The previous meeting of these two camps was billed as a fight: Antipop vs. Matthew Shipp. Perhaps that was a statement about the times, though by that point jazz and hip hop already had met, circled each other warily and eventually shaken hands. Or, more likely, it was marketing; check out this rumble between the genres! Alas, it was a respectful summit rather than a fracas.

Here, the simpatico nature of the meeting is reflected in the title. Much as on a jazz record, where the participants are simply listed, the album is credited to Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Beans and HPrizm (formerly Priest). Four men enter… and one band exits. Yes, this really is a band. As on the first album – more so, even – these musicians combine their talents to create something that often transcends the individual contributions.

At its heart, Knives From Heaven is a hip hop record. The beats and rhymes are simply too dominant for it to be anything but. However, the base of the songs is most definitely jazz. There is a swing to these songs, a skittering pulse that is uniquely Shipp’s, that grounds the music.

The person who seems to get lost here is Parker. Bass is such an important part of hip hop that this comes a surprise. It’s not that Parker isn’t there, of course, but that his work is obviously subsumed by the whole more than Shipp’s. It’s easier to here Shipp’s block chords rise and fall through some of the quieter passages of these tunes than it is to discern Parker’s low-end rumbling through.

The musical base of the individual tracks is more sample-based than on the previous album. For every tune like “Terra Cotta” or “Deadpan Stare” that is essentially Shipp and Parker as an unaccompanied duo, there are tracks where their presence would be unremarked were their names not on the CD cover. Part of this stems from the fact that drummer Guillermo Brown, vibraphonist Khan Jamal and trumpeter Daniel Carter – who all performed on the first disc – are absent here.

Interestingly, tracks like “Half Amazed A/B” and “Rockers Hifi” owe their hooks to short sampled saxophone lines. Too bad long-time Shipp/Parker collaborator David S. Ware wasn’t called in to really add some fire to these sessions.

At its heart, Knives From Heaven continues what Antipop vs. Matthew Shipp started, a fruitful collaboration that isn’t likely to draw hardcore fans from either genre, but which will please the open-minded few in the overlap.

The knock against free jazz (or avant garde or creative music or any other nomenclature) is usually that the listener doesn’t “get” it. The lack of a definable rhythm or melody challenges the listener to such a degree that, rather than put in the time to find a way in, he instead takes a powder, opting for something more easily digested.

That’s fine; there are times where three chords and a heavy backbeat are all I need. But other times, I want to work at my music, knowing the rewards will be that much greater. That’s why I have spent so much time with the music of Matthew Shipp.

I first heard Shipp on 1999’s DNA, a duo album the pianist made with bassist William Parker. I recognized both from David S. Ware’s Wisdom of Uncertainty, the first non-traditional jazz album I purchased. A fawning review of that album made me take the leap at a time in my life where I craved something more than I was getting through the usual channels. I’ll admit that I still don’t fully understand or appreciate that album 14 years on, and I certainly haven’t figured out the dozen-plus Shipp albums I have acquired since that first.

But I have discovered enough; more than enough. A new Shipp release is an automatic purchase for me (or thanks to the largesse of the Thirsty Ear publicity department, a highly anticipated promo arrival), because I know it will enlighten, engage, challenge and delight. Whether he is playing solo, performing in various acoustic configurations or collaborating with electronic artists on some melding of hip hop and jazz, I know I’ll take something away each time I listen.

His new album, The Art of the Improviser, is a landmark of sorts. Shipp turned 50 in December, and his long-time label, Thirsty Ear, clearly wants to use that occasion to reintroduce the artist to the masses. It’s a double-disc set, with one CD capturing a solo performance, the other his trio with new bassist Michael Bisio and longtime drummer Whit Dickey. He tackles newer songs like “4D” and older tracks like “Circular Temple #1,” as well as oft-covered standards like “Take the A Train.”

It doesn’t fully capture Shipp’s oeuvre, but nothing short of a boxed set could. What it does offer is a snapshot of the artist today, a constantly striving artist who is increasingly able to bridge the distance between lyrical classicism and questing exploration.

And no, I don’t write that as someone who “gets” everything Shipp does. Far from it. But I get enough to keep me digging.

TIRBD: The press materials for your new album state that “for the better part of fifty years, Matthew Shipp has been on a tireless journey to innovate a musical language…” At first that brought a chuckle, thinking of you in diapers nearly 50 years ago trying to “innovate a musical language.” But then I stopped and wondered: At what age did you actually start playing music, and at what age do you feel you began creating a musical language of your own as opposed to recreating that of others?

