Review: Matthew Shipp with John Edwards/Paul Dunmall/Mark Sanders at Cafe Oto, Friday February 12th, 2010...

At least it wasn't raining... but another grey day when I arrived in London with any idea of getting down to see the Arshile Gorky exhibition given up when I got out of St Pancras.

Got to the Cafe Oto in good time – I had mentally earmarked my position on the bench by the back wall so wanted to get through the doors early enough to grab it. Mission accomplished. Another crowded night for the first leg of New Yorker Matthew Shipp's three day tenure here, tonight supported by the mighty John Edwards, Mark Sanders and one of my all-time favourite horn players, Paul Dunmall.

Shipp starts, leading off slowly down low and the band come in. Dunmall plays a repeated short motif that I'd heard while they were doing a soundcheck and it pops up throughout the sets. At first Edwards' bass was struggling in the mix due to the deep thunder of Shipp's monster chords tangling up the sonic levels between the two instruments. You could feel the bass more than hear it. Mark Sanders was ticking along lightly, occasional flurries and sudden timbral rips coming through, a drummer who plays as much with expanded sonorities as well as rhythm. The bass became clearer as the bottom levels settled down – adjustment on the p.a.? Or just the band feeling their way through, perhaps? Shipp is a two-fisted player, introducing a reiterated thumping march-like series of chords that became another anchor for this set, echoed by the bass in places. The quartet divided up into occasional duos, or Dunmall dropping out for the piano, bass and drums, sections that occasionally evoked earlier modern jazz conventions with comping left hand and right hand spinning oblique melodies. As the set progressed Sanders became louder, more assertive, probably realising that the lower register hammerings of the piano needed more rhythmic stridency to balance up. Shipp was playing tough stuff, lightened up with occasional quieter flourishes. As the bass and drums balanced up, Edwards really started to drive it along – taking a short solo at one point that demonstrated all his skills – arco crossed with up-the- neck pizzicato one hand pinches and flurries, slaps to the instrument's bodywork, a dazzling display. As ever.
Dunmall inserted small chunks of melody into the fray, spinning into more elongated lines when the spirit moved, mainly within the standard tenor range, with some throaty lower register honks and blats.
An intriguing set, this first night, it was fascinating to witness these four musicians finding their places in the available spaces – or creating fresh areas to explore. The piano, of course, adds a verticality that had to be coped with. High energy stuff, nevertheless...

Second half. Shipp inside the piano, plucking bell- like tones for bass and the drummer to respond to. A game these guys know well – answered and echoed, Sanders moving to smaller instruments – brass bowls struck with mallets and cymbal manipulations. Creating a totally different sound environment from the first set which was intelligent planning. Dunmall stood benignly to the side for a while until he joined them with a breathy single repeated note, varying the timbre to fit the mood being evoked. Almost imperceptibly they moved back into band mode and 'free jazz.' Again, passages between the piano, bass and drums that approached a conventional 'jazz' swing – nothing as blatant as bebop and beyond cymbal ker-ching ker-ching and finger snaps on the off beats but a fluid rhythmic movement. Getting towards the end, they started to roar, Dunmall finding his feet on these thorny paths with some hard blowing negotiations. Ending on storms of applause. Rightly so. An intriguing night and I wish I could have gone to the next two to see how this all developed. Shipp did not play much solo piano which was a shame, perhaps, but obviously he had decided this was a communal effort. His piano, however, dominated the ensemble, powerful sonorities rising from hammered-out chords, never afraid of grabbing a chunk of clusters and banging them out repeatedly with great ferocity or using the ominous descending march-like progression which occurred several times and this vertical density dictated to a greater extent which way the music would move. Edwards and Sanders – and Dunmall perhaps to a fractionally lesser extent – rose to the challenges offered. I'm starting to fall in love with the Cafe Oto...

En passant... Matthew Shipp is noted for the variety of his collaborations, not just inside the 'jazz' continuum but beyond... Mapsadaisical has a good review here of his Saturday night performance with J Spaceman, John Coxon and Steve Noble...

Review: Spaceshipp/Hauschka at the Ether Festival, Queen Elisabeth Hall, London, Monday 20th April, 2009...

