Matthew Shipp

Pastoral Composure was a long time ago! I started listening to him later than that. The first thing I heard might have been Multiplication Table, but I heard it a long while after it came out. I think Piano Sutras is very good, but I like most of what he puts out these days. It's a lot more gnarled and dense than One, which I think was his last solo album. Last year's Elastic Aspects with Matthew Shipp Trio was even better, I'd say, but it straddles contemporary chamber music territory. Equilibrium from 2003 is still my favorite of his, but I could see some of these more recent recordings eventually overtaking it.

A good essay on Shipp by a certain ilxor:

http://avant.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/PFreeman_MS_Avant_12012_online.doc.pdf

There was another solo album, 4D, in between One and this one. (Thanks for linking that piece, btw.) As I said in it, I'm in no way impartial when it comes to Shipp, we've known each other for about 15 years at this point. The first album I heard was Prism, a live trio disc (William Parker, Whit Dickey) that's two long tracks. It's still one of my favorites; it goes in and out of print. Some of my other favorites: Strata, Equilibrium, Harmony and Abyss, One, Elastic Aspects, Harmonic Disorder and The Multiplication Table. I also like New Orbit a lot, because the combination of his piano and Wadada Leo Smith's trumpet is really interesting - I wish they'd work together more/again.

I recently shot a video interview with him about Piano Sutras, which will appear on BurningAmbulance.com probably next month.

Equilibrium is amazing, I need to get some of these other ones y'all are talking about

I get the sense that Equilibrium is the last album a lot of people have heard by him, for whatever reason, but he's been fairly prolific in the last decade (maybe not exceptionally so by jazz standards) and people are missing out if they've heard nothing from that time period. It's my impression that Shipp hasn't gotten that much coverage in the sort of crossover not jazz specific realm where I'm sure he could find more listeners. I don't really see him turning up on indie type EOY lists as a token jazz representative, but he seems like an obvious choice. (Bleah, doesn't sound like a desirable from that description.)

All the writers who could/would be writing about him are writing about Vijay Iyer instead.

It makes me happy now when I get to "Giant Steps" on Piano Sutras. I find it surprising comforting (or surprisingly welcome comfort, perhaps).

I tend to forget about 4D because I think of it as a bit of a career retrospective. Not that it's not good, but it didn't make the same impression on me as One eventually did, or as Piano Sutras is doing now.

Points, with the quartet, is absolutely top shelf

60 today!

saw a link posted to this show, which i was at and was terrific: http://www.nyctaper.com/2016/09/matthew-shipp-and-bobby-kapp-september-17-2016-trans-pecos/

also on the bill that afternoon were neil hagerty and alan licht!

I'm enjoying World Construct more than any of his albums in some time and I think Michael Bisio has been his key collaborator on all his best stuff in recent years.

have been re-reading the Black Mystery School Pianists essay.

Also Ellington’s piano work on the album Money Jungle is on the level of the greatest piano playing ever.

yes.

but isn’t that one of the main things that gives juice to Monk’s legacy, that he is a founding father of bebop but at the same time set up a parallel universe of his own music that in some ways seems like it is counter to some of the assumptions of bebop?

totally.

I have wrestled with whether Elmo Hope belongs in the group.

i am not Matthew Shipp, and i am not 100% sure i know what Black Mystery School Piano is, but i do sort of see EH in the same universe as Herbie Nichols / Hasaan.

a few other pianists who might belong, although MS doesn't mention them either way: Jaki Byard, Bobby Few, Pat Thomas

Don't know Bobby Few well enough to chime in on him, but Byard and Thomas def seem like BMSP bona fides
(relating to the latter, his recent group Ahmed] seems to be having quite the year here in 2024 with new/upcoming live releases, eh? That forthcoming 5CD Giant Beauty set with one tune tune per disc seems like the Pillars of neo-Black Mystery School Piano, kinda: https://ahmedquartet.bandcamp.com/album/giant-beauty)

(Ah, Few's on a ton of classic '80s Steve Lacy and worked w/ Alan Silva and Frank Wright in the '70s, gotcha)

nice! i will have to check out that box. it's crazy how quickly the Ahmed records become $$$ collector's items ...

Shipp posted something interesting on Facebook the other day about the David S. Ware Quartet. I've reproduced it below.

