feature photo: R.I. Sutherland-Cohen
Note: performance above is not on album profiled in this article.
Matthew Shipp , William Parker and Mat Maneri are certainly no strangers to each other and we’ve profiled a number of records here involving at least two of the three, often on records led by saxophone savant Ivo Perelman. Symbolic Reality is a meeting of the pianist, bassist and violist led by Shipp reviving the “Matthew Shipp String Trio” designation used only twice before when the three got together to record By the Law of Music in 1997 and Expansion, Power, Release in 2001.
Across a half dozen of new Shipp compositions, the trio tackle the preconceived material with the capriciousness of spontaneous composing, using the telepathy built-in from decades of performing together to manage the flow of the melody in complete unison. There is almost a chamber music precision in the manner by which the density of the sound swells and recedes, as well as how effortlessly the lead and comping roles are handed off to one another.
Parker and Maneri instantly blend on “Central Flame” to cover both the high end (Maneri) and low end (Parker) of the stringed sonorities, with Shipp staking claim to much of the middle register. Parker’s switching between bowing and plucking is so discreet, you don’t really notice it. Maneri is likewise changing his tactics stealthily, always serving the group aesthetic.
Maneri leads the way on “Symbolic Reality” but as he begins to sketch out a shape, the other two ease their way in and fill in with hues. Shipp and Parker — without bow — sound like mirror images of each other. The bass player is the one who kicks off “Flesh and Bone,” showing off the scratchy side of the double bass and as he’s making all sorts of percussive sounds on it, we begin to notice that Maneri has started doing the same as well. When Shipp enters the room with a thundercloud of chords, both Parker and Maneri shift toward making both percussive and musical sounds out of their instruments, adding harmony but maintaining that friction.
Shipp goes it alone for “Inner Speech,” a wonderfully idiosyncratic invocation. Conversely, “The Other Universe” highlights the psychic interaction between Parker and Maneri by taking Shipp out of the mix.
“Law Of Sequence” is the only performance running over ten minutes but the longevity is justified by the development that takes the song through distinct but connected phases running the whole gamut of the vast collective skills at hand.
A casual glance at the title could make one read it as Symbiotic Reality, not Symbolic Reality. An engaged listen convinces that this should be the actual name of the album, though.
Symbolic Reality is now available for sale by RogueArt Records.
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