Matthew Shipp, World Construct (ESP Disk’ CD/DL)
The first jazz piano trio was probably Jess Stacy’s, a side event at Benny Goodman dates while the boss told the others how useless they were. Scroll forward from there, through Art Tatum with Tiny Grimes and Slam Stewart, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, Cecil Taylor, Keith Jarrett, plus revisionists like EST and The Bad Plus, and a wilderness of epigoni, and you might think the form was exhausted. You then turn to Matthew Shipp’s current band and it’s as if no one had ever thought of working in this format before.
Shipp isn’t so much a musician as a creative algorithm. Given a sound, he will show in which direction it was moving and offer seven more that belong with it. Or perhaps botany is a better analogy, each sound akin to a seed, with all the biotic information already inside it for the production of a flower or a tree. He’s both deeply imbued in the jazz piano tradition, channeling Monk on the opening “Tangible”, and completely beyond it. Listening to the softly tumbling, free associating line of “Mysterious State” is to leave the existing literature far behind and move into a whole new idiom. Likewise, the possibly tongue in cheek “Jazz Posture” and the almost ritualistic opening to “Beyond Understanding” where he plays a bare minimum of notes (contrast the rapid transitions of “Talk Power” right after it) but manages to suggest whole areas of musical possibility.
Arguably Shipp’s best work before now has been with drummer Whit Dickey and bassist/force of nature William Parker. But in Newman Taylor Barker and the sonorous Michael Bisio he has musicians who urge and complement his vision rather than merely accompanying it. Many of the tracks seem to emerge out of cymbal tizz or a couple of big bass intervals. It remains a hopelessly crowded market, but Shipp’s is now unquestionably the most important piano trio of its time, not so much extending the literature as starting a whole new volume. It really is that good. – Brian Morton, The Wire
Review: Rob Brown and Matthew Shipp – Then Now (RogueArt)
However high expectations might be concerning a meeting of two veterans in collaboration, there are certain recordings that simply destroy all preconceptions. This duo performance of saxophonist Rob Brown and Matthew Shipp is a case in point, and while each of their duo projects, spanning thirty years, is wonderful in its own way, this one sets a new standard… (Read more on The Squid’s Ear)
7 Great Books About Music from 2025
Black Mystery School Pianists And Other Writings by Matthew Ship
This year belonged to Matthew Shipp in a pair of mediums. First, the perennially prolific pianist dropped three stellar records this year alone: the solo piano genius work The Cosmic Piano, his String Trio’s Armageddon Flower with saxophonist Ivo Perelman and duo album Horizon with fellow pianist Eri Yamamoto. Then the downtown New York City avant-gardist achieved further greatness on the printed page with the revelatory read, Black Mystery School Pianists And Other Writings. Absolutely essential for hardcore enthusiasts of Shipp’s craft and novices and jazz fans alike, the words, subjects and opinions Shipp tackles in Black Mystery School Pianists And Other Writings is as forward-thinking, radically adventurous and fearless as his piano playing itself. With musings, opinions, anecdotes, poems, in-depth analysis, personal stories and reflections, Shipp invites the reader into his constantly churning brain as he delves into a plethora of subjects including but certainly not limited to, the thought process behind what exactly is the “Black Mystery School” and which pianists make the cut into this exclusive club (and who doesn’t), the relationship between boxing and jazz and ruminations on Wayne Shorter, Sun Ra, Paul Bley, Monk, Roscoe Mitchell and his friend and bandmate, the late great David S. Ware. Shipp even devotes a chapter to his partying club days in the 80’s where you would have found him dancing the night away at New York City hot spots like The Pyramid Club. Shipp explores more ideas in a shade under 100 pages than most authors do in epic-length books. Complete with an incredibly detailed introduction by visual artist, poet and longtime friend Yuko Otomo, Shipp’s Black Mystery School Pianists And Other Writings is a deep dive into the heady mind of one of the avant-garde’s genius minds of our time. – Brad Cohan (Read full article on Treble Zine)
A Pure Act in a Dirty World – An Interview with Matthew Ship
The great and ferociously original jazz pianist Matthew Shipp riffs with Leonard Benardo on what it means for a musician to find a truly personal sound—something deeper than virtuosity, rooted in instinct, risk, and a kind of “unlearning” of received rules. Shipp describes improvisation as an ability to draw on the subconscious, almost like speaking a language whose grammar lives in the nervous system. He observes that real authenticity comes from ruthless self-knowledge rather than from imitating heroes or chasing technical perfection. Influences, for him, are “food” to be digested and transformed… (Read more on The Ideas Letter)
Thoughts on Clifford Allen’s Singularity Codex: Matthew Shipp on RogueArt
Clifford Allen begins his book Singularity Codex: Matthew Shipp on Rogueart, which is an exploration of the pianist’s works and philosophy, with this important insight, “The music in this volume [that of Shipp and his compeers] is quintessentially a New York music, and to narrow it down even further, it’s a Lower East Side music” (21). Allen describes the LES neighborhood, “In the 1960s and 1970s, the neighborhood was a haven for artists, musicians, theater makers, and writers due to low rents and squats … Many of these spaces were absent amenities like hot water, central heat, and insulation, but those with a do-it-yourself spirit and camaraderie were able to restructure these buildings into functional creative environments”… (Read more on Jazz Right Now)
A Matthew Shipp Appreciation from Yuko Otomo
Recently, I re-read Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky. I don’t remember how many times I’ve read this book. There are a few Bible-like books and writings (on art) that I return to whenever I have a need to re-check my own viewpoint. I read these books in order to regain my sanity in the midst of the muddy, messy and murky environment of the world we live in.
Right before “Conclusion” at the end of the book, in the section titled “Art and Artists,” he talks of the purpose and responsibility of “being an artist.”
The work of art is born of the artist in a mysterious and secret way. From him it gains life and being. Nor is its existence casual and inconsequential, but it has a definite and purposeful strength, alike in its material and spiritual life… (Read more on All About Jazz)