Matthew Shipp - Pathways

July 7, 2022

Label: Attaboygirl Records, 2022

Personnel - Gordon Grdina: guitar, oud; Mark Helias: bass; Matthew Shipp: piano.

New York-based Canadian guitarist and oud player Gordon Grdina is seen here with bracing partners and stalwarts of the downtown jazz scene, Mark Helias on bass and Matthew Shipp on piano. Pathways, their sophomore album (succeeding to the 2019 Skin and Bones), consists of a fully improvised set of pieces with risk-taking propensity. The result is challenging for the ears but never uncomfortable.

The opener, “Palimpsest” provides a poetic, if duskier, musical experience. Dark and wistful tones take over, with Grdina and Shipp perfectly integrated in a plaintive melancholy, while Helias roams freely, variating intensity and speed. The free diction of “Deep Dive” seems to have kinetic forces pushing it forward, and glimpses of a hidden blues emerge by the end.

With a fabulous interplay and a dazzling assortment of ostinatos, “Trimeter” is a dance from afar with plenty of harmonic coloration and exhilarating crossing rhythms getting underway. The numbers where the oud is present, namely the expressionistic “Synapses” and the concluding piece, “Sanctum”, also cultivate an unconventional language with the help of an exquisite instrumentation. The former cut feels positively revolutionary in its stirring motion, whereas the latter, non-obvious in the moves and alluring in texture, has Grdina looking for those microtones to bend and warp, leaving you with and exquisite feel and atmosphere. These are musicians who are not afraid to travel outside the conventional jazz universes.

Complex phrasal architectures come into view on the deliberately suspenseful title track, which creates enough tension and bendability en route. In the back, Helias is strong as a rock, rolling to the sides with propulsive drive and returning to the point of origin with determination; Shipp asks questions in a particular register and responds to himself in another; Grdina makes the perfect foil for those two, countering with lines that later converge with the pianist’s. Their rhythmic prowess is even more striking on “Flutter”, an abstract mesh with interesting percussive fluxes and appeasing moments alike.

Grdina’s output has been more and more prolific but consistently interesting. This recording cannot be classified as just another.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Palimpsest ► 04 - Trimeter ► 08 - Synapses

Chad Fowler / Matthew Shipp - Old Stories

April 13, 2022

Label: Mahakala Records, 2022

Personnel - Chad Fowler: stritch, saxello; Matthew Shipp: piano.

Arkansas-based saxophonist Chad Fowler and the stalwart avant pianist Matthew Shipp, a key figure of the New York’s downtown scene, are two creative spirits who gathered recently to record their first duo record. The format is challenging for several reasons, but Old Stories, which unfolds in 14 chapters, puts on display an interesting chemistry between the twosome.

Skewed, wailing saxophone lines and well-measured piano textures immediately cook a stew of poignancy, fervor, lyricism and, occasionally, delirium on “Chapter I”. Employing Southern brushstrokes over a dimensional jazz canvas, “Chapter VII” and “Chapter VIII” (the only piece in which Fowler plays the saxello) diverge from the lucid call-and-response methodology of “Chapter II”, which extracts a certain dancing quality from the playfulness adopted. More reflective in nature, “Chapter III” is fueled by a sequence of staccato strokes near the end, whereas “Chapter IV” is an avant-blues led to nearly psychosis.

Fowler blows the saxophone with a constantly fervent expression that favors dramatic higher tones. It sounds great and is suitable for a period of time. Yet, I felt that most of the cuts ended up in the same alleys, making the listening a bit predictable. In my perception, eight to nine tracks would have been ideal. Also, instead of following an almost uninterrupted interplay (nonetheless taken to good places in “Chapter XIII” through highly motivic sequences), the disc would have benefitted greatly with some more room for solo piano and solo saxophone sections.

That being said, one can still find great joy in pieces such as “Chapter VI”, which rocks and swings with the duo in close communication, and “Chapter X”, where the atmosphere of the straighter extremities is disrupted by the ferocious, warped shoutouts of the middle section. Old Stories may be an experimentation in need of different heartbeats, but audacity within the narrative construction remains a fact.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Chapter I ► 02 - Chapter II ► 06 - Chapter VI

Whit Dickey / William Parker / Matthew Shipp - Village Mothership

November 23, 2021

Label: Tao Forms Records, 2021

Personnel - Whit Dickey: drums; William Parker: bass; Matthew Shipp: piano.

In a tribute to New York City’s Lower East Side and 30 years of musical collaboration and friendship, the trio co-led by drummer Whit Dickey, bassist William Parker and pianist Matthew Shipp puts out Village Mothership, a collection of six improvised pieces that explores many shapes and forms, both abstract and tangible.

The album begins with “A Thing & Nothing”, whose initial reflective mood soon develops and expands. The piano goes from fluidly atmospheric to sparse (with incisive low notes) to pressurized mechanical motions. The bass lines feel like delicate, abstract brushstrokes that trail a path on a colored canvas but are not averse to casual vigorous plucks. The drum playing can shift from understated polishment to a bright swinging pulse. These indefatigable artists work on these fluxes and dynamics with a rapport enhanced by their broad history in the avant-garde and free jazz movements.