An intriguing evening at the Ether Festival – Hauschka took the first half, playing acoustic piano with various preparations/interferences and a string quartet, Spaceshipp – Matthew Shipp and Jason Pierce (of Spiritualized fame)playing as Spaceshipp - keyboards and electric guitar plus visuals, the second. I enjoyed the show, the contrast between pastoral/bucolic folky dreamscape and the deep iron cone of drone erected by Spaceshipp. But there was a scrappy, bitty feel to the night – maybe the audience, many entering late in dribs and drabs in the first half, leaving in dribs and the drabs in the second, contributed to that rather listless feeling. You got the impression not many people were that bothered either way... Little sense of engagement, which was a shame...

Hauschka came on with his all female quartet, sat at the piano and introduced his music in a pleasant, amiable manner – mentioning the fact he had spent most of the day stuck in windowless rooms rehearsing while we all enjoyed a fabulous spring day outside. (I certainly had – went Tate to Tate up and down river with a muttered curse as the boat passed the Parliament of Rogues and Fools and caught the Van Dyck show at Millbank. Realised I had not been to the older Tate for a long time. Sun shining, sweet Thames rolling softly, etc...). The music was pitched right for the weather, I thought: airy, folky, minimalist in rhythm and tonality, the main areas of exploration being in granularity via prepared piano and occasional extended techniques on the strings. A lot of short pieces, starting off with solo piano and ending on same. Touches of Steve Reich perhaps, here and there, in the repetitions of the string figures. (No bad thing...). And played with humour and warmth. My only criticism would be that the prepared piano did not explore the sonorities as much as perhaps it could have – but maybe I am used to the darker and deeper sonic areas of Cecil Taylor, Keith Tippett et al and it is not fair to load that onto someone else's vision. In a way, the short pieces worked better due to the continual wandering in of latecomers right through the set – anything more extended would have been disrupted by these graceless fuckers.

The second set offered offered a complete contrast – a long drone piece essayed by Spaceshipp that flummoxed the attention spans of many – there was a continual trickle of absconders throughout. Certainly, if you only know Matthew Shipp for his jazz piano prowess this would have probably been confusing. Sat at two keyboards in an L, he spent most of the set at what I assume was some kind of electronic organ, thickening the fast-strummed electric guitar of Jason Pierce to create a slowly widening cylinder of sound with more than an echo of Glenn Branca's strategies. The friendly intimacy of the first set was also exchanged for a more serious 'distancing,' via the two musicians being overlooked by three large screens that flickered a set of images throughout seemingly based on spermatazoa forms and operated by a shadowy third participant on the side of the stage. At first I thought they were mushrooms – then figured it out about ten minutes later. Quite a daunting performance for many, then - at a festival dedicated to te experimental... Umm – I suppose I am used to these long drone forms so was happy to go with it – because once you engaged with the piece, you could hear the subtle variations at work, overtones ringing and colliding like atoms, slight rhythmic shifts, an occasional fragment of melody. Intriguing stuff – and good to see someone of Shipp's stature getting out of the box, although he has a track record of explorations parallel to and outside of free jazz. In fact his keyboard skills only surfaced right at the end as the screens went dead apart from a central blue circle (moon?) and he switched to the clavichord and struck off into a section of ghostly bell-like sonorities as the guitarist played some ratchety scraping stuff. This coda was meant to bring the voyage to an end, I suppose, with the blue circle slowly shrinking to nothing signifying 'The End' – I use the metaphor of journey deliberately because that was what was being offered by the imagery and use of the amalgamated names in the band title: 'Spaceshipp.' Interior voyaging – the images of pre-birth and slow growth/expansion/mutation – as well as the more obvious analogy of space travel provoked perhaps by the relentless onward metallic throbbing drive of the music. Not sure if this ending worked – a sudden stop would have been more dramatic - but I wonder if this piece would have been better in a smaller venue which might have pulled people into it more strongly. People did not just amble out – some came back in again with drinks, which struck me as odd. I would have thought that if you were not completely concentrating this would have been boring – hence the escapees. But this continual movement in the audience was distracting... The applause at the end almost seemed half-hearted, as well... Pity. I enjoyed it, for what it's worth, but would like to have experienced it at a more sympathetic venue...

