Ivo Perelman Trio - Garden Of Jewels (Tao Forms / Aum Fidelity 2021)

A rather exquisite new communion between these three master improvisers.

One of the most exhilarating qualities shared by great improvising musicians is the ability to bring one’s immediate situation – the joys, sorrows, fears and desires of the day – into each unique performance. What made this most recent convening of the Ivo Perelman Trio so singular was the fact that not only were all three musicians – prolific saxophonist Ivo Perelman, pianist Matthew Shipp, and drummer Whit Dickey – immersed in the same present-day miasma, so was every potential listener, wherever they might be.

Garden of Jewels was recorded in June 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic raged across the globe. On the day that these three longtime collaborators warily (and safely) entered the studio for the first time since the virus forced us indoors, the un-precedented circumstances provided the trio a profoundly urgent source of inspiration. At the same time, the country was in the midst of a series of turbulent protests that added an additional layer of vitality to the proceedings.

“There was so much creative tension in the air,” Perelman recalls. “It was the first time that I came out of hibernation in my Brooklyn apartment, where I’d been focused on playing the saxophone for many, many hours every day while listening to sirens outside and wondering what life was about. Matt, Whit and I came together and cathartically created music out of all this mess.”

While Garden of Jewels is only the second time that Perelman, Shipp and Dickey have recorded as a trio – the first, Butterfly Whispers, was released in 2015 – all three share a long and rich history. Shipp and Dickey, of course, worked together as integral members of the David S. Ware Quartet & in Shipp’s own Trio, while the pianist and Perelman have spent the last decade creating one of the most well-documented partnerships in improvised music history.

The trio entered the studio without having discussed what might transpire at the session – the eight tracks that resulted provide vivid evidence of the band’s deft spontaneity, kaleidoscopic versatility and deeply felt camaraderie. It’s also the latest glimpse of the ongoing evolution of their collective identity. “We’re like scientists dealing with sound,” Perelman says with a chuckle. “Each recording is a means to check our development.”

Also of note here is Perelman's revived interest in jewelry-making, which Perelman initially took up 20 years ago and resumed shortly before the pandemic. One example of his recent work graces the cover of Garden of Jewels. In addition to suggesting its title, the graceful, elegant piece seems to materialize the fluid swoops and whorls of Perelman’s tenor sax lines into golden arabesques.

These pursuits not only provide an outlet for Perelman’s indefatigable creativity, but a source of light amidst the darkness of the present era. That balance is one that Perelman says the trio felt that June day in New York, and one whose energy pervaded beyond the studio walls.

“There was a dark energy surrounding all of us, counterbalanced by the sheer power of creation. We had to become an antenna to capture the angst and anxiety of the times and transform it into art and catharsis. There was a social function to that music, not just for us but for anyone who might hear it one day. I left the studio with a new soul.”

1. Garden of Jewels 06:09

2. Tourmaline 04:51

3. Amethyst 06:51

4. Onyx 07:12

5. Turquoise 07:20

6. Emerald 06:48

7. Sapphire 06:20

8. Diamond 05:25

Ivo Perelman: tenor saxophone

Matthew Shipp: piano

Whit Dickey: drums

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David S. Ware Quartet - Oblations and Blessings (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

This session, recorded in a superb midtown studio in New York during September 1995, shows the David S. Ware Quartet at the height of its powers. This is one of the foremost groups playing today and their performance here is captured by engineer Nick Prout with extraordinary clarity. The development of David S. Ware's music is one of the more significant histories in today's jazz and earlier examples from the Silkheart catalogue are 113, 127, and 128. 

