jazz

Best of, CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Best of 2021: Three Recordings Featuring Matthew Shipp (CD Review)

Codebreaker

Matthew Shipp

TAO Forms CD

Village Mothership

Whit Dickey, drums; William Parker, bass Matthew Shipp, piano; 

TAO Forms CD

Procedural Language CD

Live at SESC Blu-ray DVD

Ivo Perelman, saxophones; Matthew Shipp, piano

SMP boxed set

 

In both solo and group settings, Pianist Matthew Shipp has continued to prolifically record in 2021. His collaborations with longtime partners, drummer Whit Dickey and bassist William Parker on Village Mothership, and Procedural Language, a celebration of his two-decade musical odyssey with saxophonist Ivo Perelman, are scintillating reminders of Shipp’s development of a fluid musical language that adapts to different scenarios. In these, he simultaneously suits and provokes the playing of his colleagues. In turn, Dickey, Parker, and Perelman bring out some of the best in Shipp. Over the years, their work has been formative in creating captivating examples of ecstatic jazz, as evidenced by the three CDs featured here, which are among our selections for Best of 2021. 

 

A feature on the solo release Codebreaker is rapid shifting between surface rhythmic patterns while keeping the same underlying tempo structure. This is particularly evident on “Spider Web,” where right-hand oscillations and trills mimic the knitting activity associated with the title. Just as one begins to forget where the downbeat resides, Shipp supplies a deft reminder with a brief chordal and walking bass texture, revealing that the melody has ventured afar. We hear this too on “A Thing and Nothing,” the opening piece on Village Mothership, where in the midst of a steady midtempo articulated by the rhythm section, Shipp adopts solo breaks of propulsive angularity that fit odd groupings into the meter. Similarly, “Track 5” of Procedural Language features Perelman and Shipp playing melodic gestures with different sets of syncopations, Perelman starting his gesture after a rest off the beat and Shipp eventually moving from a dueling melodic role to chordal punctuations and swinging bass register interpolations. Independent rhythmic activity, either between the hands or among groups of musicians, is one of the hallmarks of free/ecstatic playing. It is the level of sophistication and interaction that these players can accomplish that suggests the language is ever-evolving. In this Dickey is simply a marvel. When one compares earlier recordings to his current approach, it is clear that he has reinvented his role behind the kit with poly-limbed polyrhythms abounding.

 

The aforementioned rapid juxtapositions in rhythm are joined by corresponding contrasts of harmonic color and melodic inventiveness. Dickey and Parker are involved in customary rhythm section roles, but they telegraph and respond to melodic material in such a way as to make the trio texture seamless. The voicings Shipp picks are often made more intricate by bass note choices from Parker. The two often engage in duets between multiple bass lines, one by Parker and another by Shipp, which anchor the music and allow that register a sense of melodic as well as harmonic import. The duets Perelman and Shipp engage in often resonate with overtone series upper partials that create a series of polychords against the grounding of the bass register. Perelman’s addition of microtones to the mix also involves bending notes in bluesy fashion and alluding to nonwestern music with complex scalar passages. Shipp has incorporated 20th century classical harmonies into his playing for years. There is no more eloquent example of this than on Codebreaker’s “Suspended,” a memorable ballad in Schoenbergian style.

 

The Procedural Languages set also includes an hourlong DVD of the duo live in San Paolo at SESC and a thoughtful booklet essay about their artistic partnership by Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg. Many Perelman/Shipp recordings have been made, but a document with video and discussion of their work puts this at the top of the list. Likewise, A Village Mothership captures the go-to trio for ecstatic jazz at the height of their powers. Finally, Codebreaker reveals that Shipp is capable of topping himself with inquisitiveness, imagination, and superlative technique. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Best of 2021: John and Alice Coltrane reissues

Best of 2021: A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle and Alice Coltrane’s Kirtan: Turiya Sings

 

Fifty-six years after its release, John Coltrane’s recording of his suite A Love Supreme has been certified platinum by the RIAA. With the lauded release of the recently rediscovered tapes of A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle, renewed interest has moved the recording of the original to this distinguished sales standard. The Live in Seattle version expands the personnel from the classic Coltrane Quartet to include saxophonists Pharaoh Sanders and Carlos Ward, and a second double bassist Donald Garrett. Thought some outlets have criticized the bass response on the recording, on my rig the vinyl versions sounds excellent. Several interludes augment the original suite with improvised solos.

