{"id":10718,"date":"2025-06-18T03:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T08:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=10718"},"modified":"2025-06-18T08:55:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T13:55:20","slug":"review-cosmic-piano-shipp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/review-cosmic-piano-shipp\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Matthew Shipp\u2019s \u2018The Cosmic Piano\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pianist and composer Matthew Shipp seems to be garnering as much publicity for his criticisms of Andr\u00e9 3000\u2019s piano album as his own music lately<\/a>. As is often said, even negative publicity may be good in the long run. This site has certainly given Shipp his fair due, of the positive kind, with the two-part interview of him and Perelman<\/a> and this writer\u2019s review of their \u2018quartet\u2019 album, Armageddon Flower <\/em>(TAO Forms, 2025).<\/a> Few artists are as prolific as Shipp, having delivered over eighty albums as a leader or co-leader. That kjnd of output usually suggests a phoning it in at some level. Instead, you can count on every Shipp effort to be different, as is this one, The Cosmic Piano<\/em> (Cantaloupe, 2025).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shipp\u2019s on a higher and different level in terms of piano improvisation. Some would say that he\u2019s defined a separate genre. You will find Shipp\u2019s work on multiple labels, but Cantaloupe is a first. It\u2019s the in-house label of Bang on a Can, the New York-based arts collective that has built a global reputation for nurturing new music dubbed as \u201calternative classical,\u201d \u201cexperimental classical,\u201d or \u201cindie classical.\u201d It\u2019s also known for its collaboration across all genres. Shipp felt that changing the frame in which we hear his music might allow us to hear something new in it, something we did not expect. The pianist is constantly delivering the unexpected, but this album encompasses a wide array of influences, running for an hour, separating it from recent efforts such as Codebreaker<\/em> (TAO Forms, 2021) and The Intrinsic Nature of Matthew Shipp <\/a><\/em>(Mahakala, 2023). Nonetheless, those traits of powerful architecture, his unparalleled use of the sustain pedal, the continuum of melodic to dissonant, and the sudden changes of pace are all here. The usual fascinating composition titles are present as well. \u201cCosmic Junk Jazz DNA,\u201d \u201cBlues Orgasm,\u201d and \u201cRadio Signals from Jazz Keys\u201d are just a sampling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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