To say that David Spencer Ware is an enigma is to say that the 46-year old tenor saxophonist has been blessed. Nowadays the quest to create anything that seems in any way out of step with what generally passes for creative expression is an exceedingly uncomfortable enterprise. Especially when one considers the many mundane matters that converge on an artist in order to thwart such pursuits. But those of us who think art should bridge the widening gap between the uplifting and the uninspired need only listen to Ware and his mordacious quartet for an idea what music can become when it is perceived as - to borrow a phrase an open sky. That the tenorman has been able to both retain his vision in the current climate and translate it into statements that capture the hearts and minds of attentive listeners everywhere is indeed evidence that he possesses a...  more

1. Oblations and Blessings 17:06

2. Riff Unknown 10:53

3. Of Shambhala 11:05

4. Fire Within 11:07

5. Manu's Ideal 10:13

6. Serpents and Visions 08:37

David S. Ware tenor saxophone

Matthew Shipp piano

William Parker bass

Whit Dickey drums

Matthew Shipp Quartet - Points (SILKHEART RECORDS 2018)

"What extraordinary originality. This delectable recording proves the vivacity and the persistence of free jazz." 

Xavier Daverat, Jazz Magazine, May 1993

"Skeptics who think so-called 'free' music lacks definable theme and variations would do well to listen to titles like Afro Sonic, a gentle yet confident piece of swirling beauty, and Piano Pyramid, in which Shipp's lower register work and Parker's bass, dark as shadows, take a sparsely noted theme through rustling variations. The group is also graced by the tart beauty of Rob Brown's alto, and Whit Dickey's sensitive drumming. Silkheart and Shipp should be proud." 

Reuben Jackson, Jazz Times, April 1993

Points 1 and 2 = Music as thought, language, image, paint. Matthew Shipp, composer, conductor, pianist and leader, cites the following influences in Points 1 and 2: Andrew Hill, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Hasaan, Scriabin and Debussy. There is in this piece an underlying sense and distillation of the jazz language and how it works. Its overall concept is to utilize the jazz ensemble to create a structured yet open-ended landscape, which, though impressionistic, uses a language common to jazz, infusing the work with a moody often ominously shifting atmosphere. Thus this piece, while creating events, has those same events dissolve instantaneously like vanishing points. Stability within the instability of the infrastructure is continually maintained.

There is a constant feeling of "tension and release". The events within this ensemble piece deal with obsession (i.e. search). The music reflects upon these events which are in themselves one event that is constantly rearranging itself. Some of these concepts come from the composer's deep involvement with mysticism. 

To achieve the type of quantum-poetic landscape that Shipp was seeking required other influences besides those cited above. One being the most adventurous of Herbie Hancock's electronic endeavors, though Shipp himself does not use electronics in any way.

Another is Coltrane's concept of Cosmic Music, without trying to imitate or duplicate Coltrane's sound. And still another is the Miles Davis Quintet of Shorter – Hancock – Williams – Carter. Specifically, Nefertiti, where the postbop sound is always present but remains conspicuously below the surface and is used as a constant manipulative force upon the top layers of the music.

Does this piece swing? Shipp replies with a definite "YES"... But it swings with a freely improvised manipulation of the language. Did the avant-garde of the sixties influence this music? Again the answer is "YES". But according to Shipp, his music and its structure is light years away. Though it ventures into areas not touched upon by most musicans of that era, it sometimes employs that period as a backdrop to further explore the medium's possibilities. He further states that this is not meant to negate their accomplishments nor to enhance his own, but he feels that overall his music is more multi-dimensional, as one might well gather from this recording.

Two painterly influences upon Shipp's work are: Jackson Pollock for his lyricism, space, organic form and body; and Mark Rothko for his chromatic color fields and religious brightness. Points absorbs the darkness with light, but does not consume it. It never allows one attribute to become so important as to outweigh another. 

Is this music more Intellectual than Emotional? Shipp states that, "It takes a lot of Emotions to be Intellectual", though one must sometimes exhibit what might be interpreted as detachment." 

What is the role of the conductor here?

"TIMING". Shipp goes onto explain that the piece was graphed out according to the language of each individual player (at the very least, distilled aspects of their playing) and then handed back to them on these graphs with each event having a specific numerical value. He conducted from the piano and had worked the conducting out in advance in the form of a kinetic grid which included and indexed the number of events, thus leading to the configuration of instruments coming together to create a musical force.

