Jazz Articles about Matthew Shipp

About Matthew Shipp

Multiple Reviews

These two guest appearances demonstrate that pianist Matthew Shipp has become an elder statesman in the jazz world. How that happened can be boiled down to two simple elements. One: he has created a unique sound and language for improvised music and two: Shipp has become a doyen of cutting edge music making and opinion. Perhaps all of this could be foretold from his early apprenticeship in David S. Ware and Roscoe Mitchell's bands, and his collaborations with ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp Trio: Root Of Things

Read "Root Of Things" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 26, 2014

The third album by pianist Matthew Shipp's trio with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey persuades as their strongest yet, no mean feat after the live disc included on The Art Of The Improviser (Thirsty Ear, 2011) and Elastic Aspects (Thirsty Ear, 2012). Over the six cuts from this 2013 studio session they restate their case to be considered one of the premier contemporary piano threesomes, supremely cohesive and thoroughly convincing in Shipp's unique idiom combining insistent themes, darkly ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp Trio: Root of Things

Read "Root of Things" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
March 19, 2014

Root of Things is the third recording by pianist Matthew Shipp's working trio with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey, following Elastic Aspects (Thirsty Ear, 2012) and the group's live debut The Art Of The Improviser (Thirsty Ear, 2011). Over the past three decades, Shipp has demonstrated the reach of his artistry in myriad ways, including genre-defying electro-acoustic experiments. In recent years however, Shipp has narrowed his focus, concentrating on acoustic efforts largely based in intimate solo, duo and ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp Trio: Root Of Things

Read "Root Of Things" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 24, 2014

A mathematical equation can chart and explain everything in life, from the arc of a thrown baseball to the dynamical systems of chaos. The scientific study of deterministic chaos is a bit of an oxymoron, in that the mathematicians suggest everything can be graphed and explained by calculations. The theory being, the deeper you delve into any system, the clearer and more uncomplicated it becomes. The same can be said for the music of pianist Matthew Shipp. Like ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp: Piano Sutras

Read "Piano Sutras" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 20, 2013

Wikipedia tells us that in ancient Indian literature, the term sutra denotes a distinct type of literary composition, based on short aphoristic statements. Similarly concise motifs lie at the heart of many of the selections on Matthew Shipp's eighth solo album Piano Sutras. It's a measure of the American's place in the pianistic pantheon that he still has something worthwhile to say after some 25 years on the scene. Of all his outings, Piano Sutras most resembles Un Piano (Rogue ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp: Piano Sutras

Read "Piano Sutras" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 6, 2013

There is a sort of primitivism that can be found at the edges of advanced physics and mathematics. The same sort of primitivism is at the heart of pianist Matthew Shipp's music. Just as one can speak of the sweet science (or art) of boxing, the pianist plays with a violent beauty.Piano Sutras is his seventh solo recording following the Thirsty Ear discs 4D (2010) and One (2006) and Un Piano (Rogue Art, 2008), Songs (Splasc(h), 2002), Creation ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp: Greatest Hits

Read "Greatest Hits" reviewed by Harry S. Pariser

by Harry S. Pariser
March 3, 2013

"Greatest Hits" compilations are not releases normally associated with jazz musicians, and especially not with pianist as decidedly avant-garde as Matthew Shipp.Shipp explains that “My impetus for creating this CD was that I have a vast catalogue which I don't think the jazz world has started to absorb yet. I selected the tunes by which ones stood out in reviews of my CDs, which tunes had received the most airplay, or compositions I had received the most feedback ...