Vibration Aiming at Silence: A Conversation with Matthew Shipp

Often the greatest artists have an identifiable voice. This is not to say their works are identical. Instead, no matter their changed surroundings, a shared identifiable quality continues to reflect their artistic essence. Consider Miles Davis. Birth of the Cool (Columbia, 1957) and On the Corner (Columbia, 1973) could not be more different in both compositional approach and aesthetic quality. Yet, the trumpeter’s tone is easily identifiable in both works. Jumping to the present day, one finds this quality of a unique and identifiable voice in the works of Matthew Shipp. The distinctiveness of the pianist’s idiosyncratic perspective is particularly evident when one compares the recent re-release of Circular Temple (ESP-DISK, 2023) to his latest recording, The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp (Mahakala, 2023).

Circular Temple, a trio date with William Parker and Whit Dickey, was recorded in October 1990; an age when jazz purists were still on a crusade against avant-garde experimentalism. With institutional winds against him, Shipp released the work on a tiny label, Quinton Records, in 1992. While not Shipp’s debut, the album is arguably the first to auspiciously hint towards his future. While drawing inspiration from Andrew Hill, Cecil Taylor, and Paul Bley, one can sense the pianist beginning to divert into a language all his own. While construction had only begun, the blueprint of Shipp’s castle had been drafted for all to see, particularly in his phrasing on “Circular Temple #4.”

Shipp has spent the last three decades further honing his voice across a wide range of records from acoustic small ensembles to experiments in electronica. His solo works – of which he has produced several – are a particular highlight as they expose him fully to the listener. One can sense his artistic maturation from release to release as little hints left in improvised works on one album are explored more deeply in the next. The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp presents his latest iteration of these works. Some of the hallmarks of prior releases – particularly his use of the sustain pedal and his emphasis on the contrast between repetition and seemingly wild abandon – are unmistakable. But Intrinsic also finds Shipp exploring quieter and more spacious terrain than that for which he is typically known. He takes his developed language and diverts it to a different direction, one more intimate and private. The listener is allowed to experience Shipp alone with the music. following where the vibrations tell him to go without sacrificing his unique perspective.

PostGenre: The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp  and the reissue of Circular Temple were released on the same day. 

Matthew Shipp: Yeah, but they happened separately. Two different labels. I don’t think there was any grand plan. But when Mahakala [Records] found out I was doing the reissue on ESP, it just felt right to release [the albums] together. By releasing them together, you’re celebrating a new release and, in a sense, celebrating my very first release. It felt natural to release both on the same day, so we can celebrate both old and new. Celebrating both gives you a continuum of perspective.

PG: During the thirty-some-odd years between the two albums, how do you feel you have developed the most musically?

MS: I think I’ve delved into a lot more nuance since Circular Temple. I am also not as focused on trying to fit a category or the label “avant-garde” and more focused on trying to be myself musically. I focused on being myself at the beginning too, but back in the early 90s, I was definitely on a mission. Now, my mission is just to do my thing and get through the day.

PG: When you first got to New York, you sought out William Parker because you were a fan of his work with Cecil Taylor. Did you feel you had to prove yourself as a young artist working with someone of that caliber?

MS: Definitely. I was thirty years old when I recorded Circular Temple, and it was my first CD. I had one LP before that, but it was my first CD. It was, in some ways, my introduction to the world. I definitely felt that I had to prove myself on some level.

PG: Listening to Circular Temple now, do you find things different in the music than when you first heard it decades ago?

MS: I haven’t listened to it for a few years. I feel it’s a strong statement of where I was at the time, And I think a lot about it still resonates with me. I’ve grown in many ways, but I don’t look back on it and think about how things could have been different. It’s what it was, and it was right for its time. 

PG: Circular Temple came out at the height of musical neoconservatism, with people like Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis trying to dictate whether something is “jazz.” Do you feel things would have been a little easier for you back then if it weren’t for that movement?

