When
The Multiplication Table
was released in 1997, it once and for all threw down a gauntlet to the remaining critics who erroneously chose to see him as a direct spiritual descendent of
Cecil Taylor
. It was one they couldn't pick up.
Shipp
has always been a player who has taken the idea of music as a series of worlds and influences and made something entirely new not in response to, but because of them.
is a kind of suite where
's own compositions and those of his musical forbears such as
Duke Ellington
, (
"C Jam Blues"
),
Billy Strayhorn
(
"Take the A Train"
), and
Joseph Kosma
"Autmun Leaves"
) are woven into a theory and practice of musical language that extends
jazz
beyond its known parameters in both traditional and so-called "free" worlds.
's style -- as well as his compatriot's who are both musical giants and bandleaders: bassist
William Parker
and drummer
Susie Ibarra
-- is trans-harmonic and, of course, simultaneously trans-tonal. The many timbral shifts and images presented by the trio in the standards and in
's originals detail a kind of evolutionary force at work that seems to respect systems while taking them apart in order to open them up to one another. Whether it's
Scriabin
's pan-tonality, which is seemingly at work in
"ZT1,"
the lilting touch of an
Ahmad Jamal
in
"The New Fact,"
or the aggressive re-harmonizing of
"C-Jam Blues,"
has his fingers on the pulse of something else entirely when it comes to
. And this is
, make no mistake. There is a
swing
in his freest passages under girded by
Ibarra
's light polyrhythmic touch where textures become as important as the ideas she feeds
.
Parker
, who contours the body of that music and anchors it in any way necessary, carries within his grasp the melodic subtleties and physical force necessary to produce counter timbres and rhythms, allowing
to explore the inner workings of his own inventive muse, not as speculation but as musical statement.
is no mere
free jazz
player. He is a musician who has already in his short lifetime created new practices of melodic improvisation and a diverse array of approaches to playing the piano that make him a genuine stylist in this music. His only peer, theoretically anyway, is
Anthony Braxton
, and
is in many ways more open to explore previously held notions of musicality than even he is-which is saying plenty.
is, along with a previous
Hat
release,
By the Law of Music
with strings,
's masterpiece thus far. Mr.
may be the most exciting composer/pianist since
Herbie Nichols
. ~ Thom Jurek