Skip to main content

Matthew Shipp

Matthew Shipp is my favorite living pianist. You can watch his concert last night on YouTube at Roulette. you can see Fujiwara/ Formanek/ Halvorson in Thumbscrew the night before. I like Halvorson. My daughter says she doesn't like the music and it's yucky, but then she can sit and look at it some.

The cool move in this kind of jazz is to play a bunch of ear jarring stuff, build up your tolerance, and then they do a short riff of some sweet and simple. The contrast makes it amazing.

Shipp came up playing with David Ware, the great Saxophonist and William Parker the great base player. 

You can't really say what his music is like, but I think of Keith Jarrett in his unique performances on piano. Unfortunately Jarrett had 2 strokes.

I guess you could call it avant garde because it's dissonant and unique, but every jazz performance is unique. I like Jason Moran too. And Ethan Iverson. And Brad Mehldau.

My favorite jazz pianist is Bill Evans. But I like Bud Powell and Art Tatum.

Jazz went from early jazz to swing, to bebop, to cool and free, then it exploded into everything and post-jazz. Post-postmodernism is that anything goes in literature, jazz, painting and all art forms. 

Copy someone you like and then develop your own style, even if it's just copying pop hits even if you're only 15. I like Allie Sherlock and Moriah Formica. I want to see how these youths develop.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Character list of Inherent Vice the novel

Fay "Shasta" Hepworth played by Katherine Waterston in the 2014 movie Larry "Doc" Sportello: Our hero, gumsandal.  Shasta Fay Hepworth: Former beautiful love interest. Mickey Wolfmann: Real estate tycoon, Shasta's sugar daddy, paying for apartment in Hancock Park. Mrs. Sloane Wolfmann: wife. Has her own side piece Mr. Riggs Warbling Deputy DA Penny Kimball: lawyer from district attorney office, who fooled around with Doc for a time. Works next to Rhus Frothingham (female book, male in movie).  Aunt Reet: Aunt in real estate. "Bigfoot" Christian Bjornsen: Hollywood detective and actor. Married to Chastity. Spoiler: His partner Vincent Indelicato is wacked by Adrian Prussia, but Puck did the actual job. Mrs. Chastity Bjornsen: Gets on the phone on page 260 of the paperback to defend Bigfoot's day off from work. Calls Doc Mr. Moral Turpitude, accuses him of running up Bigfoot's mental health bills.  Denis: friend who he goes and gets a pizza with...

Manet and Degas

  Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special.  In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

6 month old podcast

Al Franken has a podcast , and he has my favorite Heather Cox Richardson , and they have an interesting discussion. He talks about the knife edge. She really explains the Republican strategy. Flood the zone with shit. Alternate facts, and fake news opens up the idea that there is no reality. It's basically reality versus false reality.  The goal is to both get people to back away from politics, and to tell them how to specifically think. Developed in Russia, a system of overturning democracy. Running fake candidates, who switch parties, and running candidates with the same name. Blackmail is a technique. Create a fake reality that people come to believe. They're willing to vote for a narrative is not true, and they're willing to vote away their rights.  You can flip it and use the same tools.You can weaponize social media by ignoring the shit, and fight back against all these techniques. People defend democracy. They're talking about community and caring for people and ...