Live at Okuden

Last updated
Live at Okuden
The Uppercut Live at Okuden.jpg
Live album by Matthew Shipp & Mat Walerian
Released 2015
Recorded May 15, 2012
Okuden Music, Torun
Genre Jazz
Length67:27
Label ESP-Disk'
Producer Bernard Stollman

Live at Okuden is an album by avant-garde jazz duet "The Uppercut : Matthew Shipp Mat Walerian duo" featuring pianist Matthew Shipp and alto saxophonist Mat Walerian, [1] which was recorded live in 2012 [2] at the Okuden Music concert series and released in 2015 on the New York City, Brooklyn based avant-garde record label ESP-Disk'. [3]

Matthew Shipp American musician

Matthew Shipp is an American pianist, composer, and bandleader.

Mat Walerian is a jazz saxophonist and woodwind player, composer and bandleader who specializes in improvisation and avant-garde music.

Avant-garde works that are experimental or innovative

The avant-garde are people or works that are experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society. It may be characterized by nontraditional, aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability, and it may offer a critique of the relationship between producer and consumer.

Contents

Liner notes by William Parker

"For the past 30 years Matthew Shipp has kept his music and musical associations true to himself and the higher laws of the universe. He has done this by having the courage play uncompromising music, unafraid to bring us tears and flowers wrapped up in the blues. Not intimidated by jazz history, Matthew has spent his life learning how feel comfortable stepping into the unknown part of the tone world.

In this new CD Matthew appears with Mat Walerian, whose playing reminds me of the Japanese paintings of Sesshu, full of fine lines, images, and sounds that tell haiku-like stories, arresting and mysterious. As the music progresses from clarinets to alto sax to flute, you can hear sound and space disrobe to reveal villages with beautiful clouds over trees laced with seraphic hues and birds dancing. The musicians are never concerned about style or genre. What do I call this music ? One word comes to mind : “Exquisite.”

Japanese painting

Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competition between native Japanese aesthetics and the adaptation of imported ideas, mainly from Chinese painting which was especially influential at a number of points; significant Western influence only comes from the later 16th century onwards, beginning at the same time as Japanese art was influencing that of the West.

Haiku (俳句)listen (help·info) is a very short form of Japanese poetry in three phrases, typically characterized by three qualities:

  1. The essence of haiku is "cutting" (kiru). This is often represented by the juxtaposition of two images or ideas and a kireji between them, a kind of verbal punctuation mark which signals the moment of separation and colours the manner in which the juxtaposed elements are related.
  2. Traditional haiku often consist of 17 on, in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on, respectively.
  3. A kigo, usually drawn from a saijiki, an extensive but defined list of such terms.

Throughout his musical career, Shipp has been able to accomplish a rare thing. That is to be able to find the center in the music every time he plays. This music is more concerned with poetics because it is poetics, not technique or academics, that will allow the music to go inside and change the soul of the listener. It is transcendence of music that will lead us to transcendence. I enjoyed this music on many levels; the more I listen to it, the more layers of brilliance I discover. So remember, give it repeated listening; accept it for what it is, not for what it is not.

Mat Walerian plays some of most lovely and relaxed uncompromised beauty that I have ever heard in a long time. Now some might ask, who is this saxophone player ? Who has he studied with, where does he come from ? I say accept him, he loves music and has risen to his apex in this duet with Matthew Shipp. The most important thing is not who he studied with, the most important thing is that he is alive on the scene. Mat Walerian is one of the special ones, and along with Matthew Shipp they have created a new music called Elusive Beauty. I invite you to enjoy it and learn how to cherish life." - William Parker [4]

William Parker (musician) American jazz musician

William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist, multi-instrumentalist, poet and composer.

Track listing

  1. "Introduction" (Mat Walerian) – 5:44
  2. "Blues For Acid Cold" (Mat Walerian) – 7:18
  3. "Jungle Meditation" (Matthew Shipp, Mat Walerian) – 2:19
  4. "Free Bop Statement One" (Matthew Shipp, Mat Walerian) – 2:37
  5. "Free Bop Statement Two" (Matthew Shipp, Mat Walerian) – 5:46
  6. "It's Sick Out There" (Mat Walerian) – 7:47
  7. "Love And The Other Species" (Mat Walerian) – 7:55
  8. "Peace And Respect" (Mat Walerian) – 6:06
  9. "Black Rain" (Mat Walerian) – 16:19
  10. "Encore" (Matthew Shipp, Mat Walerian) – 5:30

Personnel

Alto saxophone type of saxophone

The alto saxophone, also referred to as the alto sax, is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s, and patented in 1846. It is pitched in E♭, and is smaller than the tenor, but larger than the soprano. The alto sax is the most common saxophone and is commonly used in concert bands, chamber music, solo repertoire, military bands, marching bands, and jazz. The fingerings of the different saxophones are all the same so a saxophone player can play any type of saxophone.

Bass clarinet musical instrument

The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B♭ clarinet, it is usually pitched in B♭, but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B♭ clarinet. Bass clarinets in other keys, notably C and A, also exist, but are very rare. Bass clarinets regularly perform in orchestras, wind ensembles/concert bands, occasionally in marching bands, and play an occasional solo role in contemporary music and jazz in particular.

Soprano clarinet

The term soprano clarinet is used occasionally to refer to those instruments from the clarinet family that occupy a higher position, both in pitch and in popularity than subsequent additions to the family such as the basset horns and bass clarinets. The B♭ clarinet is by far the most common type of clarinet and the unmodified word "clarinet" usually refers to this instrument. However, due to a tendency for writers and historians to imitate the terms used to denote instruments in other instrumental 'family groups' the term soprano is sometimes used to apply not only to the B♭ clarinet but also to the clarinets in A and C, sounding respectively a semitone lower and a whole tone higher than the B♭ instrument, and even the low G clarinet—rare in Western music but popular in the folk music of Turkey—sounding a whole tone lower than the A. While some writers reserve a separate category of sopranino clarinets for the E♭ and D clarinets, these are more usually regarded as soprano clarinets as well. All have a written range from the E below middle C to about the C three octaves above middle C, with the sounding pitches determined by the particular instrument's transposition.

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References

  1. ↑ Spicer, Daniel (May 2015). "Matthew Shipp Mat Walerian duo". The Wire (375): 60.
  2. ↑ Corroto, Mark (3 May 2015). "Matthew Shipp &Mat Walerian Duo/The Uppercut: Live At Okuden (2015)". All About Jazz. Retrieved 8 June 2015.
  3. ↑ ESP-Disk' record label catalogue http://espdisk.com/official/catalog/5007.html
  4. ↑ The Uppercut Matthew Shipp Mat Walerian duo "Live at Okuden" liner notes by William Parker
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