We have Joe Brazil to thank for recording the 1965 gig at Seattle’s The Penthouse, and saxophonist Steve Griggs for rediscovering the tapes from which this vital recording was made. 

 

The original version of Alice Coltrane’s album of spiritual songs, released in 1982, had a fuller instrumentation. In 2004, Ravi Coltrane discovered alternate mixes that instead just featured Alice’s voice and Wurlitzer organ. These are intimate, simple, and emotionally resonant versions of the material on the album and it was wise to reissue it. The songs combine bluesy chord voices with gospel and Carnatic singing in eloquent synchronicity.

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?, Improv, jazz

Best of 2021 – Craig Taborn on ECM (CD Review)

Sequenza 21 Best of 2021

 

Craig Taborn

Shadowplay

ECM Records

 

I first became aware of pianist Craig Taborn in the early aughts, writing about him for (dearly departed) Copper Press and Signal to Noise and contributing reviews of his various outings as leader and sideperson since. In his recent playing, Taborn has displayed increasing expansiveness and interest in diversely complex formal designs. Shadowplay is a 2020 live recording of the pianist at Konzerthaus, Wien. The full hour and a quarter of it is improvised material, some pieces providing a fresh perspective on Taborns creativity.

 

The opener, Bird Templars, is representative of the frequent juxtapositions of musical techniques employed on the recording. It starts pianissimo with a repeated mid-register tremolo and a gradually unfolding melody in the lower register, then doubled in rumbling octaves. The oscillation builds into chordal tremolos with the countermelody now placed in the middle register. A repeated figure in the bass starts to define the harmony, and it builds into octave arpeggios over the tremolos, now more insistent, and then a series of close-spaced intervals, a collection that will reappear in various guises. The roles shift, with chords in the left hand and a continually repeated unison in the right. These are the building blocks for the material that ensues, with a development in which sharing of material between hands is expanded and reconsidered. The middle section finally concludes with a keyboard spanning scale with the sustain pedal held down. This is followed by a section that puts the chords in the left hand and a mournful melody in the right in a grand crescendo of activity, which dissolves into the close-spaced interval group played inverted in the left hand while thirds in the right climb upward and revert back to tremolos to close. To work out such a framework on the fly takes technical skill, contrapuntal chops, and tremendous concentration.

 

Beginning with dissonant fragments of material, Shadowplay demonstrates concern with stylistic plurality. It moves through swing time sections, ostinato arpeggiations, thick repeated chords, a passage of minimalism, and an extended coda of repeated mottos in both left and right hand that link together in polyrhythmic post-bop fashion. At the very end, the motto pops up an octave to explore the soprano register and then, abruptly, stops.

 

The listener is treated to several more long form improvisations with compositional deployment of formal design, including the pair of Discordia Concors, a Schoenbergian essay with glissandos alongside melodic angularity and Concordia Discors that more resembles the color chords of Messiaen accompanying a mercurial ballad melody, which then goes into a double time ramble. There is a build to a protracted clarion repeated unison, then slowing to a glacial version of the ballad tune. Conspiracy of Things begins with a blustery cascade of dissonances that moves into an ebullient set of bebop variations. It finishes with an accelerando of chromatic passagework over a repeated bass groove.

