Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Matthew Shipp / Whit Dickey: Reels

Matthew Shipp / Whit Dickey: Reels

By Karl Ackermann
August 4, 2021
View read count

Matthew Shipp has managed his way through the 2020-2021 pandemic nicely, thanks in part to a substantial cache of excellent material. Free-jazz drummer Whit Dickey has been working with Shipp for decades, beginning with David S. Ware's quartet. Since 2012 Shipp and Dickey have worked frequently with Brazilian saxophonist Ivo Perelman. Dickey has been part of Shipp's trio and, in 2020, the pair teamed for a duo/trio release, Morph (ESP Disk). The duo debut was half of a double-disk set that featured Nate Wooley in the trio formation. Reels is the exploratory successor to that album.

The album opens with "Lattice," a mesmerizing composition with the feel of Satie's "furniture music," meeting idiosyncratic rhythm. Taken with the closing piece, "Icing," the two serve as bookends for some agitated improvisations. The daggers come out with "Cosmic Train" and "Hold Tight," angular studies which see Shipp and Dickey putting fine points on their synergistic passages. Moods vary, as evidenced by the obsidian "Moon Garden" and "Fire Dance," where Shipp and Dickey send notes flying like musical shrapnel. Throughout "Vector," "Silent Ice," and the title track, Shipp and Dickey alternate between intricate and dense; free improvisation and classical influences.

Shipp and Dickey embody the gray area where free jazz, avant-garde, and lyricism meet. These ten intriguing pieces push the scope of resonance and language for a piano-drum formation that occupies that undefinable space. The duo invites the listener to a momentary, alternate universe with the backdrop of powerful performances, fractured rhythms, melodies, and gripping concepts.

Track Listing

Lattice; Cosmic Train; Hold Tight; Moon Garden; Fire Dance; Vector; Magma; Silent Ice; Reels; Icing.

Personnel

Matthew Shipp

piano

Whit Dickey

drums

Album information

Title: Reels | Year Released: 2021 | Record Label: Burning Ambulance Music

About Matthew Shipp

PREVIOUS / NEXT

Alan Rubin: Mr. Fabulous in Every Wa...
< Previous

Dreamsing
Next >

Become a Sustaining Member

Since 1995, All About Jazz has championed jazz as an art form and supported the musicians who create it. Over three decades, it has grown into one of the world's leading jazz resources, serving hundreds of thousands of readers, musicians, presenters and industry professionals each month.

Help Build the Future of All About Jazz

Your support helps us continue building All About Jazz for the next generation—expanding our editorial coverage, preserving jazz history, developing new community features and creating better ways to discover the music and the people behind it.

Become a sustaining member for as little as $20 per year and you'll immediately enjoy an ad-free experience along with access to subscriber features and future articles for a full year.

Together, we're not simply sustaining All About Jazz—we're building its future. Thank you for being part of the journey.