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Matthew Shipp Trio: Signature Review

After briefly reuniting with his previous threesome for the album Sonic Fiction — on which they were joined by sax and clarinet player Mat Walerian — jazz pianist Matthew Shipp has once again assembled his current trio for their third album, Signature (CD, digital). But it seems the time apart may have done them some good. For while Signature is as solid as the trio’s previous albums, The Conduct Of Jazz and Piano Song, it is a much more varied, and thus more interesting, collection.

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Exclusive Interview: Sonic Fiction Pianist Matthew Shipp & Saxophonist/Clarinetist Mat Walerian

Having recorded as a duo (2015’s Live At Okuden), a trio with drummer Hamid Drake  (2016’s Live At Okuden), and a trio with bassist William Parker (2017’s This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People), you’d expect the jazz twosome of pianist Matthew Shipp and clarinetist, saxophonist Mat Walerian to next record a quartet collection, perhaps with Drake and Parker. But while their new album Sonic Fiction (CD, digital), was recorded by four people, it’s not the four you might expect. Credited to the Matthew Shipp Quartet Featuring Mat Walerian, Sonic Fiction features Michael Bisio on double bass and drummer Whit Dickey. In talking to Shipp and Walerian, they discuss why this album is so unexpected, and what else they’re planning, as well as Shipp’s new solo piano collection Zero (CD, digital) and his three-disc boxed set with tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman, Oneness (CD).

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Matthew Shipp Trio Piano Song Review

On 2015’s The Conduct Of Jazz, jazz pianist Matthew Shipp inaugurated his new trio — of himself, bassist Michael Bisio, and drummer Newman Taylor Baker — with a collection that seamlessly mixed the frantic energy of free jazz piano with more traditional and steadier jazz rhythms. But while they’re mining similar territory on their second collection, Piano Song (CD), the threesome are also veering into some different sonic realms as well.

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Exclusive Interview: Jazz Musicians Matthew Shipp And Mat Walerian

In jazz as in life, you’re sometimes only as good as the people you work with. John Coltrane, for instance, made some amazing music in his career, but did some of his best work with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones, as best heard on such classic albums as Ballads, Crescent, Afro Blue Impressions, First Meditations, Sun Ship, and, of course, A Love Supreme.

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Jungle | Mat Walerian, Matthew Shipp, Hamid Drake: Live At Okuden Review

Though it shares the same name, was recorded a few months later during the same concert series, and is a collection jazz that runs from the atmospheric to the noisy, the second Live At Okuden album (CD, digital) by jazz maestros Mat Walerian and Matthew Shipp — on which they’re joined, this time around, by Hamid Drake under the name Jungle — is anything but a rerun. Well, except in how good it is.

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Matthew Shipp Trio “The Conduct Of Jazz” Music Review

While he’s considered one of the better jazz piano players around these days, Matthew Shipp is mostly thought of as being one of the best free jazz musicians in New York City’s avant-garde scene. But on The Conduct Of Jazz (CD, digital), he pulls back a bit for a more conventional but still edgy-adjacent collection.