With a career that spans more than 30 years and nearly 70 albums as a leader (and about as a many as a sideman), jazz pianist Matthew Shipp has more than established himself as a singular talent.
So it’s interesting how The Unidentifiable (CD, mp3, wav), his fourth album with his current trio, has moments that recall a certain other prolific piano player’s iconic threesome, albeit while still being very Shipp.
While it obviously has its fans, the racing game series Project CARS has always felt inconsequential to me. So much so that I honestly can’t remember anything about the first two installments, even though I know I played the first one and, I think, some of the second. But Project CARS 3 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) not only managed to catch my attention, but keep it as well, even if it does have some annoying flaws.
Twenty-one years after they teamed up with the San Francisco Symphony for their 1999 live album and video S&M, Metallica and their local orchestra have collaborated again for S&M2 (CD, digital, vinyl, Blu-ray audio, Blu-ray, DVD). And like the original, this second collection of orchestrally-augmented Metallica has many moments of might and magic…and a couple that are misfires or just mushy.
With a name like Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn’t Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter, you might expect the new album by the Okuden Quartet — bass clarinetist / soprano clarinet player / alto saxophonist / flautist Mat Walerian, pianist Matthew Shipp, double bassist / shakuchi player William Parker, and drummer / percussionist Hamid Drake — to be pretentious or silly or a bit too much. Thankfully, the music on Every Dog Has Its Day But It Doesn’t Matter Because Fat Cat Is Getting Fatter (CD, digital) — and yes, I am going to write it out in full every time because SEO — is anything but. Instead, it’s an impressive collection of acoustic jazz that’s both moody and manic, and a worthy successor to the previous albums these four have recorded in various configurations.
On their debut album, Threads (MP3, cassette), the Caterpillar Quartet play jazz both free and traditionally with equal skill. But while they’re clearly good at playing jazz in either style, it’s how this album presents the two sides of their musical personality that may (or may not) split fans.
While helicopters have been powerful enemies in countless shooters, there haven’t been too many games lately where you get to fly one into combat yourself. But while piloting a futuristic helicopter-like vehicle in the sci-fi first-person shooter Disintegration (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) isn’t always as exciting as trying to shoot down an attack copter with a pistol is in other games, both the story-driven campaign and multiplayer modes do make this entertaining despite its flaws.
While helicopters have been powerful enemies in countless shooters, there haven’t been too many games lately where you get to fly one into combat yourself. But in the sci-fi first-person shooter Disintegration (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), you get to pilot a futuristic helicopter-like vehicle into battle. And while it isn’t always as exciting as trying to shoot down an attack copter with a pistol is in other games, Disintegration still manages to be entertaining despite its many flaws.
(NOTE: With multiplayer unavailable until the game launches on June 16th, what follows is a look at this game’s single-player campaign. A more complete review is forthcoming.)
Though he had recorded with them before (albeit always with other people), 2017’s A Rift In Decorum: Live At The Village Vanguard marked the true debut of Ambrose Akinmusire’s impressive jazz quartet, the most interesting new jazz combo since Matthew Shipp teamed up with Matt Walerian two years prior for Live At Okuden. Now the foursome have made their first studio album together, on the tender spot of every calloused moment (CD, digital, vinyl). And while most of it is equally as impressive as A Rift In Decorum, it does have some ill-fitting moments when three of the members go M.I.A. and their leader puts down his signature instrument.
For some people, this may not be the best time for noisy, loosely structured free jazz. Or, really, anything that isn’t soothing. For the rest of us, though, there’s Whit Dickey’s Morph (CD, digital), an epic two-disc set on which the free jazz / free jazz adjacent drummer plays with pianist Matthew Shipp on the first disc, Reckoning, and with Shipp and trumpeter Nate Wooley on the second, Pacific Noir.