Before the world.
Encountering Matthew Shipp in an uncustomary setting… plus live music picks for the next seven days in NYC.
Last night I had the distinct privilege and pleasure of hearing improvising pianist, composer, collaborator, and bandleader Matthew Shipp play and talk in an intimate gathering at Jazz at Lincoln Center—the kind of joyful scenario leaves strangers talking to strangers afterward, literally.
I’d been waiting for months for an opportunity to catch Shipp in action, mostly spurred to action by the three incredibly strong new albums he’s released during recent weeks – The Data (about which I wrote briefly a few weeks ago), Magical Incantation, and New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz. Having missed him in a solo appearance at Zurcher Gallery in February, an Eric Dolphy symposium at The New School in May, and the Vision Festival in June, I leapt at the chance to hear Shipp in what promised to be a more unusual setting.
Last night’s event was billed as a “Listening Party,” part of a series of informal Jazz at Lincoln Center gatherings in which audience members are invited to interact with artists. The gathering was conceived and curated by Seton Hawkins, director of public programs at Jazz at Lincoln Center, adjunct faculty at Juilliard, and host of South African Jazz on SiriusXM Real Jazz—and, it turned out, a committed, persuasive adept in The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp, as it were.
I’ve considered Shipp a friendly acquaintance for nearly 30 years, starting just before my stint, in a long-ago former lifetime, as the eager publicist assigned to promote Go See the World, the major-label debut of the David S. Ware Quartet. Given his outspoken, even pugilistic views of certain perspectives and practices prevalent in the mainstream music business, I wondered how this engagement might play out.
As it happened, sparks flew, but only those that emanated from the piano as Shipp played an intensely focused, deftly varied and modulated continuous half-hour piece—or sequence of pieces, possibly. His playing was frequently dark and ruminative, in a manner that could recall Andrew Hill or Mal Waldron. His control was striking, his delicacy even more so. His right hand fluttered over his left, veering and dipping to light on some far-flung chord, or flicked across the keys like a cat’s paw, claws extended but not dug in. Shipp glided and paraded, frequently danced, occasionally jabbed, but never pounded or hammered.
I remember thinking, more than once, “This is what it would sound like if someone dared Thelonious Monk to play Petrushka from memory.”
I also remember thinking I’d never admit to that whimsy in public—until an audience member asked Shipp about the classical repertoire he favored during a post-concert Q&A. He’d already reeled off his customary litany of influential improvising pianists: Ahmad Jamal, Nina Simone, McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, Paul Bley, Monk. As a classically trained pianist, Shipp expanded, he’d long turned to Bach for challenge and comfort, and adored Chopin and Schoenberg.
But, he added, “I must have been a Russian in a past life.” He cited as favorites Scriabin and Shostakovich—and Rachmaninoff, though less as a composer than as a prodigious performer.
Okay, not Stravinsky… but close enough for me to trust my intuition, anyway.
Cognoscenti in the audience mingled with curiosity seekers and at least one visitor who’d stumbled upon the studio and ventured in, not knowing what was in store. (Listening Party attendees are encouraged to pay what they wish, but there’s no mandatory admission charge.) Shipp patiently and thoughtfully fielded questions about his conception and technique, along with requests for practical advice, and audience members continued to chat after the session ended.
Shipp’s admirers will have another opportunity to hear him perform at Jazz at Lincoln Center this month when East Axis – an inside-outside collaborative teaming Shipp, saxophonist Scott Robinson, and bassist Kevin Ray, with Eric McPherson subbing for Gerald Cleaver on drums – plays two sets at Dizzy’s Club. But based on this first impression, I’ll also be looking for further opportunities to interact with this committed, attentive Listening Party community.
The Night After Night Watch.
July 9–16
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
9
A Far Cry
Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park
Mid-park at 71st St., Midtown Manhattan
Tuesday, July 9 at 7:30pm; free admission
naumburgconcerts.org
A regular attraction at the free Naumburg Orchestral Concerts series since 2018, Boston conductorless chamber orchestra A Far Cry teams up with Syrian composer and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and Sri Lankan-born Canadian pianist-composer Dinuk Wijeratne for a program that includes Azmeh’s Ibn Arabi Postlude, Wijeratne’s Clarinet Concerto (with Azmeh as soloist), Kareem Roustom’s Dabke, and Leoš Janáček’s Idyll.