 

A Code with Spells brings together a bluesy ballads melodic embellishments, repeated bass riff, and imaginative chordal exploration. Here as elsewhere, many different dynamic shadings and variations of phrasing create an abundant variety of impressions. The repetition eventually spreads to the entire texture, in successive ferocious builds and then a decrescendoing denouement daring the listener to guess when it will cease. Near the end, a triplet figure inserts itself and proliferates to take over the rhythm, accelerating to an abrupt close.

 

Now in Hope finishes the concert with a gospel/bop hybrid that is the closest material to traditional jazz on Shadowplay. At its conclusion, enthusiastic applause is left untrimmed – feel free to join in.

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Best of 2021: Andrew Cyrille Quartet (CD Review)

Best of 2021

Andrew Cyrille Quartet

The News 

ECM Records

David Virelles, piano; Bill Frisell, guitar; Ben Street, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums and percussion

 

Andrew Cyrille is now an octogenarian, an age at which many musicians have already retired or are slowing down. Cyrille retains a superlative technique and while his latest quartet outing for ECM, The News, emphasizes interplay and texture over power, it is clear that there is much of that yet remaining in the drummer’s arsenal as well. 

 

Cyrille is credited with three of the compositions on The News. The title track was originally a solo percussion piece. Recast for the quartet, it is the most experimental sounding piece on the album. David Virelles plays synth as well as his usual instrument, the piano, Ben Street plays the bass both arco and pizzicato, guitarist Bill Frisell daubs dissonance and darting linear flurries here and there, and Cyrille employs a number of drums and percussion instruments in a spell binding, unorthodox fashion. The drummer places newspaper over the snare and toms and plays with brushes: an intriguing timbral choice. “The Dance of the Nuances,” co-authored by Cyrille with the group’s pianist David Virelles, features bowed bass and single line solos punctuated by Cyrille’s syncopated drumming.

 

Three pieces are credited to Frisell. “Go Happy Lucky” is a mid tempo blues bounce that is jubilant in tone. Frisell plays the head and the first solo section in jaunty fashion, followed by succulent arpeggiations  from Virelles. Cyrille’s drumming is propulsive and responsive to the melodic gestures of the soloists. Street plays walking lines that lead to the return of the head, this time with the whole group digging in and matching Frisell. “The Mountain” begins with a simple melody and chord progression played by Frisell. Gradually, it becomes more chromatic and embellished as Virelles and Street push the guitarist’s material outside. Cyrille adds a counter rhythm that also complicates the piece’s surface. “Baby” is one of Frisell’s pastoral Americana style pieces. His honeyed melody is supplied counterpoint by Street, Fender Rhodes comping from Virelles, and subdued drumming by Cyrille. Virelles contributes the composition “Incienso,” which has an ambling melody and an intricate chord structure filled with Brazilian allusions and polytonal reference points. 

 

The one piece used by a musician outside the group is “Leaving East of Java” by Steve Colson. This is a felicitous inclusion. A performer, composer, and educator, it is unfortunate that Colson’s work isn’t better known today. “Leaving East of Java” includes guitar and piano in octaves and intricate chords rolled by Virelles. Synthetic scales evoke the exoticism, if not the specific content, of Javanese gamelan. Partway through, Street takes a suave solo succeeded by florid playing from Frisell and a repeated riff from Virelles. The pianist then plummets into the bass register, placing quick scalar passages underneath Street’s legato playing. The octaves return briefly to punctuate the piece’s close. 

 

The final composition, “With You in Mind” by Cyrille, features the drummer intoning a spoken word introduction of an original poem. The main section of the piece starts as a duo, with Virelles and Street creating a gently lilting ambience with traditional harmonies and rhythmic gestures that reflect the poetry (it would be great to see this poem set with the tune for singers). A piquant piano chord invites Frisell and Virelles to join the proceedings, with the guitarist creating an arrangement of the tune with chordal embellishments and Cyrille imparting the time with graceful poise. It ends in a whorl of chordal extensions and soft cymbal sizzle. 