Bill Evans/Lee Konitz/Warne Marsh... Matthew Shipp... Billy Bang... Cannonball Adderley...

Bill Evans and the Kings of Cool – Konitz and Marsh. 'Speak Low.' This is sparkling, frothy stuff. Evans leads off in rhapsodic mode before Konitz takes the theme and lifts it into steady rhythm. Warne Marsh joins in to weave round the alto in a high-stepping dance. Eddie Gomez springs a line across Evan's chording, firm-fingered, high up the neck. Konitz up next. Followed by Bill Evans, Warne Marsh. Listening to all of them stretch phrases across bar-lines and chorus demarcations is a fascinating master-class in modern jazz improvised melody. Evans returns then there is an almost old-school ride out by the ensemble... Not to get tangled up in racial stereotyping, but this is not the blues end of bop, out of the fountainhead, Bird, and the Afro-American vanguard , rather the oblique white line coming out of Lennie Tristano (which of course came out of the same vanguard, Bird with a large dash of Lester Young, yadda yadda)– yet there is plenty of tension and emotion, delivered on its own cultural terms. Joyous...

Matthew Shipp and 'Density and Eucharist' from his album 'Critical Mass.' Observing the late-night eucharist here in the Eagle's Nest, trying to get it back on track over Budweisers and a chocolate orange. High living... And no intentional blasphemy here – the antinomian takes his or her own way through... But it's a loaded word... Density follows... Led in again by piano, a loping line underscored by some biting harmonies before the violin enters, riding across an increasing complexity from bass and drums. Shipp solos, thick-fingered clusters and swirls, prodded by Parker especially, locking into the occasional almost groove. Manieri comes back in finger-plucking strikes, before returning to his bow. Grappelli it ain't, this is the astringency of contemporary classical whammed across into free jazz. Or the reverse, take your pick... Tension building with heavy deep piano chords bombing across the drummer's rising clatter. Dickey takes his solo before the violin comes back to utter some wrenched phases, answered by the hurly burly piano. Shipp solo – fast track moves that leap the registers before a crunching chordal phrase summons the violin. More fast-it whirligig piano. Slowing down into more reflective mood, yet suddenly criss-crossed by Parker arco, duetting with the violin. Bass switches back to a fast strum as the tempo ups again. Some percussive and also lyrical bass from Mr Parker throughout, the deep heartbeat that links it all together. Density a plenty... The violin gives it that trans-idiomatic riff, as Mr Braxton might say... And much is coming together here – in the interplay of the musicians and the resonance of the title:

'The Eucharist is generally... thought to have its antecedents in common meal practice of uncertain origin, which gradually developed into a rite central to the Roman Church in the first two to four centuries of the Common Era.' (From here...).

Meeting to participate in the easygoing practice and commonplace necessity of eating which will transcend the gathering to a higher plane and purpose... I just re-read Paul's 'First Epistle to the Corinthians,' the first biblical reference to the Eucharist, while also checking the etymology of 'εὐχαριστία' as my classical Greek is shaky after all these years and was struck (again) by the Will to Order implicit and explicit in that text – especially with regard to women and those who speak in tongues as opposed to prophesying as defined by Paul – this argument especially interesting in a jazz context, perhaps re fire musics and the neo-orthodoxies. Nietszche famously said that the Will to Order displayed a lack of integrity, if I remember correctly. But enough...

More violin... Billy Bang – whom I first heard with the String Trio of New York way back and loved instantly... This is from an album where he recorded a load of standards in a pretty straight-ahead setting. 'Sweet Georgia Brown' the title. Bang a player who can go all the way out yet here playing pretty much inside – the fire and attack reminding of earlier maestros like the great Stuff Smith – or to give him his splendid full name: Hezekiah Leroy Gordon "Stuff" Smith. Must dig some of his music out – sure I have some somewhere... Smith was always capable of enthusiastically looking forward, as a master musician from an earlier generation. Bang as a master musician from more contemporary times looks back in celebration of the lineage:

'Violinist Billy Bang is a marvelous bridge from early jazz - [a] strong influence [was] Stuff Smith - to the most cutting-edge innovations of the avant-garde.' (From here...).