MS: I feel the neoconservative movement in jazz was a big problem. It took up a lot of oxygen. And, at the same time, it didn’t stop anybody from doing anything they were already planning to do. It was a nuisance. It did not add anything positive to the dialogue because it was everywhere and seemed to be all-consuming in the jazz media at the time. But you just get up and do what you’ve got to do and have faith that the integrity behind your work will drive it forward somehow.

PG: Things have seemingly changed significantly since then. Publications like Downbeat have given more attention to avant-garde artists. And the Stone, John Zorn’s club, was acquired by the New School. Do you feel, in a way, the avant-garde has become a little more institutionalized?

MS: I don’t think about institutions at all. I’m just out of here doing my thing. Anything that I’ve gotten has been because I’ve been persistent. Maybe even a little brash. But I would put persistence first and brashness second. As far as any structural institutional support, I’ve had practically none throughout my career. I understand your question, but I’m talking solely about how I’ve become known, gotten my name out there, and gotten to where I am. It’s been purely on my brashness and persistence. 

Of course, I’ve played with some people with much bigger names – people, like Roscoe Mitchell or David Ware. But those people were also fighting the establishment to a certain level. It just never ends. I’ve always felt out here alone, and I’ve gotten used to it. I actually kind of like it. I don’t expect anything from anybody because I’ve gotten pretty far just on my own persistence. If any institutions come at me with something, that’s cool. But I can’t depend on anything. I’ve been out here too long on my own. That’s how I see it.

PG: What do you like about being out on your own?

MS: Well, I’ve gotten used to it. I’m kind of glad because if I had the backing of the jazz establishment from the beginning, I don’t know where that would have gotten me. I would have had more and better gigs. And my initial foray into the media may have been smoother. But I’ve managed to get a position by essentially putting myself out there and saying, “Look, here I am. This is me. Take it or leave it.” I did that with no support, and it actually worked. Now, people have to deal with me on my own terms. If I had support from the beginning, there’s a chance I never would have established my own terms. Or I would just fit into the wallpaper of the whole thing. Things haven’t been easy, but every inch I’ve gotten is my inch, so I can’t complain. 

PG: Do you feel things would have been different had you started, twenty-five or thirty years later, at a time when the internet could have exposed you to more audiences?

MS: It might have been different, but I’m of my time. I don’t think anybody can look at themselves and their personality and modulate it to a different time period. A question about if I had come earlier or later, I can’t apply to who I am, because I’m a product of exactly when I did come.

And in the new type of jazz economy with things like Bandcamp, it seems hard to establish an identity. I was able to utilize some old-school things – the standard jazz label type of construct and the idea of a sideman gig parlaying you into your own career – to negotiate all that to my advantage. Even though at the beginning of my career, I might not have had some of the labels I wanted at that point behind me, I could still take the structure of it all and make it work for me.

PG: And speaking of the sideman role, if one goes through your discography, three names especially pop up: David Ware, Roscoe Mitchell, and, more recently, Ivo Perelman. Is there something about the saxophone that particularly compliments your piano or vice versa? 

MS: Yes, definitely. I think I have a natural affinity for playing with saxophonists and the timbre of their instruments. It just really fits into my concept, though I don’t know why. I can’t give a reason with logic or words as to why that is, but it just seems to be the case. There’s something about the saxophone sound, its timbre, and the physicality of the sax that works well with my concepts. 

PG: And as far as your instrument, some people have argued that the piano is a percussion instrument because of the hammers. Others have rejected that view. What is the piano to you?

MS: The piano is a percussive instrument. The piano lends itself to all kinds of things. I’m really into touch and nuance these days. I do not look at the piano in the 88-tuned drums construct Cecil Taylor articulated. But when you’re dropping chords in a rhythm section – this goes for any pianist- you’re dropping bombs. It’s a percussive effect at all times, whether you’re Bud Powell, Bill Evans, or whoever. If you’re playing in the rhythm section and dropping chords, you’re hitting the contours of certain rhythmic things to spur other people on. In the context of jazz, I don’t think you ever get away from that. 

