Since setting out as a leader in his own right, Matthew Shipp has mapped out an area of land on the border between jazz and electronic music via his custodianship of Thirsty Ear’s Blue Series. Collaborations with artists like El-P, DJ Spooky, Anti-Pop Consortium and Scanner have led him out into some distinctively experimental terrain, which makes his recent return to more conventional formats all the more surprising. His new CD, The Art Of The Improviser showcases his solo piano flights on one disc, and his piano trio excursions on the other. But I guess if you are going to stop and take stock at some point, the point at which you turn fifty might be as good a time as any. And, especially if you have as much to take stock of as Matthew Shipp. Despite this seeming scaling back of his ambitions, at the Vortex tonight, backed with the other two members of his trio, he proved he could still pack a lot of impressive detail, technique, and unconventionality into two very dense sets. Read the rest of this review over at The Liminal.
2 comments
March 1, 2011 at 8:46 pm
RL
Shipp is a great musician, very cool.
March 5, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Rodrigo L.
Shipp’s work is very sophisticated, I think the appropriate comparison to Miles Davis, although his work does not have the same weight as the work of Miles, his sound is always seeking something new, looking to expand.