 

Jazz players and audiences alike are often seeking “new standards” to canonize. There are several tunes here that qualify. The News is one of our Best of 2021 recordings. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Best of, Big Band, CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Best of 2020: Ingrid Laubrock

Ingrid Laubrock

Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt

Intakt 2xCD

Dreams can be a potent force for creators. Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock has harnessed her subconscious to make her strongest work yet. Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt is a double album, the first CD featuring a chamber orchestra and the second CD small ensembles, both performing the same dream-based compositions, with the second CD’s versions “turned upside down and inside out,” according to Laubrock.

Laubrock’s 2018 orchestral album, Contemporary Chaos, hinted at the skills she would bring to bear when writing for large ensembles. Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt goes even further towards an impressionist concept of sound. While I wouldn’t want to trade either disc for the other, it is also fascinating to hear the pieces reworked for a smaller group in lithe arrangements that feature electronics by Sam Pluta as well as contributions from Laubrock, Cory Smythe, Adam Matlock, Josh Modney and Zeena Parkins.

Atmospheric, harmonically complex, and filled with eloquent solos and intricate charts, the recording is one my favourite releases from this year. Best Jazz 2020.   

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz, Piano

Best of 2020: Matthew Shipp

Matthew Shipp

The Piano Equation

Tao Forms CD

Jazz pianist Matthew Shipp turned sixty this year and celebrated in part with the solo release The Piano Equation. Shipp is an extraordinarily prolific recording artist, with dozens of releases as leader or co-leader and numerous more as a supporting musician; his solo catalog alone is extensive. Despite this embarrassment of riches, The Piano Equation is a standout recording, a state-of-the-art summary of the myriad playing styles at Shipp’s disposal. 

The title track shifts harmonic identities from modal changes to dissonant structures, all of them buoying an arcing, long-lined melody. “Swing Note from Deep Space” has a Monk-like vibe, with hard bop phrasing, buoyant walking bass, and filigreed passagework. In one of several multifaceted pieces on the recording,

“Void Equation” moves between pointillism and bluesy riffs and builds a fast-paced ostinato before returning to the fragmentary nature of its opening. 

“Piano in Hyperspace” is an intricate ballad with staccato vertical interjections providing a bit of grit to counteract otherwise limpid textures. Two other ballads, “Land of the Secrets” and “Tone Pockets,” show Shipp creating impressionist whorls of neo-traditional materials in a delicate contrast to his more modern offerings. 

Just as the pianist can play with considerable delicacy, Shipp also can let loose a tsunami of powerful free playing, as he does on “Vortex Factor.” “Radio Signals Equation” is a propulsive, swinging take on post-tonality, while “Clown Pulse” is a bumptious take on hard bop. Fleet and varied in terms of its surface, its asymmetrical blocks taking on a Stravinskyian cast, “Emission” is Shipp at his most distinctive. The album closer “Cosmic Juice” is another standout, with angular shifts between registers periodically suspended by minimal repetition and sepulchral low passages offset by treble register tightly voiced chords and shards of melodic material. 

The Piano Equation is just one of several recordings released this year by the sexagenerian Shipp. His energy and creativity is indefatigable and shows no signs of flagging. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CDs, File Under?, jazz

CD Preview: Jeff Parker

Max (Maxine Brown)

Celebrating a new partnership between Nonesuch and International Anthem, two of the gold standard labels for adventurous music, January 24 will see the release of Jeff Parker and the New Breed’s Suite for Max Brown. Combining samples, some decidedly old school in origin, and exploratory improvisation, the music makes connections to Parker’s long tenure in Tortoise while adding still more depth to his musical profile.

Listeners will doubtless wonder: who is Max Brown? Parker’s mother’s maiden name was Maxine Brown, but her nickname is Max. The New Breed band name comes from the name of a store owned by Parker’s late father. Thus, the entire project is enacted as a tribute to family. The suite is Parker’s most personal, musically potent, statement to date.