“Whirling in the Void” is cosmic jazz that starts almost with no gravity. We are gradually pushed into the earth through a mix of jazz radiance, contemporary classical mesmerism, folksy melodies and a concluding avant-rock pulsation.

“Nothingness” arrives with a sheer melodicism that condone with silences and occasional brisk attacks. It gets playful at times, then serious again, and then reflective before reversing this order. The trio is fond of experimentation in a freewheeling fashion but sometimes we are mislead to think the opposite, such is the cohesiveness and ease they play with each other’s ideas and sounds.

One of my favorite pieces is the title cut, “Village Mothership”, which, introduced by Dickey, soon acquires a bare bass pavement that helps to sustain exhilarating piano rides and chordal explosions. Shortly after Parker's bass walks begin on top of an insistent hi-hat route, it all becomes lushly jazzy and swinging with the return of Shipp. The piece fades with active bass and quiet drums.

The cinematic tension of “Down Void Way” toggles between eerie and dramatic, with Parker employing his bowing attributes, giving the piece its best possible mood.

Shipp, Parker and Dickey are constantly searching. They possess a range of resources in their playing that many musicians would like to have. This also applies to their unblemished teamwork.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - A Thing & Nothing ► 04 - Village Mothership ► 05 - Down Void Way

Matthew Shipp - The Piano Equation

July 21, 2020

Label: Tao Forms, 2020

Personnel - Matthew Shipp: piano.

With unmatched style, pianist and improviser Matthew Shipp masterminds another solo offering where his fabulous command of timbre and texture brings creative ideas to fruition. The titles of the 11 pieces that comprise The Piano Equation indicate connections with mathematics and space phenomena, containing words like equation, void, vortex, hyperspace, signal and cosmic.

The title cut opens the record like a lugubrious lullaby distorted by tense bulky sounds and angular movements on the lower register. At some point, it made me think of the standard “Like Someone in Love”, totally warped by the pianist’s expansive vision.

“Swing Note From Deep Space” has multiple and independent movements - an assortment of contrapuntal swing-based motifs, odd intervals and quizzical sequences of notes - forming spontaneous grids. Letting his imagination go beyond what is expected, Shipp creates a polyrhythmic cadence by the end, able to disconcert as much as to enchant.

Dazzlingly amorphous and moodier, “Vortex Factor” emulates particles in perpetual swirling motion. The outcome is knotty and heavy like Cecil Taylor’s music, but undoubtedly organic. The vitality felt here is matched by the short “Clown Pulse”, a much lighter piece where the pianist employs a more archetypal jazz vocabulary.

If “Radio Signals Equation” is made of danceable passages bursting with rhythm, spiraling micro-phrases interlaced with highly-coordinated strokes, and harmonic tartness, then “Land of the Secrets” is its opposite, striking a balance between the contemporary classical and the avant-garde jazz genres. Poised, enigmatic and poetic in its creative spark, this particular number left me with a sense of wonder.

Immersed in blues-bustling abstraction, “Void Equation” is an intoxicating tale that gains further momentum as it advances. Nothing compared to the closer “Cosmic Juice”, though, which is my favorite piece on the album. Initially served with a tangy, concentrated flavor and allowing both bright and dark tonalities to emerge, the tune is reshaped into something more atmospheric as a consequence of the perplexing chordal work exerted by the pianist.

The freedom of playing solo is beautiful, and that can be deeply felt here. By exploring new places within his vast musical cosmos, Shipp takes us into a journey that emboldens the listeners’ imagination.

Favorite Tracks:
05 - Land of the Secrets ► 09 - Radio Signals Equation ► 11 - Cosmic Juice

Flash Reviews - Sunjae Lee / Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp / Fredrik Lindborg

May 21, 2020

SUNJAE LEE - PULSE THEORY (GhettoAlive Records, 2020)

Personnel - Sunjae Lee: tenor sax; Eunyoung Kim: piano; Dayeon Seok: drums.

50 minutes of continuous improvisation are squeezed into a sole track in the new digital outing from South Korean saxophonist Sunjae Lee, a free jazz practitioner who is also an acupuncturist and an oriental brush painter in Seoul. Extended iterative segments eventually expand in energy and body, always under the controlled conduct of the bass-less rhythm section comprised of pianist Eunyoung Kim and drummer Dayeon Seok. The music was captured live at GhettoAlive in Seoul and was mastered by New York-based bassist, composer and producer Eivind Opsvik. The communication between the threesome feels effortless throughout and the group explores textural variety by embarking on occasional duo sections. You’ll find what is expected from a free jazz session - dedicated interplay with contrasting moments that usually evolve from stable to temperamental and from imperturbable to livelier. Freed of tempo and form concerns, the trio takes most of the time exploring circularity, fragmentation and texture with casual pointillism. Yet, the quiet lyricism of the last five minutes was what grabbed me the most. [B-]

IVO PERELMAN & MATTHEW SHIPP - AMALGAM (Mahakala Music, 2020)

Personnel - Ivo Perelman: tenor sax; Matthew Shipp: piano.

