Matthew Shipp: I've Been To Many Places

In 2013 pianist Matthew Shipp, tongue firmly-in-cheek, issued Greatest Hits, which sampled his Thirsty Ear catalogue. With I've Been To Many Places, his 9th solo album, he takes a different approach to revisiting his back pages, by reprising standards and favorites from previous releases albeit this time in an unaccompanied rendition. These sit alongside a selection of newly minted originals. As is often the case with his studio sessions, conciseness is the watchword as Shipp distils an idea down to its essence. Consequently the program comprises 17 cuts which clock in between less than two minutes and no more than six.

Shipp remains one of our most distinctive piano stylists. His restless imagination means that he rarely settles into sustained patterns, preferring to disrupt the flow with passages of tumultuous chording, glinting runs, romantic flourishes and interludes which defy categorization, but which are pure Shipp. However on this occasion he adds a generous helping of melody to the accustomed mix, and in doing so creates one of his most accessible offerings. As often with standards/repertoire, while Shipp revels in the tunes, he doesn't use them as an overt basis for subsequent improvisation. The connection arrives as much through mood as melodic variation.

Of the pieces reinterpreted, that's the case with Gershwin's "Summertime," where Shipp interrupts the lovingly rendered familiar strains with ruminative digressions, while he broaches "Tenderly" (first tackled with the David S. Ware Quartet) much more obliquely so it rumbles darkly, the tune all but obscured. Shipp enjoys "Where Is The Love" (referenced during one of the dates with hip hop mc El-p) so much that he addresses it twice, the first pass being brief but exuberant while the second is wistful and sparks rather more elliptical commentary.

On the other hand, Shipp's version of Coltrane's "Naima" comes cloaked in a rippling prettiness which reimagines the piece as a sparkling ballad. Two consecutive cuts from Expansion, Power, Release (Hatology, 2001) also find the pianist in lyrical vein. "Waltz" does what it says on the tin, while he transforms "Reflex" into one of his most attractive songs, even rivaling "Patmos" from One (Thirsty Ear, 2006) in the beauty stakes. Of the originals, the title track acts as a richly sculpted manifesto for Shipp's method, while the prancing runs and stride-like left hand mean that "Brain Stem Grammer" resembles little else in the pianist's discography. "Symbolic Access" represents another triumph, as keystrikes stand amid luminous silence before a sudden burst of rhythm. But really there isn't a dud to be heard.

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