MS: I started at 5 got serious at 12 – with classical, started jazz at about 14. As far as really trying to find myself on an instrument, that started around 18, but I love the image you have of being in diapers and trying to innovate a musical language. At 18 my style was part McCoy (Tyner)-part Bill Evans, but I was cognizant that I was looking for myself even though I used that style to do regular gigs

This release offers two sides of your performing persona: solo and as part of a group. Do you prefer one over the other? What does each afford that the other does not?

No – I do whatever is before me. My focus will be on the trio though, for that is a direct link to the jazz tradition – even though I have said some things that could be construed as anti jazz trad, I am looking for a way to fit in that tradition believe it or not. I love solo also because as a pianist there is such a great tradition of solo keyboard work including Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Tatum, Monk’s beautiful solos, Cecil, etc., etc.

What did you take away from your work curating the Blue Series for Thirsty Ear? From the outside, it seems to have afforded you the opportunity to expand your sonic palette considerably.

It takes me outside myself, which as an artist it is so easy to be completely self absorbed – but bringing in other people and having a hand in some CDs is very gratifying because it reminds you that there is a whole big world of music out here and it’s not just about you. And it’s easy to think it’s just about you because it’s so hard to survive as a jazz musician that that mindset kicks in just as a defense mechanism. And also, yes, it’s giving me a chance to explore how others deal with organizing sound in a way that I would not if I was not as involved.

Having explored those sounds, you have returned to more organic, acoustic settings on recent albums. Did anything in particular motivate that shift, and do you foresee ever venturing again into more electronic-based music?

I am open to doing collaborative electronic projects if an artist comes up that I would want to work with – and of course they would want to work with me – but at the end of the day, I am a jazz pianist and I am actually very comfortable with that idea.

I had the pleasure of seeing your “Boxing and Jazz” performance in Minneapolis several years ago. Do you still follow the sport? Do you take similar inspiration from any other extra-musical interests that you can see manifest themselves in your work?

Oh yes, I am a boxing fanatic. I follow it very close and I find it a very interesting subculture in the way that jazz is an interesting subculture – or at least used to be. I get most of my inspiration from metaphysics though, for what I explore in music is mind – vibration-pools of language fields of  intelligence and process – and all that could be summed up in the stupid word of god.

You have played with a wide array of people. Is there anyone left, either in the world of what is considered jazz or beyond it, with which you would like to collaborate?

I would love to do a collaboration with Ikue Mori. I think she is a laptop genius.

Musicians talk about recreating the music they hear in their head, and I wonder what you hear when you are thinking about music. Have you been able to capture that in your recordings and performance, or is there an ideal that you still seek?

Well, Cecil once said if you hear it, why play it – what you hear is memory – but I do have a field of language that I “hear” that I push against.

I have been sitting on this review for weeks, unsure how to start, and frankly, not at all confident that I was qualified to review the disc it in the first place. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the music; in fact, Terra Incognita from Imani Winds is one of my favorite releases of the year.

The problem is that I come to this with little experience with chamber music. I know what I like, but don’t always feel that I have the knowledge to accurately and insightfully convey that to a reader.

A conversation with a friend about the much larger issue of the alarming dumbing down of our country, however, gave me the strength to forge ahead. Please indulge me for a moment. Essentially, our talk centered on the performing arts, where tough times and an increasingly sedentary populace content to sit at home and watch reality shows on 52-inch TV screens has made it difficult to program anything remotely challenging. That’s why things like dance (save for broad crowdpleasers like “Riverdance”), experimental music and cutting-edge theater can seem a bit scarce these days.

My friend’s challenge, as someone who must work to convince people to come to these shows, is to reassure people that they have the capacity to understand and enjoy the work at hand. One need not have a degree in dance to appreciate modern practitioners of the form; a background in the theater isn’t required to enjoy a multi-media extravaganza. And, I don’t need instruction in musical theory to completely dig Terra Incognita.

So, while the Imani Winds are not what I would consider my usual thing, perhaps the definition of my “usual thing” needs to be broadened. I won’t go into too much detail lest I use a term incorrectly or unintentionally mislead. I’ll just say that these five musicians have created music here that is stunning, bridging genres in such a way that perhaps the labels we affix to things to facilitate understanding will eventually become moot.

