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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Matthew Shipp’s Piano Equation

April 29, 2020 by Doug Ramsey

Matthew Shipp: The Piano Equation (Tao Forms)

The dictionary defines equation as “the act of making equal.” In his engrossing new solo album, pianist Matthew Shipp creates eleven new pieces of music in which the equality of his powerful hands is important to the venture’s success, but not as important as the fertile imagination that guides his music-making. For the past three decades, Shipp has been a formidable collaborator on recordings with Joe McPhee, Whit Dickey, Marshall Allen, David S. Ware, Michael Bisio and other prominent members of the jazz avant garde. In his new album for a new label, Shipp goes it alone. Collaboration is only between the hands that he long ago disciplined to be independent and mutually supportive.

Tao Forms Records seem not to have issued video of Shipp playing music from his new album, but we located a prime example of his exploration of the chordal and rhythmic possibilities that Jerome Kern embedded in his 1933 classic “Yesterdays.” The Michiko Rehearsal Studios in New York captured the performance last fall.

In his sixtieth year, the former enfant terible of the far-out demonstrates no diminishment of his formidable technique, assimilation of the styles of several jazz eras, or of his often-rambunctious creativity. Which of the notes in Shipp’s “Swing Note from Deep Space” is the one the title refers to? It could be the high b-natural that gives the piece its unexpected ending, or one of the multitude of notes that preceeds it. The songs’ titles, for instance “Radio Signals Equation” and “Cosmic Juice,” may offer clues to the content of the music. But, as always with Shipp, his unreeling of the improvisation is where the stoies lie. This collection of unaccompanied performances portrays Shipp in all of his kaleidoscopic variety.

 

 

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Comments

  1. Rob D says

    May 10, 2020 at 2:44 pm

    Love the clip of Mr. Shipp. I was a late comer to just about anything “free” or “avant garde” in my listening journey. But like learning a new language, you soon discover the joys of accepting new ways of playing into your brain. Charles Mingus seemed to open up worlds for me and I believe that led to me enjoying Shipp during the time he and David. S. Ware were collaborating.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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