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.
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.
"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