As Gaston Bachelard wrote:

'True poetry is a function of awakening. It awakens us, but it must retain the memory of previous dreams. ' (Gaston Bachelard: L'eau et les rêves (Water and Dreams) 1942, quoted from here...).

Blimey. Let's move one...

The Cannon and brother Nat playing 'Soon,' from his album 'Them Dirty Blues.' Julian Adderley could, of course, get down with the best, but like his mentor, Charlie Parker, was capable of fast, complex flights while remaining drenched in the blues. I was just thinking that he was part of a great Miles Davis sextet – the one that made 'Kind of Blue' – and his position between the clenched minimalist burn of the leader who learned his trade on Bird's bandstands and the swooning swooping fire of John Coltrane, maybe gives an hint of where to place him on the rolls. Bobby Timmons opens the game lightly before hitting a heavier chordal vamp as Nat Adderley takes the theme on muted cornet and solos first – the two beat gait alternating with the four walk from the bass to give a curious lopsided dance. Cannonball takes it onwards, the band switching to straight-ahead behind him as he unreels some dazzle and flash. Louis Hayes hits rimshots on the fourth beats, ticking off the bars in Philly Joe mode. Sam Jones displays his credentials, supple melodic bass. Timmons grounds it back as the cornet picks up the theme and that heavy piano chordal figure surfaces to end the track.


Bill Evans
Lee Konitz (as) Warne Marsh (ts) Bill Evans (p) Eddie Gomez (b) Eliot Zigmund (d)
Speak Low
Download

Buy

Matthew Shipp
Matt Manieri (v) Matthew Shipp (p) William Parker (b) Whit Dickey (d)
Density and Eucharist
Download

Buy

Billy Bang
Billy Bang (v) Billy Bang (v) D.D. Jackson (p) Akira Ando (b) Ronnie Burrage (d)
Sweet Georgia Brown
Download

Buy

Cannonball Adderley
Cannonball Adderley (as) Nat Adderley (ct) Bobby Timmons (p) Sam Jones (b) Louis Hayes (d)
Soon
Download

Buy

Thelonious Monk... John Patton... Art Farmer... Booker Little... Eric Dolphy/Ken Mcintyre... Matthew Shipp/Roscoe Mitchell... Howlin' Wolf...

Thelonious Monk was out on the coast in 1960 and recorded a rather happy live session at San Francisco's Blackhawk club with an expanded quartet – Charlie Rouse, John Ore and Billy Higgins were joined by locals Joe Gordon and Harold Land on trumpet and tenor saxophone respectively. This is 'Worry Later,' also known as 'San Francisco Holiday,' which maybe refers to this sojourn. This album never seems to score as high as I think it should, for some reason. There's a casual, relaxed feeling to the date – the audience are a bit chatty in places but that adds to the ambiance. Billy Higgins takes it in with drum figures that echo the melody before the ensemble play the head. Rouse first – with no great advantage of knowledge over the strangers in the front line, actually, as this tune was relatively new. Gordon follows, negotiating the changes well. Harold Land comes in strong and keeps up. Monk plays his usual games of displacing the rhythm with unexpected accents, a couple of times (amusingly) seeming to stop some of his more familiar runs abruptly which leaves you hanging, the theme never far away... He appears to be on cheerful form...

Do the boogaloo – a choppy, funky track from Big John Patton and company, 'The Turnaround,' from a 1964 soul jazz classic: 'Let 'Em Roll.' Some nice Grant Green to commence before Big John comes in, firing off a batch of bluesy runs that go to some interesting melodic areas, Green backing up with sharp chording. Green has a raucous edge to his guitar than was usual in jazz at that time, a more r and b sound. Another ensemble timbral oddity perhaps – the inclusion of vibes master Bobby Hutcherson – who does not solo on this track. Rocking stuff.


