Matthew Shipp: Reconceptualizing the Art of the Trio
A new interview with the jazz piano maestro
“The only thing free about free jazz is that you don’t get paid,” is a quote I’ve heard attributed to many a jazz musician.
While it is quite clever, it also implies a certain degree of hidden knowledge that goes into a music genre that on the surface dispenses with rules. Though traditional melody, harmony and rhythm are left by the wayside, the implication is that there are complex theoretical considerations that go into each performance. It lends credibility to a genre that outsiders may denigrate as “just noise.” But who asked the haters their opinion anyway?
Matthew Shipp, the world’s premiere avant-garde pianist doesn’t care about such things. He has something to communicate to the listener and he wants the music to do the talking. And what goes into creating these sounds is for the musicians to worry about. For the listeners the music just needs to be experienced.
His latest, New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz, might just be his ultimate statement. Shipp, along with bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker have been developing their collective approach together since 2015 and have truly become something special. It is an honor to hear Matthew Shipp explain their development and latest release in his own words.
Your new album is an astounding piece of work, and it seems you have pointed to it as being a Pinnacle achievement of your career. What kind of breakthroughs did you achieve with this recording?
The new album is the concept album that this trio was meant to make. It is what has been implied since the first CD of this incarnation of the trio-[ the Conduct of jazz]— but this new CD stands on it’s own as a complete cosmos. In my mind this CD is not beholden to the idea of jazz at all-and I even say that being that the 3rd track of the CD obviously more then hints at jazz reference points —but I feel that we are enmeshed in cosmic music that is completely of our own creation.
Your trio tends to strike a delicate balance between composition and improvisation. Is it important to you that the listener can hear the difference between the two approaches?
No. The music is language and vibration and is meant to enter the listeners nervous system in that way. The improvisation is suppose to be not only vital but is us making sentences and paragraphs. Any line of demarcation in this music as to what is the “composition” and what is improvised is meaningless. I would hope the CD is taken in as a whole and that dichotomy is rendered meaningless. It’s a whole experience and I am not looking to get a medal because the first 16 bars are written down and I could have gotten an A plus in a composition class in some music school. In other words we are open to whatever tools we can use to communicate and if we come from the free jazz tradition and are skilled at instant in time composition that is what we will do. It has always seemed to me that “Jazz” has always been trying to make so called “composition” have the vitality of improvisation and so called improvisation have the rigor of composition or at least that is what i was told as a kid and what i tell my students. However we get there is our secret. As a listener I would hope you just take in the experience however you take it in.
As most of people have been raised on some form of pop music, we are conditioned to seek a narrative structure to our music. This might be one of the main barriers of entry for those wanting to explore more abstract and complex music. Do you have any thoughts on how a listener should experience your music?
Every listener is so different and brings a whole different set of things to the listening experience. I can only ask that you take the vibrations in in a meditative way. If you really do that a narrative will arise. So the question is: Is the narrative in the music or did your brain/ mind superimpose? Well, that is the mystery you need to enter in. Our job is to be skillful in language and code. Where it leads you might be up to you in some ways.
How do you experience the music? In reading William Parker’s autobiography it was a revelation to me the discussion of his love of abstract film. This seems to be an entry point to an alternative way of experiencing music. While I think your experience of composing and performing music is probably different than his, is there a similar entry point to what you are feeling?
My entry point is religious of sorts. It deals with insights i had when I was about 5 or 6 years old about the structure of the universe and the generation of language. It is the building of a cosmos from a single vibration. So to me the music is experienced in the same way that I experienced the mystery of the godhead in mass at church as a kid. I was an altar boy from age 5 on.
When you think of the great jazz piano trios what comes to mind? Did any of these groups have a direct influence on New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz?
There are no jazz piano trios that were an influence on this CD. The Bill Evans Trio is the only trio I think of in terms as a concept trio but they did not influence this CD. As much as I love Bud Powell my personal listening experience of his trio work has always been me hearing Bud playing with a bass player and a drummer and I never experienced it as a trio concept per se. I would like to think of New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz as a world until itself.
Do you hear your music or the music of others differently now compared to your early years? What would your younger self think about your current record?
My mind set is so different now that I don’t know if I could answer that question. When I was at college I was writing essays about how all forms of jazz must be destroyed. That was actually a title of an essay I wrote. But even then as a musician I was musical meaning that to make something appealing you had to build on the actual world of music. So I think my younger self would have known that the new album is a mature concept. And By the way I am glad i went through the stage of wanting to destroy jazz. It made me actually realize how great the jazz tradition is when after trying to fragment the language you come to understand that what it is is language and vibration and it’s all beautiful.
You seem to occasionally muse on social media about retirement, often mentioning making more room for younger players as one reason for stepping away. Do you feel like you’ve said what you have to say as a composer and pianist? Do you have thoughts about where you would like other players to take the music in the future?
Yes I do feel like I’ve made my point. The new CD is the ultimate for me in some ways. I feel i have a couple more good solo albums in me but I really want this trio album to get full exposure in the jazz ”marketplace” and if I do a couple more solo albums I don’t plan to promote them in such a way as this trio CD will be promoted. I make music and will always make music. But I don’t want to keep trying to be relevant. I’ve done my thing-I’m a part of history and I would love to see where a new generation takes it. I have no thoughts about where they would take it for that is there discovery. I would like to think I am an inspiration for a younger generation — but please I hope and know they will do their own thing. Even though of course I would like their respect it would be healthy the day someone with talent-[ not a rogue rebel ]- but when someone with talent says fuck Matthew Shipp. Then I will smile and know things are good and going in the right direction.
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