The piano orchestrally feeds the soloists material as in Ellington and Cecil Taylor, and also sets up moods for each section within the landscape. The overall effect is an intense foray into a dark world of myth and legend that is at once majesterial, decadent, and aboriginal. 

Points 1 and 2 are stories compiled and passed down through time. Distorted, eerie, hauntingly beautiful and brilliant tellings of logic, truth and illogicality. They are a part of, and an examination of, the Legend of LIFE and the LIFEforce itself. We are continually shown glimpses of what lies ahead but are never presented with any conclusive data. We are never told whether we will learn any more than we knew when we began out journey. We are hearing stories filled with lyrical fire, told at night. We are never made to feel safe, never given a moment's ease or a hint of reward, even at the music's most relaxed moments.

The players fill the landscape, but never crowd it or each other. Like all great tales this piece tempts us with reality while weaving a web of fabrication. Each long section is divided into smaller passages. Beginnings with no endings. Rob Brown's alto suddenly and almost imperceptibly announcing its presence, quickly building to short shrill calls, then just as suddenly fading into the thinness of a moon in the morning sky. Endings with no beginnings. Shipp's sudden shifts from bluesy to brooding to classically elegant, all hung like strips of short-circuiting lights.

All the pieces, like the puzzle itself, fade into non-conclusions yet give us an overall feeling of shaky fulfillment. All form a network that, in the end, leaves the listener content to be at home listening while infusing him/her with a deep sense of wanderlust. 

Shipp has incorporated an exoticism into his writing that is a perfect blend of African, African-American and European melody and feeling. His flourishes hint at Chopin. His singular blows to the ivories, particularly in the lower register (one of Shipp's favorite places to be), are like a tribal-drum laying the foundation.

The mood of the piece is the set in an Ellingtonian/Stravinsky-esque manner. Parker and Dickey create an intimate and often grating mixture of spatial swimming. Parker's bowing is magnificent throughout. The musicians turn round each other like hunters before the hunt, locked in the deliberate steps of a ritualistic dance. They rise and fall together and separately, in series upon series of never-ending cliffhangers.

This quartet is a fiercely integrated unit. There is a mutual give and take. The whole is equal to its parts. The soaring upward. The diving downward. The purpose and sincerity toward to the music is shared by all and is unparalleled by most working groups today. It brings to mind the tightness and precision of historic groups led by Coltrane, Ayler, Miles Davis, and Brubeck. The moods swing from the monastery to the madhouse within infinitesimal time-frames. We are led into a fathomless dark field of spectrum and spectres by harsh pleas and seductive whispers. The legend and search, like space and time, continue. The soul of the godhead is pierced. The unattainable goal is to share its secrets. To reach the light within, while remaining insulated by this deep camaraderie.

There is a new drive here. BOP, BLUES, BACH, and BEOWULF. 

Jazz as an art form possesses limitless possibilities. Only too often, however, musicians create artificial boundaries within that limitlessness due to constraining technical facility, lack of musical understanding or awareness, or simply to fit more comfortably into what is considered to be the commercial mainstream. 

Aside from a few notable exceptions, jazz has been trapped within these man-made walls of convention, almost completely devoid of experimentation. This music and the performers of the Matthew Shipp Quartet, have, on the other hand, pushed back another fold within that infinite space.

For Matthew Shipp, age 29, this endeavor denotes a hallmark in music and has been a satisfying extension of his thought. It is now time for you, the listener, to partake in this satisfaction. 

The other pieces on this date are as follows: 

Afro-Sonic: written with the primary purpose of augmenting African rhythm and showcasing the polyrhythmic improvising power of William Parker. It was inspired by Randy Weston and utilizes the repetitive thematic pattern of a talking drum as its backbone. A frenzied tapestry is woven through a fugue-like underpinning. It is the wild awakenings of night as both night and day intertwine and become one for an instant. Of major import to Shipp at this point in his career is the incorporation and extension of the structures of African music within the jazz ensemble.

Piano Pyramid: this piece Shipp indicates is to present the trio in a true tradition as "best exemplified by Bud Powell". It is strong and solid. Each layer is cemented by Dickey's brilliant brushwork and each brick carefully placed by Shipp and Parker.

