Pianist Matthew Shipp would be infuriatingly overconfident if he didn't back himself up so well. Beginning in 2000 with Pastoral Composure, and moving on through New Orbit (see the phrase in the liner notes: "Cosmic Consciousness") and his work with the David S. Ware Quartet on their Corridors and Parallels, the man seems to be suggesting he's onto some kind of metaspatial physics that's all his own. Corridors and Parallels may actually have been a slight low point for Shipp; trading piano for Korg synthesizer might have looked good on paper, but in practice the ethereal tones didn't integrate well with the earthy flavor of Ware & Co. But now Shipp's back with Nu Bop, the latest record in Thirsty Ear's Blue Series. This time around, he's brought in musician and producer Chris Flam to add electronic beats to the mix, and the results are solid.
Of course, you can't approach greatness in jazz without punning on your name. So Nu Bop begins with "Space Shipp," and the scrunchy beats make themselves evident immediately. They don't play into fashions like jungle, just squelch mechanically as Shipp pounds along and bassist William Parker grooves concordantly. Guillermo E. Brown's percussion rumbles along with the programmed rhythms, kicking up some hip-hop influence, and Shipp gets inspired and tickles all up and down the scales. The title track sees Parker in funk mode, bobbing lightly along with the drum breaks until Brown adds a whole other layer of bass drum rolls and cymbal crashes to the bricolage. And speaking of which, the breaks (not to mention to cover art) do bear a strong resemblance to Amon Tobin, but then Daniel Carter's alto sax wails off in some strangely muted distance and Shipp rushes in after four minutes like a surprise.
Flam's beats, for the most part, were laid down before the sessions, and taken into the studio so the musicians could improvise over them. Shipp's playing is based on individual notes rather than the dense harmonic flurries he used to be known for. The danger, of course, is pulling a Doo-Bop a la Miles Davis-- downplaying your skills to cut a pop record and grab at hipster cred. But Shipp drops accents in unexpected, slightly off-meter places, as on "D's Choice," an all-out jam between Shipp's Monk-like plunks, Brown's sharp snaps, and some chirpy synth beats.
Shipp may call the album Nu Bop, but the arrangements here are more influenced by the birth of the cool. The small amount of players allows the musical inputs to mix seamlessly, and amazingly, it never sounds like "Shipp remixed." The only time the processing draws attention to itself as something added is on "Select Mode 1," a little minute-and-a-half throwaway jam whose keyboard-demo riddim track should have just been scrapped.
"ZX-1," a solo piece by Shipp, breaks the fast flow of the other tracks for some introspection. The minor-key chords reverberate from deep in the chamber, bringing a feeling of melancholy until he slips into the upper registers and becomes perplexingly both lighter in tone and yet more tense. Near the end, "Nu Abstract" finds Shipp caged, emitting discordant echoes as a nebula of pulsing drones swells beneath him. He's familiar with this type of soupy ambience from his work on Spring Heel Jack's Masses project, and the piece radiates the same ominous vibes. But more often, this album is about percussive synthesis, as on "Rocket Shipp," with Shipp tumbling precariously across the ivories and Parker practically slapping his bass. Brown is so energetic and the drum tracks are so interwoven that at times it's hard to tell where flesh ends and bytes begin.
Shipp and company have a feat worthy of the fractal juxtapositions and futurist font on the album sleeve: they've laid down a fusion record that doesn't fall into limp acid-jazz wank or pop posturing. But to do so, they may have sacrificed a bit of humor. For all the enthusiasm in their playing, they've used a very monochromatic palette here. The serious tone is most apparent in Shipp, whose dark, monolithic thunks bespeak a certain singularity of purpose. I find myself wishing for another moment or two like "X-Ray," which features a serene flute melody from Daniel Carter.
Nu Bop doesn't quite reach the lyrical beauty of New Orbit, but it's clear that the guys haven't set out to do anything but record a hell of a funky album. As Shipp says at the end of a track, "You know it took a minute for my brain to go dead, once that happened I was in it!" At forty minutes, this is another short but sweet entry in the Blue Series, and according to Shipp, there are more on the way.
