Evan Parker / Matthew Shipp: Rex, Wrecks & XXX [2CD]

Avant Jazz / Free Improvisation / Avant-Garde
premiera polska: 2015-03-06
kontynent: Ameryka Północna
kraj: USA
opakowanie: digipackowe etui
opis:
multikulti.com:
Francuskie wydawnictwo RogueArt przedstawia dwupłytowy album zatytułowany „Rex, Wrecks & XXX” duetu Evan Parker i Matthew Shipp. Będzie to drugi album nagrany w tym duecie po „Abbey Road Duos” z 2007 roku.

Dwóch wyjątkowych muzyków, dwa odmienne doświadczenia i podejścia do muzyki, dwa pokolenia i ocean pomiędzy nimi, a u końca jedna muzyka, wyjątkowa, wybitna, której źródła można doszukiwać się we wzajemnym szacunku i umiejętności słuchania muzycznego partnera. Celem nie było tutaj ograniczanie się do tego, co wspólne, lecz poszerzanie sfer i możliwości we wspólnym akcie twórczym.

Dorobek Matthew Shippa to unikalne połączenie melodyjności i znajomości tradycji oraz dbałości o detale z wielką wyobraźnią. Evan Parker z kolei to bez wątpienia najważniejsza postać europejskiej muzyki improwizowanej, z jednej strony mocno osadzonej we freejazzowej estetyce, z drugiej zaś, pozostającej pod silnym wpływem nowocześnie pojmowanej muzyki współczesnej.

Pierwsza z płyt to nagranie studyjne z 6. września 2011 roku. Jej dopełnieniem jest drugi krążek, na którym znajduje się zapis koncertu zagranego przez Parkera i Shippa dzień później w londyńskim klubie Vortex, z którym Evan Parker jest związany od wielu lat.

freejazz-stef.blogspot.com * * * *:
At first sight, Evan Parker (tenor saxophone) and Matthew Shipp (piano) might not seem an obvious pairing, representing rather different styles of free jazz from either side of the Atlantic. But duos are not monologues or group discussions; they’re dialogues that highlight both differences and common ground, with a starkness that casts into relief features of the players’ styles that can be lost or obscured in other settings. Perhaps this is why so many great recordings are of duos: the art. Of conversation thrown into the spotlight.

And of course, it’s folly to pigeonhole creative musicians, whose imaginations are not limited by labels. This was apparent in Parker and Shipp’s previous recording: Abbey Road Duos (Treader, 2007), a set of studies exploring the fundamentals of their shared vocabulary.

Like a number of Parker’s double-CD recordings, this release comprises a live improvisation (some 41 minutes) – recorded at London’s Vortex – and a studio recording made the previous day, consisting of shorter pieces. In an interview printed in Birds and Blades (Intakt, 2003) – a duo recording with Barry Guy (double bass) – Parker gave the following as one of the reasons why he prefers not to play shorter pieces live, and keep them for the studio:

“… I’m scared to discover whether the audience is really enjoying it or not until it’s over. This periodic interruption prompts an applause rating, I find it difficult to deal with.”
One wonders when Parker last had to worry about his applause rating, but you can see his point: good, bad or indifferent, he’s having to measure up to the audience’s assessment rather than his own.

Although a duo recording, there’s a third (non-speaking) member of the cast: the New York poet Steve Dalachinsky, who wrote the poems printed in lieu of liner notes, which give the tracks their names, and collectively form the alliterative title to the album. I’ll be writing more about him anon when I review his recent release with Joëlle Léandre, but he has associations with both members of this duo. He and Shipp have collaborated on a number of recordings, and the book Logos and Language: A Post-Jazz Metaphorical Dialogue (RogueArt, 2009). Dalachinsky is also an admirer of Parker’s work. His collected Evan Parker poems have been published by Corrupt Press under the title: Long Play E.P. Most were written while listening to Parker play in various settings during a residency at the Stone in 2009, and I assume that the same applies to the poems here: that they are largely real-time responses to what the duo recorded. I’ll say no more about the poems, and focus on the music (readers of my review of the disc with Léandre won’t get off so lightly).

First: the studio recording. This consists of Rex 1 to Rex 6, interspersed with Wrecks 1 and Wrecks 2: solo improvisations by Shipp and Parker, respectively. In Rex 1, after a tentative beginning the two melodic lines expand and merge, like two people meeting in the street, each recognising the other. Here and throughout the album, Shipp displays a wonderful touch and sense and dynamics (it’s no wonder he’s so in demand as part of Ivo Perelman’s recent glut of recordings). Jazz voicings permeate his style, but what is brought to the fore when playing with Parker is his ability to make lightning changes of gear, and to accelerate, reverse, swerve and break. This suits Parker’s atomised phrasings perfectly.

One tends to think of Parker as having rebuilt his style from the ground up, compressing as much as possible into the smallest space; but what is clear in pieces such as Rex 4, is that within this he has distilled some of the essential phrasings and tone of the jazz saxophone. Although his tenor retains its characteristic edge – like carved granite – there are passages where it takes on a decidedly buttery tone. Smooth tenor and sparkling piano runs? I don’t think it’s stretching matters to see Art. Tatum’s last recording session, with Ben Webster as one of the antecedents of this duo. Indeed, in Wrecks 1 – Shipp’s solo – the comparison with Tatum is irresistible.