About the musicians on this date:

Wiliam Parker is the veteran of the group and one of the foremost upright bassists in the world today. He is a fine leader and composer in his own right and has been the bassist in the Cecil Taylor Unit for ten years. Some recent recordings which feature him on this label alone, include Other Dimensions to Music (Silkheart 120), Breath Rhyme (Silkheart 122) which is Rob Brown's masterful trio date, and David S. Ware's trio (Silkheart 113) and quartet (Silkheart 127, 128) sessions. Parker's playing on this recording is exemplary.

Rob Brown has enjoyed a long musical association with Shipp. His playing maintains a lyrical sweetness, despite its overwhelming thrust and intensity. It always exhibits an exhilarating tension along with an unswerving beauty and dryness. At age 28, Brown carries with him a tradition that few dare venture into.

Whit Dickey, age 36. This, Dickey's first recording, proves a major breakthrough. It gives us back the security of knowing that drummers can speak and listen at the same time, never overpowering the other players, but always being heard. He bought his first drum kit in 1976 and later, after hearing Elvin Jones and Sunny Murray vowed to be a modern jazz drummer. Dickey's playing, like his own assessment of this music, is "loose, swinging and alive, yet allusive and full of mind-jolting surprises". He possesses the ability to weave two distinct yet complimentary rhythms together, within a given time signature. Dickey is a major new voice. 

Steve Dalachinsky
NYC/Paris, 1990/91

1. Points Number Two 20:45

2. Afro Sonic 05:40

3. Piano Pyramid 10:09

4. Points Number One 34:24

Matthew Shipp piano / conductor

Rob Brown alto saxophone

William Parker bass

Whit Dickey drums

Matthew Shipp - Sonic Fiction (ESP - DISK' 2018)

After a duo album and two trio albums by Shipp and Walerian, all for ESP-Disk', we get a quartet album from them that continues their strategy of working with different musicians each time out. Bisio and Dickey are long-time collaborators with Shipp, but the addition of Walerian's Zen style changes the dynamics of their interactions.

Walerian and Dickey, masters of restraint, were a match waiting to be made, and their instant rapport is one of the attractions of this album.

"[Walerian] is one of the most talented young jazz musicians on the Polish scene, if not THE most talented." – Maciej Lewenstein, Polish Jazz Recordings and Beyond

"The reed work of Mat Walerian really warms up the piano of Matthew Shipp here – as Mat provides these beautiful lines on alto, bass clarinet, flute, and soprano clarinet – which have a resonant quality that really seems to open up Shipp's music too! We've really moved back towards enjoying Shipp in recent years – and the sense of persona in records like this is a good reason why – almost a renewed soul that we haven't heard in years, unlocked in the right setting like this." – Dusty Groove

"Amazing sympathetic piano-sax interaction. Often somber, sometimes blues-inflected, sometimes explosive." – rotfest.com

"Live in Okuden exemplifies the possibilities of the duo. Shipp is in great form and the album is a nice introduction to Walerian's imaginative playing." – Paul Acquaro, freejazzblog.org

"[D]espite featuring the nimble, expressive, and yes interesting and evocative fingers of pianist Matthew Shipp, Live at Okuden really gets its mood, and thus its mojo, from the bass clarinet, alto sax, soprano clarinet, and flute playing of Mat Walerian." - Paul Semel, CultureCatch.com

01. First Step 3:24

02. Blues Addition 6:23

03. The Station 5:53

04. Lines of Energy 4:02

05. Easy Flow 5:39

06. The Problem of Jazz 5:00

07. The Note 0:17

08. 3 by 4 6:25

09. Cell in the Brain 5:33

10. Sonic Fiction 11:23

Matthew Shipp, piano

Mat Walerian, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet

Michael Bisio, bass

Whit Dickey, drums

Whit Dickey / Mat Maneri / Matthew Shipp - Vessel In Orbit (2017)

Whit Dickey is a veteran free jazz drummer who first made his mark in David S. Ware’s band in the 90s and led on some well-regarded albums around the turn of the millennium. Since then he’s mostly kept his profile raised as a member (until 2015) of Matthew Shipp’s revered trio and appearing in many of Ivo Perelman’s recent cascade of full-improv rides. In fact, Dickey’s upcoming, first new album in more than a decade sprung from a conversation Dickey had with Shipp while recording with Perelman; the good vibe they got from that session led to them working together again but under Dickey’s leadership. Even better, viola master Mat Maneri joined them at Shipp’s suggestion.