So in the 16 years i was in the David S. Ware quartet there were 4 drummers. I feel blessed to have played with all 4 and think they all brought something different to the band. First — David feeds off of drummers — he needs them but is very hard on them at the same time. He hardly ever told William Parker or me what to do but was really hard on the drummers in the band — with Marc Edwards it was a little different because they were peers from years back — anyway looking back it seems like it was divine timing when each drummer left and when a new drummer entered. It did bring in different eras of the band. Also each drummer is on a record I consider a must David S. Ware album. First Marc Edwards. He and David went way back, having played with Cecil, and playing with Marc grounded me in the David S. Ware esthetic. For me it was good that my introduction to the Ware universe was with a drummer who had been a part of that reality for a while. The other interesting thing about this is that when i joined the band David, Marc and William had all been in Cecil's band and here i am a 29 year old pianist joining a band of all Cecil alumni while I was in a figurative but loud way my whole vibe was I have nothing to do with Cecil — I am 100 percent my own man. What an ambience to have my vibe in a band of all people who had played with Cecil. LOL. Anyway Marc is the drummer on "Flight of I", which I think is a foundational album in the Ware universe. Also as far as my role on the album there is a complete piano universe generated on that album and yes it has nothing to do with Cecil Taylor. Marc's playing is brilliant on this album. Next enter Whit Dickey. Ware had heard Whit on my albums "Circular Temple" and "Prism". Whit comes from a whole different mindset in the avant garde than does Marc. Whit had been in my trio and bringing Whit in the Ware quartet brought aspects of my own trio concept to bear within the other universe of Ware. The album with Whit that really did it was "Cryptology". Guess you could say Whit was a part of a whole new wave of energy in the scene that had brought me and Rob Brown to town. Next enter Susie Ibarra. Of course she represented a whole new energy field and for many reasons. William brought her to Ware's attention. She had some straight ahead chops (even though I have no idea if she had a background doing straight ahead gigs) we never got into it deep enough for me to tell if she really had that language or if she was a really good drummer who could do a decent straight ahead thing if called for in this context. Anyway the album she is on that is must Ware is "Godspelized". It is a tremendous album and Susie is tremendous on the album. Next enter Guillermo E Brown. A whole new energy field. If i remember correctly Cooper-Moore brought Guillermo to David's attention. Guillermo was a drummer who was interested in many aspects of the music — including electronica — and was a whole new generation. The album with Guillermo that I consider must Ware is our remake of Sonny Rollins' "Freedom suite". Guillermo is stunning on this. So I got something different from all 4 drummers. Looking back it all worked out great.

Bobby FUCKING Few!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXkYvD1mtCY

I need to listen to more Shipp. I've heard maybe 4-5 records under his own name, then a bunch with him playing as a sideman. A body of work that demands more of my time and attention.

thanks for the above quote, unperson - very interesting stuff. thank you. Ware is someone else, you know, I've heard a handful of his recordings and consider myself a fan but am not overly familiar w his career.

That's a great quote. There's a documentary on Youtube of the Brown era Ware band rehearsing that's well worth a watch. Shipp is already a master, but his excitement at being around Ware and Parker is very engaging.

Totally agree re Pat Thomas and the Black Mystery School. I don't know if anyone's heard his Ellington solo piano recordings (one from the Cafe Oto, the other from a gig in Newcastle - the former is longer and more out, but they're both magical) but it would be interesting to revisit them alongside Shipp's Ellington disc on Rogue Art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1iGOSLZ-ag

I don't know why, but a lot of Pat Thomas's work just doesn't connect with me. I often feel like the reviews I read are special pleading on the part of UK critics, like they're saying, "See? We have one of those guys, too."

I'm going to need to revisit Flight of I cuz when I think of the Edwards vers of that band I always pull out the two Great Bliss volumes, def agreed on his Dickey & Ibarra choices though.

My Ibarra pick would be Wisdom Of Uncertainty--AFAIR she absolutely smoked on that one

I mean we are quibbling at this point but for me Gospelized gets a slight edge, but yeah Wisdom of Uncertainty is awesome, I frankly love all the records she did with them

Also xxxpost that Lacy record with Few & Charles is great

No special pleading on my part. Pat Thomas is a world class pianist and recognised as such by Tyshawn Sorey, Luke Stewart, Damon Smith, William Parker, Moor Mother and many others. He has the rhythmic clusters thing going on but he’s also incredibly dexterous and lyrical. Perhaps you have to catch him live to really get it - he’s yet to play the US which is a travesty when you consider the mediocre Britjazz being pushed by certain US labels atm - but he’s astonishing solo and always elevates group situations. Case in point, him taking Irreversible Entanglements to another level at Le Guess Who a few years back. Or his various sets at the London Brotzmann festival last month - incredible duos with Han Bennink and Sven Ake Johanssen. Pat isn’t just a very fine musician, he’s got that special sauce! Brilliant at electronics too - his New Jazz Jungle is incredible, Webern and Parliament chopped up over Amen breaks. His funky Braxton album on Discus is a blast - language music via P-funk, Prime Time and dub.

In other words, Pat isn’t “one of those guys”. No one else can do what he does. Straddles free jazz, free improvisation and new music, and the Sufi and Caribbean influences are crucial.

That's all fair. I haven't listened to his music in enough depth to claim to understand it — I reviewed five of his albums together for The Wire last summer, and each one was very different from the others. So yeah, he operates on a much wider canvas than Shipp or most others, but for some reason I often find myself receiving his music uncharitably.