Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » David S. Ware/Matthew Shipp: Live in Sant’Anna Arresi, 2004

18

David S. Ware/Matthew Shipp: Live in Sant’Anna Arresi, 2004

By

View read count
David S. Ware/Matthew Shipp: Live in Sant’Anna Arresi, 2004
Describing David S. Ware as a maverick would be a gimmicky shortcut around the depth of the late saxophonist's vision. Outside of John Coltrane we have not seen a Ware contemporary with more depth of spirituality, presented in such a visceral way. Similarly, Matthew Shipp employs a type of unimaginable creative mysticism that transcends technique and peer comparisons with an approach and sound that is wholly his own. Live in Sant'Anna Arresi, 2004 showcases two masters—with a long working history—in a rare live duo performance.

For almost twenty years Shipp, bassist William Parker and a succession of drummers (Marc Edwards, Whit Dickey, Susie Ibarra and Guillermo E. Brown), made up Ware's namesake quartet. Shipp and Ware had performed as a duo only a few times but the Sant'Anna Arresi performance appears to be the only one that was captured for posterity. The sixty year old festival in Sardinia was a fortunate venue to have been recorded and released as the second entry in AUM Fidelity's David S. Ware Archive Series.

The two-part improvisation "Tao Flow" opens with Ware's lamenting tenor searching just above Shipp's circumspect chords. As the first of the two roughly twenty-minute sections ladders in complexity, Shipp mixes chunks of chords with decomposing tonality and melodic passages. Ware gives the saxophone a raw, human-like voice tearing through fearsome explorations of spontaneous ideas. "Tao Flow, Pt. 2" has Shipp playing outside and inside the piano as he and Ware dial down the intensity briefly. Occasionally sharing ideas, often freely expressing individual concepts, the two artists opt out of clearly defining a leadership hierarchy.

With Live in Sant'Anna Arresi, 2004 we have unconstrained improvisation, sensibly executed with neither excess nor self-imposed limitation. Both Ware and Shipp effect knotty, non-linear phrases only to break off in unexpected directions. They will sometimes leave just enough space to contemplate the current before hurtling down another tributary. This is great, adventurous music.

Track Listing

Tao Flow, Pt. 1; Tao Flow, Pt. 2; Encore.

Personnel

David S. Ware: tenor saxophone; Matthew Shipp: piano.

Album information

Title: Live in Sant’Anna Arresi, 2004 | Year Released: 2016 | Record Label: AUM Fidelity

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.