Terra Incognita is the first recorded music from the group’s Legacy Project, an effort that found Imani Winds commissioning compositions from top jazz performers. The composers represented on this first collection are heavyweights: Wayne Shorter, new MacArthur genius award winner Jason Moran and Paquito D’Rivera. Each entity involved in these compositions is trying something new. For the composers, it is writing for a group in a form that is precise and largely without improvisation. For Imani Winds, it is performing the work of artists who thrive on swing and improvisation.

The point where these two intersect proves to be fertile ground. Moran’s “Cane,” influenced by the jazz pianist’s family history in rural Louisiana, evokes that feel in a more wistful, melancholic way than could be conveyed with traditional jazz instruments, while the groove inherent in his songs nudges the players to inject the slightest hip-shake into their performance. Shorter’s title track feels the most traditional in terms of what one expects from a wind quintet, though his harmonic ideas seem to stretch the players, thereby expanding their comfort zone. And D’Rivera’s piece, “Kites,” uses the instruments most sympathetically, his lines recreating the feel of kites soaring over his native Havana.

The group — flutist and founder Valerie Coleman, horn player Jeff Scott, oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz, bassoonist Monica Ellis and clarinetist Mariam Adam — is willing to take risks, and those risks are rewarded. And at the same time, they continue to expand the repertoire of wind quintets through this commissioning project.

Do I wish I had the vocabulary to more accurately reflect what it is that is so mezmerizing about this album? Sure. Do I need that background to thoroughly enjoy it? Not at all. This is soulful, sophisticated music that takes the brilliance of jazz composition and the refined structure of chamber music and creates a hybrid that ought to appeal to fans of either genre and beyond.

The best news is that these are three of 10 Legacy Project commissions from Imani Winds. I had the chance to hear the group perform the world premiere of a piece commissioned from vibraphonist Stefon Harris last year that was magnificient, and hope that this piece, as well as commissions from Simon Shaheen, Danilo Perez and others will appear on future albums to further this crosspolination exploration.

After a decade spent seemingly trying to prove the breadth of what he and his band can achieve, jazz pianist Jason Moran celebrates with an album that allows the trio to simply dig in and play.

The result is TEN, the most satisfying to these ears disc since 2001’s Black Stars. That’s not to say that the intervening music was disappointing. Moran’s quest to explore the boundaries of solo performance (Modernistic), examine the similarities between jazz and the blues (Same Mother) and meld visual and performing arts with music (Artist in Residence) all were bracingly original collections of music that highlighted the strengths of the group and its leader.

But for my money, hearing Moran, drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Tarus Mateen rip through a clutch of originals and well-thought covers without the various experiments getting in the way is just about as good as jazz gets these days.

All of those explorations have value, of course; Moran is, if possible, more assured and commanding as a player, composer and band leader today than he was a decade ago, and his success with these various new tools surely plays a part.

TEN, which marks the 10th anniversary of the Bandwagon – Moran, Waits and Mateen – allows the trio to showcase its telepathic interplay on what is perhaps the strongest set of songs Moran has issued. From the fierce “RFK in the Land of Apartheid,” to the dreamscape soundtrack of Conlon Nancarrow’s “Study No. 6,” Moran and his bandmates inhabit a full spectrum of tone, dynamics and sound.

And despite having a similar genesis to its predecessor – both include work Moran composed for various commissions – this one hangs together like an album much more successfully. It still includes some experimentation, with found sounds and some electronics incorporated, but these feel much more organic, of a piece with the compositions in question than such forays did in the past. Moran seems to have found a way to absorb these elements more effectively, making them integral elements rather than bells and whistles.

All of this results in an album that will spend considerable time in whatever player you use, only to be removed at year’s end when you stack up the best of the year to compile your list.

TIRBD: The title TEN refers to the 10th anniversary of your group, Bandwagon. Was the intent all along to have a long-running group? What can the group do now that it couldn’t a decade ago?

JM: The intent I think was exactly to have a longstanding group. I realized that some of the best groups have been doing it for years: Wayne Shorter, Modern Jazz Quartet, Keith Jarrett, The Bad Plus, etc.  These groups have a sound, and also an attitude.  So, to have Tarus and Nasheet is a real blessing because we’ve known each other before The Bandwagon, and know what it is to be in a group and not be able to play freely. I enjoy having them around because they really take control of the music, and they do not apologize.

Now, the group can really be confident in it’s inadequacies and really exploit them to make something positive out of it.  Also, the Bandwagon gets more and more opportunities outside of the “jazz world” and that was not happening 10 years ago.  From working with artists, choreographers and filmmakers.

