Pastoral Composure

Product Description

This is a roam into a slighlty more traditional take on jazz from Shipp, including a version of Duke Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss.”

Review

Matthew Shipp, after seven years of recording some of the most adventurous free jazz piano in history, Thirsty Ear convinced him to come out of his self-imposed retirement and record a quartet album entitled Pastoral Composure. His new quartet features trumpeter Roy Campbell, bassist William Parker, and drummer Gerald Cleaver.

A more sympathetic group has rarely existed in free jazz. Campbell’s trumpet lines range from outright clear melodicism to wild pithy freedom; he’s deftly supported by Parker’s bass anchor and Cleaver’s wide-ranging exploration of time. Meanwhile Shipp builds complex structures that evolve from simply stated solo melodies to thick and cerebral harmonic development. It’s hard to praise this recording adequately: Pastoral Composure ranks as one of the most significant works in the history of free jazz. It’s guaranteed to intrigue and satisfy fans approaching the work from the standpoint of swinging melodicism just as well as fans with a keener interest in creative exploration.

While the other members of Shipp’s quartet have previously appeared on record, newcomer Gerald Cleaver has not. His work offers an inspiring glimpse of an emerging talent deserving of further documentation.
–All About jazz

Even the most cursory inquiry into free jazz reveals a didactic history of critique leveled against the music. There has never been a shortage of detractors and it always seems as if these folks delight most in saddling players who choose this art-form as their mode of expression with the misinformed indictment that they can’t play. More precisely what is often meant by this sleight is that a preoccupation with free improvisation necessarily comes at the cost or serves in place of being proficient at playing a piece of music straight. Anyone who has listened at length to the majority of musicians currently flourishing in the bright, albeit limited limelight of the free jazz scene recognizes how ridiculous these allegations really are. As if in answer to such critics Shipp’s new disc serves as the perfect vehicle for depositing such allegations directly where they belong in the rubbish heap.

All that being said it may be tempting for some to attach a mainstream moniker to the work Shipp and his friends turn in here. Rarely have any of these players sounded as ‘inside’ as they do on these pieces, at least on record, and characterizing the music as such means walking the fine line of compartmentalization I just decried, but if the shoe fitsÖ All this will probably lead to the hard-line faction of free jazz fans denouncing the disc as a write-off or a sell out, but those who take this reactionary course will only be missing out. The music here is every bit as meritorious as the work these four players regularly offer up in their more familiar roles and it more than deserves widespread appreciation.

“Gesture”, a minor-keyed Moorish march anchored in Shipp’s reoccurring thematic pattern and Gerald Cleaver’s rolling drums, kicks things off. Roy Campbell’s buffed brass soars above the dark rhythmic umbrage careening from protracted squeals to subdued lyrical cerebrations and back again. Parker’s fastidious harmonics take the group out. On “Visions” the four play things almost completely straight with William Parker doing his best impersonation of Mr. P.C. as the spirit of Jimmy Garrison looks on. Campbell expounds colorfully on the linear melody followed closely by Shipp who sounds more restrained than I’ve ever heard him before. He adheres closely to a melody-centered monologue but still manages to wring out an astounding variety of fresh variants from the relatively simple theme. Parker’s solo on the piece is a revelation and it’s a real delight to hear his indomitable technique applied in such an unexpected setting. Shipp takes “Prelude to a Kiss”