The Squid's Ear Magazine


Shipp Trio, Matthew: The Unidentifiable (ESP-Disk)

Using the traditional piano-bass-drums lineup, NY pianist Matthew Shipp's trio with Michael Bisio on bass and Newman Taylor Baker on drums balance their work between beautiful lyrical interplay of melodic counterpoint and rhythmic undertow and exploratory work accentuating unique eccentricities from all three players, a great next motion from this authoritative trio.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Matthew Shipp-piano

Michael Bisio-bass

Newman Taylor Baker-drums


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UPC: 825481503921

Label: ESP-Disk
Catalog ID: ESPDISK 5039CD
Squidco Product Code: 29543

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Recorded at Park West Studios in Brooklyn, New York, on October 10th, 2019, by Jim Clouse.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Starting in the bebop era, the piano-bass-drums lineup has been the most classic jazz format in which the piano is featured, accumulating the weight of history and critical expectations. In this setting, a non-mainstream player such as Shipp can infiltrate Newport Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and other Establishment bastions in a familiar format and then unleash his ideas on audiences that might not normally be exposed to his style. Thanks to hearing it in the communal language of the piano trio, they can better understand the message the Matthew Shipp Trio has to deliver - "Mr. Shipp's predilection for finding fertile ground between accessibility and abstraction," as Larry Blumenfeld wrote in The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Shipp says, "The piano trio is such a basic configuration in jazz, and it is an honor to take a well-explored area and apply my imagination to it to see where we can go-it helps that my trio mates are great." Shipp, Bisio, and Baker convened at Shipp's favorite recording venue last year looking to pursue a new direction. The result is both distinctively Shippian yet a further evolution of the group's sound."-ESP-DISK



"With each successive project, the prolific Matthew Shipp takes the art form to seemingly unstainable heights and then persists in pushing the bar further along. Shipp began his recording career with a trio project, Circular Temple (Quinton Records, 1992) featuring William Parker and Whit Dickey, two artists that have retained close professional ties to the pianist/composer. Shipp has recorded a dozen trio albums with seven personnel line ups. His thirteenth project in that format, The Unidentifiable, features bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker who appeared together on Shipp's The Conduct Of Jazz (Thirsty Ear, 2015) and the outstanding Signature (ESP-Disk, 2019).

Shipp is consistently brimming with new ideas, even where the style is familiar. There are strong Latin influences on "Regeneration" and hints of the same on "Blue Transport System," but each is inclined toward Shipp's singular eclecticism. The title track is a striking hard bop number featuring strong solos from Bisio and Baker. Baker gets two solo numbers with "Trance Frame" and the forty-second "Virgin Psych Space." On the latter, he delves into a myriad of sounds from a single tom. There are mood-shifting pieces such as "Phantom Journey" and "Dark Sea Negative Charge," both starting pensively then taking off into unorthodox territory. "The Dimension" and "Loop" are more challenging listening; jagged, with quirky melodic passages. The ten-plus minute "New Heaven and New Earth" is full of angular drama played out like an avant-garde suite.

As Shipp continues to build his uncommon lexicon for the format, The Unidentifiable openly draws on the archaeological building blocks of the genre. The enterprising improviser discards none of the heritage or theories he's absorbed but leans towards dissonant elucidations and wide-ranging expansions. The interactions with Bisio and Baker are as good as it gets in piano trios. The Unidentifiable is a rewarding experience and highly recommended."-Karl Ackermann, All About Jazz


Get additional information at All About Jazz

Artist Biographies

"Matthew Shipp was born December 7, 1960 in Wilmington, Delaware. He started piano at 5 years old with the regular piano lessons most kids have experienced. He fell in love with jazz at 12 years old. After moving to New York in 1984 he quickly became one of the leading lights in the New York jazz scene. He was a sideman in the David S. Ware quartet and also for Roscoe Mitchell's Note Factory before making the decision to concentrate on his own music.

Mr Shipp has reached the holy grail of jazz in that he possesses a unique style on his instrument that is all of his own- and he's one of the few in jazz that can say so. Mr. Shipp has recorded a lot of albums with many labels but his 2 most enduring relationships have been with two labels. In the 1990s he recorded a number of chamber jazz cds with Hatology, a group of cds that charted a new course for jazz that, to this day, the jazz world has not realized. In the 2000s Mr Shipp has been curator and director of the label Thirsty Ear's "Blue Series" and has also recorded for them. In this collection of recordings he has generated a whole body of work that is visionary, far reaching and many faceted."

-Matthew Shipp Website (http://www.matthewshipp.com/bio.html)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Michael Bisio, bassist/composer, has eighty five recordings in his discography, twenty four of these are split evenly between leader/co-leader, ten of them document his extraordinary association with modern piano icon Matthew Shipp. Michael has been called a poet, a wonder and one of the most virtuosic and imaginative performers on the double bass. Nate Chinen in the New York Times writes : "The physicality of Mr. Bisio's bass playing puts him in touch with numerous predecessors in the avant-garde, but his expressive touch is distinctive;..."

As a composer Michael has been awarded nine grants and an Artist Trust Fellowship

Collaborators include Matthew Shipp, Joe McPhee, Charles Gayle, Connie Crothers, Whit Dickey, Ivo Perelman, Barbara Donald, Newman Taylor Baker, Rob Brown, Sonny Simmons and Sabir Mateen."

-Michael Bisio Website (http://michaelbisio.com/bio.shtml)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Newman Taylor Baker is a drummer best known for Singin' Drums, his exploration of the washboard, and his work with musicians Henry Threadgill, Billy Bang, Henry Grimes, Leroy Jenkins, and Diedre Murray and choreographers Mickey Davidson and Joanne Tucker

Mr.Baker currently performs in the ensembles of Makoto Kuriya, Jemeel Moondoc, Sylwester Ostrowski, Henrique Prince, Cheryl Pyle and Matthew Shipp, among others.

Singin' Drums, his solo drumset project, has also featured collaborations with fellow drummers Horacee Arnold, Steve Berrios, Susie Ibarra. In 2012, Mr. Baker collaborated with his niece, mezzo-soprano Andrea Baker, along with pianist Richard Lewis, on Singin' Drums: Voice and Drum which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.Baker released his premiere solo drum recording, Drum Suite Life, on Innova label in 2013.

For the past five years, Newman T. Baker has been developing creative music for the washboard. He currently performs as a duo with guitarist Marvin Sewell and has recently launched Washboard XT to explore new musical territory in the quartet and quintet setting. Baker has been performing with the Ebony Hillbillies since 2010.

Mr. Baker currently offers clinics and master classes in collaboration with saxophonist Sylwester Ostrowki to music conservatories throughout Poland. With Mickey D and Friends and the Avodah Dance Company, hebrings dance/music residencies and workshops to schools, communities and correctional facilities throughout the U.S.

Newman Taylor Baker has served as peer review panelist for such organizations as American Composer Forum and Chamber Music America."

-All About Jazz (https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/newmantaylorbaker)
3/25/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



01. Blue Transport System (5:31)

02. Trance Frame (2:02)

03. Phantom Journey (5:32)

04. Dark Sea Negative Charge (6:11)

05. The Dimension (3:57)

06. Loop (3:39)

07. The Unidentifiable (7:10)

08. Virgin Psych Space 1 (0:40)

09. Virgin Psych Space 2 (4:54)

10. Regeneration (4:39)

11. New Heaven and New Earth (10:31)

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Trio Recordings
Piano Trio (Piano Bass Drums)
Melodic and Lyrical Jazz

Search for other titles on the label:
ESP-Disk.


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