Striped Light
Undisclosed location
Long Island City, Queens
Tuesday, July 9 at 7:30pm; $15
Instagram
Striped Light slides from Monday to Tuesday for a showcase featuring Folk Music, a new triumvirate of trumpeter Nate Wooley with drummers Chris Corsano and Ches Smith. Sharing the bill are Michelle Yom, a Cecil Taylor scholar currently working on an opera based on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictée, and Daniel Malinsky, who works in ultraminimal electroacoustic improvisation. Send a DM via Instagram to get the address, easily accessible via mass transit.
10
Joanna Mattrey
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, July 10–Saturday, July 13 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
Joanna Mattrey comes to The New School for a wide-ranging Stone residency that presents the versatile, inquistive improvising violist and composer in a variety of contexts. Opening night on Wednesday finds Mattrey in a trio with fellow improviser and composer Lea Bertucci and sound artist Chantal Michelle; three subsequent nights bring as many disparate quartets, matching Mattrey with peers like Cleek Schrey, Leila Bordreuil, and C. Spencer Yeh.
12
Brooklyn Free Spirit Festival
IBeam Brooklyn
168 7th St., Brooklyn
Friday, July 12 at 8pm, Saturday, July 13 at 4pm; $20
ibeambrooklyn.com
A new creative-music festival takes roots in Brooklyn at the member-owned and operated performance and rehearsal space IBeam. Opening night offers sets by vocalist Jenna Camille and the fiery duo of violinist gabby fluke-mogul and pianist Mara Rosenbloom; Saturday’s lineup includes two enticing daytime events – a workshop in Anthony Braxton’s Language Music guided by Kyoko Kitamura, and an interview and listening session featuring bassoonist Karen Borca, guided by Ben Young and Melanie Dyer – ahead of another strong evening lineup pairing sets by vocalist Anaïs Maviel and Canadian trio Ambient Parade.
The Microscopic Septet
Smalls Jazz Club
183 W. 10th St., West Village
Friday, July 12 at 6 & 7:30pm; $40
smallslive.com
Declared “New York’s Most Famous Unknown Band” during its 12-year original run from 1980 to 1992, The Microscopic Septet set the gold standard for retro-futuristic jazz, purveying a playfully cubist take on swing, jump, and bop. (Along the time, they became the world’s most ubiquitous unknown band for providing WHYY’s Fresh Air with its arresting theme.) The septet reassembled in 2008, but gigs are few and far between—and tickets for this engagement are nearly gone.
Travels Over Feeling: Celebrating Arthur Russell
Lena Horne Bandshell, Prospect Park
141 Prospect Park W., Brooklyn
Friday, July 12 at 7pm; free admission
bricartsmedia.org
Assembled by our friend and ally Piotr Orlov under his capacious Dada Strain umbrella, this celebration of the much-loved avant-garde composer and cellist, singer-songwriter, and disco auteur Arthur Russell marks the publication of Travels Over Feeling: Arthur Russell, A Life, a landmark study for which author Richard King delved deep into the Russell archives at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, as well as the private holdings of Russell’s colleagues and intimates. Nestled between sets by Love Injection and François K, the Wordless Music Orchestra will perform Russell’s 1983 post-minimalist epic Tower of Meaning.
14
Tony Malaby/Tim Berne/Mark Helias/Tom Rainey
The P.I.T.
411 S. 5th St., Williamsburg
Sunday, July 14 at 7:30pm; $20, NOTAFLOF
propertyistheft.org
Many, many moons ago, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing saxophonists Tim Berne and Tony Malaby working together with drummer Tom Rainey in a few different situations: playing Berne tunes with bassist Michael Formanek under the moniker No(h)bag at the Knitting Factory, and blowing freeform with Angelica Sanchez at the Internet Café. Two decades later, with a pandemic shuttering conventional venues, Malaby enlisted Berne and bassist Mark Helias, among others, to keep their chops sharp by blowing under a New Jersey overpass. All of which is meant to say that even if there’s no set destination for tonight’s set, you’re in sure hands with these drivers. Philly trio Bark Culture shares this bill… and mark your calendars now for another Berne/Malaby/Rainey collusion, with bassist Brandon Lopez, at LunÀtico in BedStuy on Sunday, July 21.
Kamran Sadeghi
Noguchi Museum
9-01 33rd Rd., Long Island City
Sunday, July 14 at 3:30pm; $16, seniors and students $6, under 12 free
noguchi.org
The monthly Bang on a Can Summer–Fall concert series at the Noguchi Museum continues with a performance by Iran-born, New York-based electronic composer Kamran Sadeghi. These shows are ideally intimate and tickets are limited, but they include museum access—a substantial bonus.
Find even more events in Night After Night Watch: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.