Amalgam is the latest improvisational tour from saxophonist Ivo Perelman, who celebrates 30 years of a profuse career, and pianist Matthew Shipp, his regular collaborator since 1996. This 12-track program follows their uncontrollable appetite for music created in the spur of the moment. The limitless possibilities lead to passionate, often intellectual dissertations with oneiric atmospheres (“Part 1”); motivic developments forming shapely mosaics supported by intrinsic lyrical sophistication rooted in classical music (“Part 10”); frisky avant-jazz dialogues professed with rugged textures and brave contrapuntal moves (“Part 11”); unpremeditated percussive propagations (“Part 12”); inventive delineations represented with a mix of entanglement and contemplation (“Part 4”); and introspective yet ruminative exercises - sometimes with fair doses of assimilative melody and piano strings vibrations (“Part 3”), and other times with the addition of enigmatic depth (“Part 8”). The thing is: the discography of the duo is so vast that it's hard to say if this recording is better or worse than its predecessors. It’s certainly authentic. Question: will their unstoppable creativity come to a halt with the current pandemic crisis? [B+]

FREDRIK LINDBORG - A SWEDISH PORTRAIT (Prophone Records, 2020)

Personnel - Fredrik Lindborg: baritone, tenor and soprano saxophones; Martin Sjöstedt: bass; Daniel Fredriksson: drums; Daniel Migdal: violin; Henrik Naimark Meyers: violin; Yivali Zilliaous: viola; Amalie Stalheim: cello.

Saxophonist/composer Fredrik Lindborg blends mainstream jazz with melancholic folk music from Sweden, traversing genres with ease while maintaining his musical personality intact. For this record, a 14-track program with music of baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin, he incorporated a string quartet to further enrich the music of the trio he leads. I dare to describe it as a feel-good retro jazz glee with intelligently crafted string arrangements, giving the traditional a new look that is not devoid of eclectic essence. The opener, “Mazurka”, was arranged exclusively for strings (by Gullin himself) and carries poignant classical tones; “Har Nagon Sett/Baritonome” boasts a gentle Latinized percussion to be mixed with efficient swinging passages and chamber jazz sections; “Decent Eyes” forced me to imagine George Gershwin dancing the tango; while the wildly swing of “Galium Verum” evokes Mulligan and Webster’s unforgettable collaboration. The cheerfulness of “I Min Small Sang” brings to mind the standard “How About You”, while “Igloo” conjures up “Caravan”. You’ll also find malleable waltzes and heartfelt ballads. Lindborg blows soulfully and deserves wider recognition. [A-]

Matthew Shipp Trio - Piano Song

October 27, 2016

Matthew Shipp: piano; Michael Bisio: bass; Newman Taylor Baker: drums.

JazzTrail had the privilege to listen to Matthew Shipp’s luminous new album, Piano Song, to be released on January 27, 2017. Recorded in trio with the bassist Michael Bisio and the drummer Newman Taylor Baker, this will be Matthew’s last record on the Thirsty Ear label. These groundbreaking musicians display a tremendous sound as they continue to embrace hypnotic textures within an idiosyncratic universe.

Shipp’s elegant solo piano captivates in the solemn “Links”, the opening tune, while “Cosmopolitan” brings Miles Davis’ “So What” to mind through Bisio’s evocative bass line and Shipp’s suggestive melodies. Both the bassist and the drummer had the opportunity to express themselves individually here, as well as in the piano-less “Scrambled Brain”.
Baker’s swell hip-hop beats stand out in the memorable “Flying Carpet”, which erupts gradually into an upheaval as Shipp increases tension through his vehement playing. A similar impetuosity is put on the kinetic “Gravity Point”, a loud, rhythmic extravaganza that may take your feet off the ground.

Functional minimalism is associated with titles such as “Blue Desert” and “Void on”, opposing to “Mind Space”, which invites us to another hallucinating trip into the abstract.
Even distinct in nature, the exclamatory “Micro Wave” and the wandering “The Nature of”, have motivational energies in common. The former, blossoming as an extravagant march filled with complex melodic replicas, while the latter boasts a piano soliloquy that fills our ears with great, unobvious melodies.
The album culminates with the title track, in which a solo piano gently pushes us into an imperturbable serenity.

Matthew Shipp Trio will open the New Year spreading magical moments of grandiose musicality.
Piano Song is an album to get lost in; a bottomless well of impactful creativity and divine inspiration that consolidates Shipp as a forward-thinker with a radiant, unique voice.

Favorite Tracks:
02 – Cosmopolitan ► 05 – Flying Carpet ► 07 – Micro Wave