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Concerts, File Under?, jazz

10/16: Iverson and Harrell at Jazz Standard

Photo: Monica Frisell/ECM Records

In recent years, pianist Ethan Iverson has been collaborating with a number of artists, particularly elder statesmen of the jazz tradition. In 2017, he appeared at the Village Vanguard with trumpeter Tom Harrell. The performances were document on Common Practice, Iverson’s most recent ECM recording. In addition to Harrell, the CD’s personnel includes bassist Ben Street and drummer Eric McPherson, longtime associates of the pianist.

The common practice to which the title refers are jazz standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook but also bebop originals. The group investigates a range of styles, from ardent balladry on “The Man I Love” to smoky lyricism on “I Can’t Get Started” to puckish wit on “Sentimental Journey.” Harrell and Iverson display imaginative recasting of harmonic changes throughout, but especially on vigorous versions of “All the Things You Are” and “Wee.” Iverson contributes two tunes, “Philadelphia Creamer” and “Jed from Teaneck,” both blues with twists and turns of the form.

Photo: Monica Frisell/ECM Records

On Wednesday, October 16th, the quartet reunites for two sets at Jazz Standard (details below). Their take on jazz’s common practice is not to be missed.

Photo: Monica Frisell/ECM Records.

Event Details

Ethan Iverson Quartet featuring Tom Harrell

Wednesday, October 16 - shows at 7:30 and 9:30 PM
Jazz Standard 
116 E. 27th Street, NYC
Tickets here
Ethan Iverson – piano
Tom Harrell – trumpet, flugelhorn
Ben Street – bass
Eric McPherson – drums
by Christian Carey
CD Review, Concerts, File Under?, jazz

10/13: Tonight at Nublu – Sun of Goldfinger

Sun of Goldfinger

On Sun of Goldfinger, his latest recording for ECM Records, saxophonist Tim Berne partners with guitarist David Torn and percussionist Ches Smith. The outing incorporates the avant-jazz palette usually adopted by Berne and Smith along with amplified sonics and effects incorporated by Torn.

There are three long-form pieces on Sun of Goldfinger. “Eye Meddle” builds from a fragmentary welter of ostinatos, each at first seeming to go their own direction, into a tightly interwoven and densely populated texture with wailing upper register saxophone accompanied by an insistent guitar melody and double time rhythms from Smith. Torn’s guitar then soars to match Berne, overdubs allowing for him to add a feisty rhythm guitar part to the mix. A filigreed, polyrhythmic denouement follows.

“Spartan, Before it Hit” opens with sustained upper register guitar answered by a mournful saxophone melody. A unison melody is offset by altissimo saxophone harmonics in imitation of the earlier high-lying guitars; Smith takes on a motoric beat while Torn contributes thunderous rock riffs and Berne corresponding squalls. The climax involves a huge crescendo from Smith, Torn’s laser beam guitar lines, and angular soloing from Berne. A subdued interlude, quite gentle in context, follows. Alternating with more forceful passages, an extended reflective demeanor explores fascinating musical pathways. At the conclusion, altissimo register saxophone alongside loping guitar is reasserted to make for a neat moment identifying the piece’s larger form.

The album’s closer, “Soften the Blow,” begins with oscillating dyads and bits of scalar passages. Sonorous guitar chords interrupt these fragments, followed by sci-fi effects, overblowing, and reverberating sounds from Smith. The drums finally enter, punctuating the music’s surface with short, muscular gestures. Berne then takes a solo that combines the fragments of the opening into piquant, post-tonal lines. While Torn reaches deep into the spacey side of his effects kit, the saxophone solo kicks into high octane, as do the drums. Smith creates a fascinating panoply of cymbal sounds and Torn’s solo matches Berne’s intensity, even bringing out the whammy bar for bent note emphasis. Behind all this is a doom-rock ostinato that propels the proceedings. The structure devolves, yielding a more ruminative passage where each member of the trio goes their own way. Wailing guitar and emphatic drums provide the link to another long crescendo in which Berne bides his time, allowing the spotlight to rest on his colleagues’ interaction for a time before rejoining the proceedings to lead it into fervent free jazz territory. A brief coda brings the boil back to simmer, leaving the listener with much to ponder.

