When it comes to jazz/improvised music, there are those who, like pianist Keith Jarrett, prefer to approach it with a blank slate, clearing their minds of everything in order to find a way to pull form from the ether. Then there are those who spend considerable time formulating their approach, and coming up with a philosophy, an aesthetic, to apply to the music they make. While he's far from the only musician to take the latter approach, few are as articulate as pianist Vijay Iyer in explaining the underlying concept(s) that drives an album...or an overall methodology.

In less than a year since moving from one German label (ACT) to another (ECM), Iyer has managed to put out no less than three releases. Mutations, released in March 2014, was a bold first statement from the lauded label that, combining piano and electronics with a string quartet, suggested considerably greater freedom for a pianist who, in addition to becoming a Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard last year, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 and, since emerging twenty years ago this year with his leader debut, Memorophilia (Asian Improv), has received numerous—almost countless—other awards and critical accolades. Released just eight months later in November 2014, Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holiday was an even more ambitious collaboration with filmmaker Prashant Bhargava in commemoration of the centenary of classical composer Igor Stravinsky's influential and groundbreaking "The Rite of Spring."

Break Stuff, in its return to the pianist's eleven year-old trio with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore, might seem like a less ambitious recording on the surface, but to think so would be a mistake. Iyer, it seems, does nothing without a purpose, and if the palette available to him here is somewhat reduced, that should in no way be taken as a sign that Break Stuff is either an easier...or less considered...listen. What Iyer sacrifices in sonic options he more than makes up for in the chemistry that this longstanding trio has developed over the course of its now three albums (five, if you include two additional recordings made with the addition of saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa).

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