There is a calm elegance to Art Farmer's music that maybe disguises the intrinsic fire... Here is the title track from his album 'Farmer's Market,' a fast jumpy bop blues. The first solo is by Wynton Kelly and comes out of the traps at speed, complete with bop-cheeky quote from 'Buttons and Bows.' Farmer next, a fluent display. Hank Mobley follows him, breathily in the pocket. Art's twin brother Addison takes his bass for a swift sure-footes run. All held together by the young Elvin Jones in fairly conventional but swinging style. Freshly consolidated bop, from 1956, a year on the cusp of change...

The Booker Little track 'The Confined Few' can be found under his own name as part of the 'New York Sessions,' but was originally out with Teddy Charles as leader. The trumpeter was only twenty three when he died – an amazing fact when you consider the poise and control here. Charles is luckily still with us but has been off the critical map for a while – unfortunately, as he was a prominent member of the generation who set about re-modelling jazz in the fifties. A slow beginning that drops off into a steady tempo. Addison Farmer on bass again. The rather wonderful Booker Ervin is up first, booting tenor nicely tracked by Shaughnessy's drums. Mal Waldron takes a thoughtful solo, followed by fluent and melodic bass floating on Charles' vibes. Then Booker Little – fire and brio. Sharp and bright...

Two contrasting alto players – Ken McIntyre and the great Eric Dolphy. From their album 'Looking Ahead,' this is 'Curtsy.' Dolphy seemed fond of this frontline format - he recorded a couple of similar albums with Oliver Nelson, who led those sessions. The two altos come steaming in on the theme then McIntyre solos first. Some interesting curlicues – but Dolphy follows and ups the track a gear. His tone is so powerful, although his lines here are not pushing across the harmonies as far as usual. Mcintyre retaliates, rising to the game then Dolphy again, this time expanding outwards – as he continues to do in the ensuing fours, bringing to bear more of his unique intervallic conception. McIntyre, it has to be said, is not left behind. Some sure-handed piano from Walter Bishop before the theme close. A jaunty, cheerful track. Their turn to curtsy - my turn to bow ...

Coming relatively up-to-date... 1996. A duo performance by Matthew Shipp and Roscoe Mitchell. Starting off with dabbed at notes and short phrases, pointillism in action, the piece slowly expands into a swirl of dense lines, the sour-sweet horn of Mitchell swathed in the deep, cavernous sonorities of Shipp's piano. Which reminds me at times of our own Keith Tippett and his pounding storms of overtones. This is the last track from the album '2Z,' 2-Z-11 - also named 'The Physics of Angels,' which combines neatly the scientific and the spiritual. Or something. Wonderful, expansive music...

Back a few years... opening on a rough scrawl of overloaded guitar before settling into a bouncing blues. The Wolf, singing 'Mr Highway Man,' interspersing vocals with gutty harmonica. A wild slice of prime rhythm and blues from the Golden Age, thumped along by booming drums and ending on a juke-boxy scratch and scrape before the needle lifts...


In the Videodrome...

Art Farmer, with Lee Konitz and Oliver Nelson...

More Konitz – with Lennie Tristano...

Booker Little with Max Roach...

...some recent Anthony Braxton...

Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk (p) Joe Gordon (t) Charlie Rouse, Harold Land (ts) John Ore (b) Billy Higgins (d)
Worry Later
Download

Buy

Big John Patton
John Patton (org) Bobby Hutcherson (vi) Grant Green (g) Otis "Candy" Finch (d)
The Turnaround
Download


Buy

Art Farmer
Art Farmer (t) Hank Mobley (ts) Wynton Kelly (p) Addison Farmer (b) Elvin Jones
Farmer's Market
Download

Buy

Booker Little
Teddy Charles (vibes); Mal Waldron (p); Booker Little (tpt); Booker Ervin (ts); Addison Farmer (b); Eddie Shaughnessy (dr)
The Confined Few
Download

Buy

Eric Dolphy/Ken McIntyre
Eric Dolphy, Ken McIntyre (as) Walter Bishop (p), Sam Jones (b) and Art Taylor (d)
Curtsy
Download


Buy

Matthew Shipp/Roscoe Mitchell
Matthew Shipp (p) Roscoe Mitchell (as)
2-Z-11 The Physics of Angels
Download

Buy

Howling Wolf
Mr Highway Man
Download

Buy