The duo obviously gave prior thought to the format of some of these pieces. Rex 3 is just over a minute and a half of repeated figures on the saxophone and parallel hands on the piano. Rex 5 consists of witty alternations between the two, each picking up the material of the other, like the party game: The Last Word, where each player has to start a sentence with the last word of the previous player’s sentence. The studio session concludes with Rex 6, an intricate, but lucidly woven fabric of complimentary phrases.

The live disc (XXX) picks up the threads from the previous day, but the uninterrupted performance gives the duo the opportunity to be more expansive: we hear ideas worked out, as in the studio, but also transitions between those ideas. Shipp’s playing is more rhapsodic, and again, there’s a mellowness to Parker’s tone. This is improvisation at the speed of thought, the duo passing and sharing tiny figures, rhythms and contours, each player matching the other in mood and dynamics: soft and playful, pounding and broody. After 25 minutes, both take solos, giving the other time to catch his breath, followed by a reflective passage with some beautifully weighted chords from Shipp. Eventually, the contemplative mood is broken as the pace picks up again, with florid lines wrapped round each other, until the performance comes to a quiet conclusion.

The audience response has been edited out (which is my preference) but I assume the duo received an enthusiastic applause rating.
By Colin Green

All About Jazz * * * * *:
Few barriers remain in jazz. Certainly not geographical or generational. Even genre does not present insurmountable obstacles. Were it needed, further confirmation arrives in the shape of a meeting between two distinctive stylists: American pianist Matthew Shipp and English saxophone iconoclast Evan Parker. Far from being their first encounter, the pair know each other well, having waxed Abbey Road Duos (Treader, 2007), collaborated during the saxophonist's October 2010 residency at the Stone in New York City, and appeared in duet at the 2011 Vision Festival. What's more piano/saxophone duets form a significant strand in the Shipp's discography (Rob Brown, Roscoe Mitchell, Darius Jones, Ivo Perelman and Sabir Mateen being just some of his partners), and are far from unknown in Parker's (Stan Tracey, Georg Graewe and Agusti Fernandez).

No surprise then that Rex, Wrecks & XXX, comprising two discs, one recorded in the studio and the other live (at London's Vortex) the following day, documents a spontaneous dialogue of the highest order. Deep listening underpins the congruency of pacing and dynamics, and even sometimes phrasing, making for a more harmonious pairing than the avant-garde reputations might suggest. Both Shipp and Parker work in a syntax of repeated motifs and sonic cells, which themselves prompt further rejoinders in a process of continual calibration. They don't settle on any particular mode of expression for more than a few minutes, but at times become surprisingly reflective, as an air of abstract lyricism pervades both sessions, perhaps most prevalent in the concert setting.

Shipp is the more likely to lock into nagging patterns which furnish the substructure, although he leavens the repetition with delicate prancing sweetness as well as unpredictable outbursts of thunderous tumult. Parker restricts himself to tenor saxophone throughout (his jazzier horn), although he reins in the split toned dissonance for which he is so well known, in favor of a mellow considered output. Of course there are passages where the Englishman's guttural machine-gun delivery begets a rapidfire rhythmic response from Shipp, but they occur as occasional peaks not expansive plateaus. Unaccompanied features for each transpire both in the studio and live, and while they provide a welcome contrast, they do not reveal anything not already known. The eight studio cuts allow greater opportunity for concision and structure than the unbroken live set, notably on "Rex 5" which alternates piano and tenor, as they conjure a golden thread, each picking up where the other left off. The ghost of Thelonious Monk stalks proceedings when Parker touches on the interval of "Shuffle Boil" and Shipp responds almost in kind. Mercurial, playful discourse which erases boundaries, real or imagined.
by Jogn Sharpe
Editor's info:
Two (exceptional) musicians, two backgrounds, two approaches to music, two generations, an ocean between them: at the end, only one music, unique, outstanding, made of listening and respect of each other. The purpose is not to limit themselves to what they might have in common, but to expand the realm of possibility by assimilating in the moment what the other can bring.
Even if everything is improvised, studio work of the first CD, leaving more time for reflection, is the perfect complement to the second CD, live, giving free rein to spontaneity.

muzycy:
Evan Parker: tenor saxophone
Matthew Shipp: piano

utwory:
CD1:
1. Rex 1 (9:55)
2. Rex 2 (6:23)
3. Wrecks 1 (5:25)
4. Rex 3 (1:33)
5. Wrecks 2 (2:45)
6. Rex 4 (6:11)
7. Rex 5 (11:00)
8. Rex 6 (4:33)

CD2:
1. XXX (41:47)

total time - CD1: 48:14 / CD2: 41:47
nagrano: September 6th 2011 (studio) & September 7th (live) at Vortex, London, UK
more info: www.roguart.com