The piano is a lot of things to me. It generates rhythm. It generates harmony. It can articulate melody. You’re always trying to think of all those things as a gestalt. And the stronger the gestalt is, the stronger the music is, because all the parameters come out of a basic sound. I think at the bottom of anybody’s plane is a sound. There’s a sound you project, and from that sound, all the other aspects come forth.

There’s some type of sound image, – a sound object – I’m going after. At times, that calls for a more percussive approach. At other times, it calls for a completely legato, very touch-sensitive, carpeted sound that is always percussive because it’s always vibratory. And there are times I’m not playing in a mode that people consider percussive. But they’re all coming out of the same sound. All the different approaches are like different looks at one image.

PG: How does silence fit into it all? 

MS: Silence is the most important part of music. If you are just constantly playing stuff, how do people derive meaning from it? It is the space between ideas that gives those ideas meaning. That space and silence is actually where the music occurs because that’s where meaning is generated. To me, all music is vibration aiming at silence.

PG: And those approaches to sound and silence ties right into The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp. How have you developed your voice over the years? How did you find it?

MS: How did I develop my own unique voice? That’s the question I can’t answer. I don’t think anybody can answer that. I know the mechanics of every brick that went into it. But that doesn’t necessarily explain how it fell together. That I can’t answer because it easily could have not fallen together. But it did.

It seems that to have a unique voice, you must have a desire to have a unique voice. I guess somebody could sit down at an instrument and just start playing and discover something fresh. I [suppose] that’s possible, ’cause I would assume anything is possible in this universe. But from the day you’re born, there are so many cultural constraints put upon you that it would take a very unique person to trust their own instincts to do that. Everything you’re ever taught in anything is against that. You’re taught whether you are something the right way, right from day one. Even from the beginning, people will tell you they think you’re wrong. That resistance and a million other excuses may lead someone not to trust their own instincts. Many people never allow themselves to be themselves because of the massive cultural push to never have anybody be their true self. I don’t know how or why somebody trusts their own instincts. That’s a million-dollar question. I don’t know the answer. But I do know that when there’s a desire to go your own way, you better be prepared to work for it. 

PG: Except that often music students are advised by teachers to find their own voice.

MS: Yes, but when someone tells their student “It’s cool to play like McCoy Tyner, but you need to develop your own voice,” what does that mean to the student? That’s like throwing the student into a black hole. How can you expect a student to sit at an instrument, like the piano, with so much history in Western music and expect them to find their own way out? Often, even when someone thinks they are doing something unique, someone will say somebody else already did it. It’s a perilous course following your own path, but it is worth undertaking. 

There are so many parameters that go into human choice. Who is to know why Monk dared to be Monk or how he even found out who he was. But people pop up every once in a while who are just not hypnotized by the cultural constraints out there. A lot of times, they paid dearly for it. Sometimes it works to their advantage. But who’s to say why?

Speaking of myself, I know there was a long period in my life when I wanted to be a composer in the sense that Monk, Cecil Taylor, and other people with their own style of work. But I had no idea how to do that, so I kept studying different things. At one time, I sounded like a mixture of McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans. But my desire to create my own sound was so strong that the materials overtook me and formed a new hole that was beyond my conscious calculation. And that hole formed into a new style.

PG: You found yourself, so to speak.

MS: Yeah, you always refer to that as finding yourself, right? I don’t know. In one sense, you’re reconnecting to something you had when you were one or two years old before you got enculturated. It’s interesting because there’s an accumulation of material that you somehow go past. You go past the material. But at the same time, you’re keying into something you knew when you were one or two years old before you were hypnotized by society. With all of that, who’s to say when and how things happen or what they are, it’s kind of a mystery.

PG: If many of those ideas are coming from early on, before culture hypnotizes you, as you put it, does your voice develop and change as time passes, or are you merely expressing the original ideas in different ways?