That makes Vessel In Orbit (March 24, 2017, AUM Fidelity) a reunion of sorts, since it carries over the same lineup from Dickey’s Life Cycle (also on AUM) from sixteen years earlier, less alto saxophonist Rob Brown. It’s all group improvisations, because, well, that’s how the finest from NYC’s downtown scene roll.

Thusly, the success of this music rests on telepathy, and these guys know each other so well. The symmetry of two old cohorts Dickey and Shipp comes to the fore with “Spaceship 9,” with Shipp setting the pulse with a single, repeating note, freeing up Dickey to flutter around it, and Maneri seizes upon his role of flushing out most of the harmony parts. Shipp’s piano opens up melodically on “Space Walk,” interacting with Maneri’s viola while Dickey rustles below, underscoring the uneasiness lying beneath the prettiness. Shipp largely tests the lower end of his register on “Dark Matter,” Dickey with him every step along the way on Shipp’s journey over peaks and valleys.

Maneri and Shipp do a delicate dance around each other on “Galaxy 9,” Dickey adding punctuation; viola and piano layer on more density (especially when Shipp goes into full chord mode) and with that, tension. Maneri’s viola, sweetly sorrowful “To A Lost Comrade,” gets empathetic support from Shipp and Dickey. Dickey’s drums here show a very patient approach, processing inputs from Maneri and letting that guide his path. Dickey tees up “Space Strut” with fastidious cymbal and rim work, setting into motion a fully developed spontaneous composition.

Conceived as it was played, Vessel In Orbit is unpredictable, melodic and has form built around emotion not formal structures. When it’s done by such elastic artists like Whit Dickey along with Matthew Shipp and Mat Maneri, it all comes together beautifully.

1. Spaceship 9 5:15

2. Space Walk 6:37

3. Dark Matter 5:58

4. Galaxy 9 9:13

5. Turbulence 4:51

6. To a Lost Comrade 5:39

7. Space Strut 4:29

8. Hyperspatial 6:12

Whit Dickey drums

Mat Maneri viola 

Matthew Shipp piano

Whit Dickey / Kirk Knuffke - Fierce Silence (2016) CLEAN FEED RECORDS

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Whit Dickey, Kirk Knuffke - Fierce Silence (2016)

If you tend to imagine the music of a new CD, before listening to it, by what you heard before coming from the musicians involved, “Fierce Silence” is going to astonish you. Few connections to the past works of Whit Dickey and Kirk Knuffke you’ll find in this beautiful recording. 

There’s more: if you understand the free jazz subgenre as fast and aggressive music, this is miles away from that approach. Why? Well, because the duo formed by the drummer and the cornetist play ballads here exclusively, very slow and meditative ballads, full of blank spaces, respirations and self-wonderings. 

The absolute contrary of what you know about Dickey with the David S. Ware Quartet and the Matthew Shipp Trio, and about Knuffke with Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom and the Matt Wilson Quartet. But be warned: this isn’t smooth jazz, ambient music to do something else. 

The immersive quality of the assembled pieces demands your full attention. Only with an active and participative listening you can notice all the nuances and subtle elements. Forget the world for some time and give yourself a treat.

1. The Calling  5:38

2. Fierce Silence  3:26

3. Step Back  5:14

4. Stalker  3:57

5. Lodestar  4:31

6. Quarry  3:14

7. Bone  4:45

8. Legba's Dance  5:12

9. Leave It to the Wind  6:59

10. Ashes  3:14

Whit Dickey drums 

Kirk Knuffke  cornet

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