It seems as if there is no real concept behind TEN, just good songs that work well with one another. Was the approach to this different from your other albums where there seem to be a more concrete theme or guiding principle behind the work?

Yes, it was different for this very reason. I think the only other recording like this is The Bandwagon live at the Village Vanguard.  And well, we sound good together, and sometimes “just playing” is the best medicine.

What was appealing about the Conlon Nancarrow tune, “Study No. 6”? By including this song, are you hoping to draw attention to an overlooked composer?

Well, I like to think that I’m constantly bringing up people that are “under-promoted” as Andrew Hill liked to say.  Nancarrow is one of these geniuses of contemporary music.  I really am just in love with the melody, and also thought it would be “cool” to have Nancarrow in a list of composers on TEN that include Byard, Hill, Mateen, Bert Williams, Monk, etc.  By looking at those composers you’d easily think that Nancarrow was an African-American male jazz musician.  Funny.  But the music he wrote for player piano was amazing because he really took jazz piano language to a bizarre place while using a machine.  It’s so progressive that it still works today.

The cover of TEN has that classic Blue Note feel, which stands in contrast to the more modern feel of much of the art that graces your albums. Was that intentional? How important is the visual presentation of your music?

I worked with a young conceptual artist, Adam Pendleton, for the cover.  Here’s a quote from an e-mail: “my idea is to take it back. back to the heyday of Blue Note album cover art, a lot of that stuff is classic, timeless work…”

So, it’s very intentional.  Visual representation is extremely important to me. I grew up with a lot of art around the house, and know lots of artists. I’ve always enjoyed learning the processes of different artists, and know that “jazz” can still have a contemporary edge in the way that contemporary art has gone beyond the canvas to express itself.  So, this cover gets very basic in the way that Modernistic has a basic image. It’s naked. Also, on this cover, the word TEN does not appear, just the dots, which have motion and direction.

You have cited inspiration in the visual work of others. Have you ever tried your hand at creating in a different media, such as the visual arts, or has music always been your outlet?

I did try painting for a couple of years, and I was terrible. This was around 8 or 9 years ago.  While I was in this phase, whenever someone would visit my apartment, I would make them paint. So, I have small paintings by Robert Glasper, Greg Osby and a few other notables.  Music has been the best outlet, though I said I’d start trying to sketch again.

Collaboration seems to be a driving force for you, as you have played with dozens of other jazz musicians as well as worked with performance artists, dancers and others. What is it about that interaction that appeals to you?

When I work with other creative people, I do  not get bored.  I love the challenge when working with other artists.  There is a lot of translation that has to happen, especially with non-musicians. And that tests the ability to express another’s vision. Tell the story together.

I came to Ben Neill‘s Night Science disc with half the knowledge I probably needed to fully understand and appreciate it. I know plenty about jazz and the melding of that sound with electronica (mainly thanks to the groundbreaking work of others through Thirsty Ear’s Blue Series), but knew nothing about dubstep. Night Science, however, blends these elements to create something the label describes as “a dubstep masterpiece, a jazz classic, and something altogether unfamiliar.”

I still don’t know anything about dubstep — though I can now at least identify the beat when I hear it, a stuttering, click clack that feels like a glitchy dancefloor call to arms — but I know that Neill blends electronic instrumentation, a jazz feel and that insistent beat to create songs that convey darkness and menace despite their sprightly tempos.

Neill accomplishes this with an instrument called the mutantrumpet, which melds a regular trumpet with electronics. “The new mutantrumpet uses technologies from (a previous version) as well as a new ergonomic design which now includes 8 continuous MIDI controllers and 8 momentary MIDI controllers in addition to the acoustic note and volume control from the instrument’s natural sound. The instrument connects directly to the computer via USB.” While I’m a huge fan of acoustic jazz, performers who experiment with electronic instruments and textures within the framework of jazz have long caught my ear.

With Night Science, Neill does just that, perhaps even more organically than most. The ability to alter his electronics with the touch of a finger while playing an admittedly greatly altered instrument allows him to subtly shift the sound in the moment. If there is a knock against electronic-driven jazz, it is its pre-programmed, static nature. Neill avoids that trap here.

That said, I can’t point to any one song as say, “This is the one that will hook you.” The hooks are few and far between here. This is a mood piece, and while each of the 10 tracks is separate and distinct, it also would succeed as one long, uninterrupted track (in fact, it does when I put it on while at work, allowing it to seep into the subconscious).

