Freeing up Jazz

Jazz pianist Matthew Shipp, AS '82, had intended to take a break from the recording studio last year after appearing on roughly 50 CDs during the past decade, including 18 under his own name. Shipp's prolific output has placed him in the company of the best-known performers in the avant-garde jazz world.

But, his plans were derailed when Thirsty Ear, an independent label in New York, named him artistic director of its new jazz division, where he will oversee the recording of four CDs in 2000-2001. Pastoral Composure, his latest CD, was the first in the series, released in mid-April.

The media has taken notice of Shipp. The New York Times published a feature story about him in January 1998, and Jazziz, a well-known jazz publication, put him on its cover. And, just as importantly, there are countless pop culture magazines--with such names as Paper and Puncture-- that have chronicled his career. This development stems from Shipp's long association with alternative music godfather Henry Rollins, who produced the pianist's early recordings and later released them on his 2.13.61 label.

Avant-garde, or free, jazz has experienced a huge critical backlash since the early 1960s because it's difficult to distinguish the masters from the charlatans, inspiration from cacophony. In traditional jazz, the melody and improvised solos follow the chords of, say, a 12-bar blues or a 32-bar standard. Musicians improvise with respect to the key and time signatures.

But, free jazz roams where it pleases. Horns honk or squeal out of tune, pianos rumble like an impending earthquake and drummers can sit silent for measures at a time. The music can sound like chaos, and then, just as suddenly, a melody asserts itself and the instruments fall in line with one another. The evolution of free jazz parallels that of poetry, which met with a similar uproar after the so-called "beat" poets--Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gary Snyder, to name a few--began writing "free verse" in the 1950s that disregarded meter and rhyme.

Thanks in part to Rollins' early involvement with Shipp's career, his unconventional music has struck a chord with the alternative music set, including punk rock audiences. This may be just a sign of the times, according to one prominent critic.

"[Avant-garde jazz listeners] aren't coming from just traditional jazz audiences," says Francis Davis, whose work frequently appears in The New York Times and other publications. "A lot of rock people listen to Shipp and his contemporaries. I think, in general, they're much more open-minded than jazz listeners tend to be right now.

"The world of jazz seems a lot happier with its avant-gardists kind of pushed off to the edges," Davis says. "You don't have to talk about them; they're not going to frighten people in clubs. It's galling because...jazz people see themselves [as] bucking trends, not following them."

Shipp discovered this controversial branch of jazz even before he entered high school in Wilmington, Del. "That music hit me from the time I was 13 years old," Shipp says. "I thought it was a true American folk music. I think I've always had a romantic fascination with the idea of an underground language. If a language is underground but does have integrity, [then it] exists in nature for some reason. It is an enclosed world. It is its own integral, tight structure.

"So, therefore, it's saying things that we might not be sure [of]," he says. "We have to enter into it to understand what it's saying. It's food for the mind; it has something for us as opposed to music that just washes over us and we don't have to enter into it to get its lesson."

Shipp took the traditional route for more than a decade. His teachers included the late Robert "Boysie" Lowery, who served as a mentor for a host of Wilmington jazzmen, including the legendary Clifford Brown. Shipp also studied with Dennis Sandole in Philadelphia, who nurtured the young John Coltrane. Back then, Shipp played in a more conventional style that was influenced by such pianists as Bill Evans, Bud Powell, McCoy Tyner, Paul Bley and Thelonious Monk.

Shipp put in a year at the University of Delaware (1978-79), where his father, Matthew Shipp Sr., served as a director of special projects in the Division of Continuing Education. He looks back on the experience as beneficial. He studied with classical pianists David Brown and Leon Bates.

"I remember learning a lot from them," Shipp says. "I remember being in the Jazz Ensemble [and] spending hours reading through the charts. Even though it was a period of intense practice on my own, I studied with good teachers and learned a lot."

Shipp spent a year at the New England Conservatory in Boston before moving to New York in 1984. There, he lay down roots on the Lower East Side, that famous stretch of concrete, 140 blocks of real estate that, for decades, have served as a haven for musicians, writers, artists and others. This neighborhood was Shipp's conservatory.

"Jazz is a street language," he says. "It absolutely and positively cannot be taught in the classroom. There are people on a college campus who can influence you in a positive way and pass on some of their life experience to you. But, inevitably, you have to put your own material together. In jazz, every man is his own academy. To have an individual voice on your instrument--which is the goal of jazz--you have to dig deep within your own soul and come up with that on your own because nobody else can do it for you."

Shipp's rise was far from meteoric. Although he quickly fell in with a crowd of similarly minded musicians in New York, gigs were few and far between. And, he had to practice, which is a challenge when you don't own a piano. He remedied this situation by sneaking for nearly a year into the practice rooms at New York University. Even now, as he nears the age of 40, Shipp probably could pass for a student. "I would just get on the elevator and go up to the eighth floor. Most of the practice rooms were locked, so I would go around until I found one that somebody didn't close."

The pianist's breakthrough occurred in 1989 when he started playing with saxophonist David S. Ware and William Parker, a bass player. The two musicians were well-established in avant-garde circles, having performed with pianist Cecil Taylor, one of the founding fathers of the New Thing. The subsequent recordings and tours and Shipp's continued association with Rollins enabled him to pursue music on a full-time basis.

"I think of him as a formalist," critic Francis Davis says. "There's really a great sense of structure in Shipp's music, and not just like impromptu, spur-of-the-moment structure, but a kind of formal, compositional structure. There's a momentum to his playing, to his solos....I mean he might not be the most extreme player around at this point, but I think he's probably among the most extreme of the important players.... Certainly, in terms of what's traditionally considered jazz, Shipp is on the cutting edge."

These days, Shipp continues to perform regularly at rock clubs. And, he has come to see a number of similarities between avant-garde jazz and the thriving alternative scene. Both are served by small, independent record labels and fledgling magazines. Both depend on underground clubs and venues for live performances.

The bulk of his CDs have been released by Hat Art, a Swiss label. One of the high points of his recording career thus far is the CD, By the Law of Music, which won Jazziz magazine's 1997 album of the year award. The recording pulled off a unique double, finishing first in both the critics' and readers' polls. But, a better starting point for listeners unfamiliar with Shipp is the David S. Ware Quartet's flight of i (Columbia, 1992), which is more accessible than many of his own CDs.

As for the immediate future, Shipp is looking to take a less-is-more approach. The pianist expects his latest CD to be his last for a while. At this point, he contends, putting out more CDs will serve only to diminish the value of what he has already recorded.

"I would dilute the major body of work," Shipp says. "I've made my statement."

--Eric Fine