Matthew Shipp: The Cosmic Piano

Pianist Matthew Shipp has a mathematical side: The Multiplication Table (hatOLOGY, 1998) and The Piano Equation (Tao Forms, 2020) hint at this. He has a metabolic side: DNA (Thirsty Ear, 1999) and Right Hemisphere (Rogueart, 2008). And he has a solar system side: Gravitational Systems (hatOLOGY, 2000) and New Orbit (Thirsty Ear, 2001). And finally, though there is more, he goes into cosmic modes, on Cosmic Lieder (AUM Fidelity, 2011) and the disc at hand, The Cosmic Piano, a solo piano outing. Solo works suit him. When he sits down at the keyboard, he claims to be questioning existence, seeing improvising as the best path to doing just that.

Or not. Follow Shipp as an interviewee and as a user of social media, and you will find that he does talk some trash. In a good way. Sometimes things need to be said. He says them, like it or not.

His music? There is no way to describe the indescribable, but questions are asked, and something must be said. Coming from the perspective of a quarter century-plus immersion into Shipp's experimental classical jazz endeavors indicates that he—especially since perhaps 2010—seems to be creating, by turns, entire universes and/or individual organisms or even entire ecosystems, in a big picture/small picture way of creation.

His song titles on The Cosmic Piano give some indication of where he is coming from: The title tune and "Cosmic Junk Jazz DNA," "Orbit Light," "Piano's DNA Upgrade." "Suburban Outerspace" say he is coming in from outer space. These are all, almost certainly, titles taped on post-creation, and there may be an element of Shipp jiving us. If so, jive on Matthew Shipp. He is an original. Connecting his approach to any other jazz or avant-garde artist will not work. He is a distinct and uncompromising voice that brims with confidence. Good on him.

His music features clusters of notes, more chords than McCoy Tyner at his feistiest, jumbled and murky as they move into dissonance and percussive gusto, leading into his hypnotic segments of hard-edged repetition, followed by moments of delicate beauty, all wrapping up into compelling...organisms? Solar systems, black holes, galaxies?

Is his sound coming to us from the cosmos, his fury of pounding notes sitting in for the huge tidal forces on some as yet undiscovered gas giant, bigger than Jupiter, in a solar system halfway across the galaxy? Or is he making earthly ecosystems, single notes gelling into cellular masses that cloud the water? Or does he create a massive, beautiful nebula that paints a luminescent haze across deep black space, splattered by a sea of stars? God only knows.