert, the multi-colored lighting in the Studio Theatre spilled gently onto the black table cloths, and tastefully simple candles flickered to the low, gentle volume of casual pre-concert chatter. Unlike me, many in the audience appeared to have a practiced comfort with the environment. I was a total newbie. But when Vijay Iyer (piano), Marcus Gilmore (drums) and Stephan Crump (bass) stepped out on stage, that didn’t matter.

Iyer promised, “some new stuff, some old stuff and some stuff you’ll recognize,” and the trio began.

Even my limited background in music told me right off the bat that something was special about this group. They had achieved a level of synchronization that showed the intensity of their talent. There was no director, no sheet music for them to follow; the improvisation and the comfort they felt with the music and with each other as musicians was palpable. 

As I watched them, a visual metaphor for their group dynamic came to my mind; maybe it’s an oversimplification, but as someone with an untrained jazz ear, it helped. 

Each piece was like a game of double dutch jump rope. Each time they began a new piece, someone different was turning the rope or setting the rhythm. They never stopped listening intently to one another, tapping their feet or nodding their head to feel when the time was right to jump in. As the group’s leader, it was mostly Iyer on piano. But there were moments when he was the one listening and waiting for his moment to spring in, free-styling with the beat and caught up in his own feeling but still staying within the limits of the rope and the group’s rhythm. 

When Crump jumped in, he expressed the music with his entire body. The energy physically appeared in the beads of sweat on his forehead and in the way the entire audience subconsciously could not help but move their heads with him.

Then there was Gilmore, who started playing with Iyer when he was a junior in high school and brought spontaneous cheers out of the crowd Thursday night. When it was his turn to enter into the mix, he brought a spark to the group that certainly Iyer and Crump displayed as well, but for me, he was a standout. He brought a rhythm and style to the group that both complicated and modernized Iyer and Crump’s remarkably textured synchronization.   

Overall, there was a fluidity to the concert that made me very surprised when the end came. They played pieces from the Grammy-nominated album “Historicity” and “Accelerando,” as well as tributes to Duke Ellington, Robert Hood and a piece composed by Iyer 20 years ago named “Spellbound and Sacrosanct, Cowrie Shells and the Shimmering Sea.” The higher notes combined an almost whimsical quality with the crescendos added by the bass and drums.

Unlike many other concerts I have attended (and I will admit, this was my first jazz one), Iyer did not need to say a whole lot between pieces — the trio let their music speak for itself. Many had been on a waiting list for tickets long before tonight’s concert, and for me, a first-timer on the live jazz scene, the wait was well worth it.

Maggie is a senior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].