Matthew Shipp & William Parker — Re-Union

Re-Union is a CD album that finds Delaware born pianist Matthew Shipp joining forces New York Born double player William Parker. The album features four tracks and finds the pair moving between bounding and blues edged jazz improv, to more creative angular impov fare.

The CD appears on respected French Jazz label Rough Art- been presented in the labels house style red and black inked minimal six-panel digipak, which features short texts from both players, and producer Michel Dorbon.

All four tracks were recorded in one day in February 2019 at a studio in Malakoff France. And I take it was all recorded live and off the chuff by the pair, as the playing throughout is both fluid and often rapid.

We kick off with the twenty-minute title track- and this very much feels like the pair shaking off the cobwebs and kicking into their sonic meeting. As we find a pacy mix of darting jazzy-to-slightly blues edged keys, blended with strolling to later bounding bass work. The pair start off fairly formal, defined and blues bound harmonic in their interlocking flow. But as we progress, we get fairly rapid and at points quite manic runs occurring, before they drift down gears to more even and flowing meetings. At first, I felt slight underwhelmed as the interplays felt somewhat formal/ safe, but as we go on, we get some nice pulsing pounding and heady interplays.

Next, we the just over eleven minutes of “The New Zo”, and this was much more my cup of tea, as we get more abstract and adventurous improv from the off. With Parker’s playing moving between reeling and deep saws, rapid fiddles, mournful drones, and bounding groans. With Shipps keys shifting between ornate darts, moody cascades, tolling doomy slams, and more forlorn darts.

“Further DNA” slides in at the fourteen and a half minute mark, and is a return to more bounding and rapid joinings of the first track. With the pair treading out a sprightly path of blues and jazz runs, though often their playing gets nicely manic and blending in its feel, with some great energetic interplays going on that really get ones blood flowing, though late on we get some breaks downs from just one player.

The release is finished off with just over six minutes of “Song Of Two”. And this finds the pair trading more ornate and smoky runs, with sudden angular darts and wayward fumbles. This track feels wonderfully free and loose in its flow, and I love the element of surprise at play here. Again like the second track, this was a real highlight to me.

Re-union is an album that evenly splits itself between pacy formal jazz and blues interplay, and more abstract and daring improv- I appreciate both sides of this sonic coin, though if push came to shove, I’d certainly fall down in enjoy the latter more. Though on the whole, it’s a most worthy release.