MS: I think you get deeper and deeper into aspects of it. And then there are things we combine and change in different ways. It’s the same as if you kept a dream journal. Your dreams in the journal would be different every night, but there would be certain motifs that go through a lot of them that are just a natural function of your brain. Your musical ideas are also a natural function of what’s in your subconscious. But things deepen, switch, or mutate at different times. Something beyond your control will tell you what the emphasis is in a different time period. So, I don’t know why, at one time, I might be doing harmonies more reminiscent of Ellington while, at another, they may be reflecting more of Andrew Hill. Things take their course subconsciously, and I have no idea why. 

PG: Well, where do some of your early 2000s recordings fit into that? Nu Bop (Thirsty Ear, 2002), Equilibrium (Thirsty Ear, 2003), The Sorcerer Sessions (Thirsty Ear, 2003), and Harmony and Abyss (Thirsty Ear, 2004) all explored electronic music. Antipop vs. Matthew Shipp (Thirsty Ear, 2003) incorporated hip hop. It does not seem electronic music or hip hop is present in most of your other recordings. 

MS: Artists have to take resets occasionally. Those recordings were resets. I had been doing the acoustic jazz thing forever to that point, and it felt like I needed a reset. It can be very healthy for artists to put themselves into different contexts to see what they can do. 

PG: The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp is your fourteenth solo album, correct? 

MS: I lost count a long time ago.

PG: What do you enjoy about doing solo recordings?

MS: I think I can, excuse the expression, show my ass in a solo recording. Playing solo, you can bear your soul in a very naked way.

PG: Then what sets this album apart the most from your others, if you are exposed on all of them?

MS: I think I’m just getting deeper and deeper into the essence of who I am.

PG: When you sit down with these pieces, how much do you write out ahead of time compared to creating in the moment?

MS: When I’m in the studio, it’s all improv. But I work on my material meticulously every day, whether just working things out on the instrument or having notebooks where I write down ideas. I constantly, meticulously work on my sacred geometry, if you want to call it, of the temple that I’m building. I work on it incessantly and meticulously. So, even when I go into the studio and play with no preconceived plan, the work behind it is immense. Creating music is a discipline. It’s a lifestyle and a discipline. You’re never just deciding to sit down, be weird, and try something. It’s a complete and utter discipline and lifestyle.

PG: One final question – a few years back, you had an interview with Phil Freeman on the Burning Ambulance podcast where you mentioned that you were looking for a phrase – about two or three notes – that explains everything musically. Do you feel you’re closer to finding that phrase?

MS: Actually, it’s funny you would mention that because I was thinking about that idea today. Towards the end of practicing, I was getting into some phrasing ideas. I always feel like I’m a few hours practice-wise away from the ultimate phrase. If I find this phrase, it will arrest the brain of everybody. It would make everyone in the world stop doing what they’re doing just because I articulated this one phrase. All the world’s problems would end. Is there that one harmony out there? Is there one singular phrase that’s so supernatural in its meaning that it changes human existence as we know it?

Of course, there is no such phrase out there. The idea is just an aspiration to get deeper into something with serious meaning. The idea drives you to get deeper into your language and to practice harder. I feel a sense of gain in my career. Phrasing-wise, I’ve been into some areas that have never been explored by anybody in music. That’s my opinion. My sense of phrasing within Western music is very original, as far as I can tell. I do feel that I’m getting into some really deep things. Whether it’s the ultimate phrase in music that arrests everybody’s brain, I can’t say definitively. But I can say that the harder I work, the deeper I’m getting into things that seem to me to have real depth.

PG: So do you feel the search itself is perhaps as important as the actual phrase?

MS: The search itself is actually more important. I’m a big fan of boxing. Archie Moore, a light heavyweight champion and a great trainer, always said, I’m paraphrasing, that boxing is a mystery; you go into the gym every day to solve the equation, but you never solve the whole thing. The journey is everything. If you solve the mystery, then the whole thing is over. If we as humans ever solve the mystery of being human, there will be no reason for there ever to be another human being on the planet. The quest is everything.

The reissued ‘Circular Temple’ and ‘The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp‘ are now available on ESP-Disk and Mahakala Music, respectively. Both can be purchased on Bandcamp.

Photo Credit: Anna Yatskevich