The Transitory Poems

The album was recorded in the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest on March 12, 2018.[4] This is Iyer and Taborn's first full-length duo album, but in 2002 they played in saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell's band, Note Factory, contributing to the album Song for My Sister.[1] The Transitory Poems consists of eight tracks offered as tributes to formative influences including pianists Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Geri Allen, and the painter and sculptor Jack Whitten.[5]

Dan Mcclenaghan of All About Jazz stated "The music's in the air, and then it's gone. The disc's title seems to nod to this sentiment. The music itself does, too. Instant composing, spontaneous arrangements, a gorgeous fluidity of ideas mutating in the moment with an enchanting and lovely spaciousness. And then it's gone, unless somebody records it... The Transitory Poems sounds like two artists colluding in a search for solutions to beautiful mysteries, completely in the moment. That there are no solutions is beside the point. It is the search, the journey that counts".[1]

All tracks are written by Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn (except "When Kabuya Dances" [Geri Allen]).