(Fusion, Crossover, Electronic, Spoken Word) Vijay Iyer & Mike Ladd - Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project (with Maurice Decaul & Lynn Hill) - 2013, MP3, 320 kbps

Grammy® nominee Vijay Iyer is the most celebrated musician on the jazz scene, winner in five categories in the 2012 Down Beat International Critics Poll. No other artist in the 60-year history of the magazine's poll has ever taken five titles in the same year!

Holding It Down: The Veterans Dreams Project is the result of a three-year collaboration between Grammy® nominee Vijay Iyer and poet/librettist Mike Ladd, with veterans of color from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also the culmination of a trilogy of works spanning more than a decade of American life, including the critically acclaimed In What Language? and Still Life with Commentator. For Holding It Down, Iyer and Ladd explore the experiences of veterans of these wars, in particular their post-traumatic-stress-disorder-induced nightmares. They interviewed scores of veterans about their dreams, many of which are retold here. Iyer and Ladd also enlisted the help of Maurice Decaul, a poet who served with the Marines in Iraq, and Lynn Hill, who served in the Air Force. Their harrowing poetry and performances serve as the heart and soul of this project. With seething power, Holding It Down explores how post-9/11 war veterans go about their irreversibly altered lives.

Vijay Iyer: compositions, piano, Fender Rhodes piano, programming, live electronics;
Mike Ladd: lyrics, vocals, effects;
Maurice Decaul: lyrics, vocals;
Lynn Hill; lyrics, vocals;
Pamela Z: vocals with live processing, composition;
Guillermo E. Brown: vocals, effects;
Liberty Ellman: guitar;
Okkyung Lee: cello;
Kassa Overall: drums