So, is this the great “dubstep masterpiece” as advertised? Far be it from me to say. I can say it is a very worthy entry in Thirsty Ear’s fantastic Blue Series, a disc that will appeal to open-minded jazz fans and perhaps help pull at the boundaries of what they consider the genre to be.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the great Blue Note Records. The label was started by Alfred Lion, a German immigrant who recorded his first session just two weeks after the Dec. 23, 1938, Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall featuring pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis. The two cut 18 tracks, issued as The First Day.

According to the history of the label find on its web site, the first brochure for the label included a statement of purpose:”Blue Note Records are designed simply to serve the uncompromising expressions of hot jazz or swing, in general. Any particular style of playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine expression. By virtue of its significance in place, time and circumstance, it possesses its own tradition, artistic standards and audience that keeps it alive. Hot jazz, therefore, is expression and communication, a musical and social manifestation, and Blue Note records are concerned with identifying its impulse, not its sensational and commercial adornments.”

The best the label has had to offer in the 70 years since has lived up to that creed. Plenty of questionable sides have been issued with the Blue Note logo on back, but the label’s hits far outnumber any missteps, and its classic period in the ’50s and ’60s is peerless in recorded music.

The label is perhaps best known among non- or casual jazz fans for its distinctive album covers. But to those who love jazz, the name in synonymous with great hard bop. Pick up a Blue Note disc from Lee Morgan or Art Blakey or Hank Mobley or Horace Silver or Lou Donaldson or… well, you get the idea. Do so, and you’ll find a great batch of deep grooves and soulful playing.

The label will celebrate with a tour by the Blue Note 7, a group of younger stars who will perform classic Blue Note sides. The group includes pianist and musical director Bill Charlap, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, alto saxophonist Steve Wilson, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, guitarist Peter Bernstein, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash. The tour runs now through April 19. A disc from the group, Mosaic: A Celebration of Blue Note Records, is due Jan. 13.

In addition, author Ashley Kahn, who has penned interesting books about Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Impulse Records, is writing a book about Blue Note: Somethin’ Else: The Story of Blue Note Records and the Birth of Modern Jazz. The book is due in the fall. Blue note will issue a two-CD companion compilation at that time.

All in all, it’s a good excuse to listen to some great jazz. Happy anniversary.

I caught a fantastic show last night in Iowa City, finally getting the chance to see the Brad Mehldau Trio in person. I’ve been a fan for years, and so it was nice to experience them live.

This was a make-up gig from 2005 when Mehldau was snowed in and couldn’t reach Iowa City for a show. This time, he almost was forced to postpone again, but the problem was on our end: the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium was severely damaged during massive flooding we experienced here in June. The facility won’t open until 2010, but in the meantime many of this season’s shows were rescheduled for area venues (new season tagline: “Can’t Contain Us.”) This show was at the City High School auditorium, and it’s a safe guess that no matter how talented the school’s many alums may have been, this was the best thing to ever grace that stage.

I wrote a review for CorridorBuzz.com where those interested can find out all of the details. Suffice to say it was the best jazz I’ve seen this year, and that’s saying something given the caliber of talent at this year’s Iowa City Jazz Festival.

I took in a lot of great jazz over the weekend thanks to the Iowa City Jazz Festival. I was working, reviewing some of the sets for CorridorBuzz.com (including Friday, Saturday and Sunday). The festival headliners were all excellent: Medeski, Martin & Wood on Friday, John Scofield on Saturday and Joshua Redman on Sunday. I got what I expected from MMW and Scofield — funky, groove-based jazz — but was pleasantly surprised by Redman. You can’t rest on the phenom thing for too long, so I knew he had the goods, but I’ve never been moved by his music on record. Live, he was electric, playing with passion and enthusiasm. He played accompanied by just bass and drums, so there was no chance to lay out, no break, no rest. He brought it for about 80 minutes with little more than the time between songs and the occasional drum or bass solo to even get a breath.

The event is something to look forward to all year, as we don’t get a lot of big name live jazz here in Iowa City very often. There is a very talented group of players in the area, thanks in part to the great jazz programs at the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa just up the road in Cedar Falls, so we do have the opportunity to hear live jazz (though not as often as we should). As for big draws, however, we now must wait until November when Brad Mehldau comes to the UI’s Hancher Auditorium, assuming that damage from the devastating flooding over the past several weeks can be repaired in time.

Photos by Loren Keller.