Shipp, Matthew / Mat Maneri / Michael Bisio - The Gospel According to Matthew & Michael
SKU
RPR 1035
“A crucial aspect of the Chamber Ensemble and the String Trio is the harmonic slipperiness that the string players focus on, contra the piano. Mat Maneri is the son of saxophonist and composer Joe Maneri (1927-2009), whose own chamber work focused on microtonal improvisation, and while the violist has certainly forged his own path, his grand swoops and deft ponticello technique tend to blur - if not obliterate - the demarcations of Western tonality. That’s not to say he doesn’t employ romantic late-19th-century snatches in his sinewy improvisations, but they may be broken apart only to be picked up by Shipp’s piano a few bars later. The piano isn’t normally thought of as a microtonal instrument, but Shipp’s lifelong focus has been to use the piano as a vessel to communicate a language that is beyond time and space, and thus traditional harmony. If one can’t bend the piano as one would a string, he comes damn close, through utilizing clusters and superimpositions that, whether in pointillist grace or unbroken swaths, grant his phrasing a forceful, sublime quaver. The bulwark goading and refereeing the dances between piano and viola is Bisio’s bass, advancing a left-field blues on ‘Chapter 11’ that references Ornette Coleman’s ‘Lonely Woman’ before tessellating outward. Bisio’s tone is robust and his time impeccable; a compact and fluid player, he darts and masses notes on ‘Chapter 7,’ blurring pizzicato phrases until Charles Mingus’ ‘Haitian Fight Song’ emerges, a nod to Ellingtonian tradition among ambiguous daubs and cloud-borne shrikes.
The Gospel According to Matthew and Michael is of a piece with much of Shipp’s work, as it focuses on multivalent communication between individuals to create a group language that is both singular and partial. The roles could be shifted slightly to include a percussionist or a wind player, and the locus of the music would remain comparable, employing Dickey or saxophonist Rob Brown would retain its quintessential Shipp-ness. Yet what this disc brings home is that the individual voices, distinct in their makeup, is the prime generator, and the ensemble’s grammar draws from personal experience, spirit, and language.”-Clifford Alen / Tiny Mix Tapes
- LabelRelative Pitch
- UPC616892273646