Photo: Robert Lewis/ECM Records

On October 13th in New York City at Nublu 151 (151 Avenue C in the East Village), the trio will appear in a show at 9 PM; doors open at 8 (Tickets here).

by Christian Carey
Brooklyn, Concerts, Downtown, Experimental Music, File Under?, Improv, jazz, New York, Recordings

Barre Phillips in New York

Barre Phillips Zürcher Gallery By Christian Carey Sequenza 21 May 20, 2019
Barre Phillips
NEW YORK – ECM Records has released a number of great solo bass recordings. The label’s producer, Manfred Eicher, was himself a bassist, and he has invited a number of fellow low string players to record for ECM. Barre Phillips is a pathfinder in the genre, releasing one of the first solo bass recordings, Journal Violone, on Opus One in 1968. Eicher and he have been keen collaborators for many years, beginning in 1971 with a duo recording of Phillips with Dave Holland, Music from Two Basses, the first of its kind, which was followed by a number of solo and ensemble outings for ECM. In 2018, the imprint released what was announced as Phillips last solo CD, End to End, which he called the last entry in his “Journal Violone.”
It has been more than thirty years since Phillips last performed in New York. Originally from San Francisco and long a resident of France, much of the bassist’s career has been made playing in Europe. On Monday, May 20th, he appearedat the Zürcher Gallery, an art venue on Bleecker Street in lower Manhattan. The crowd was standing room only and contained a number of jazz and experimental music luminaries. They were attentive and enthusiastic throughout. Phillips turns eighty-five in October. In his performance on Monday night, he appeared energetic and fit. He easily hoisted a sizeable double bass to his shoulder, and deftly moved it around to play its entirety: not just the strings. His playing and demeanor are vibrant, inquisitive, and often imbued with puckish humor. The bassist gave a veritable masterclass of standard and extended playing techniques. The latter appear prolifically on End to End, among them high harmonics, different varieties of strumming such as plucking notes with both hands, a number of approaches to bowing, microtones, glissandos, and all manner of percussive playing. However, the CD intersperses these with a fair bit of cantabile playing. Less of that was on offer live. Instead, with a mischievous twinkle and disarming banter, Phillips went to work showing what it meant to “do your own thing” when, as he described it, career paths in more traditional jazz and classical music were denied him. Each piece, most of them improvised but some selections fromEnd to End that had been crafted into compositions, centered on a different palette of techniques. At times Phillips played his instrument caressingly, seeming to coax delicate high notes and thrumming vibrations from the strings at a pianissimo dynamic. At others, he virtually attacked the instrument, scratching it from stem to stern with his bow. If a luthier were in attendance, they would have likely had a panic attack. There was considerable variation in the harmonic vocabulary employed. Some of the music was in the ‘out’ post-tonal language of free jazz. Phillips also supplied an etude of octaves, another of open string drones, a third a chameleon-like shift to Eastern scales and gestures, and on “Inner Door, Pt. 4,” a plaintive modal jazz solo grounded in double-stopped fifths. Here, as elsewhere, Phillips displayed a penchant for executing a long, unerringly controlled decrescendo, bringing the music to a whispered close. Zürcher was an ideal location in which to hear these small details: an intimate space but one with good acoustics. It is unfortunate that New Yorkers haven’t had more opportunities to hear Barre Phillips up close and personal. His performance was an unforgettable experience. Phillips joins Mat Maneri, Emilie Lesbros, and Hank Roberts for a performance on Saturday night at 8 PM at Brooklyn’s I-Beam. One more chance … -Christian Carey
by Christian Carey