Free Jazz,from the wilds of Boston and the African American core in New York City. Icons among us, working stiff sonic yeomanry, Avante garde upsets and the hazards it ever endures
Roy Sinclair Campbell Junior essentially gave his whole life to the music of his home community, the African American community, from his early days as a community college student with a Fletcher Henderson alumnus, Dick Vance.
From there he learned more trumpet craft from Lee Morgan. And so it went across the bright arc of his moments. Roy was the ultimate musical working stiff and roamed New York to find work in stage and show bands, parade gigs, probably even a fashion show or two, (it's an actual gig description item in the musician's union rate book). And through all that he kept faith with his world and participated to the greatest degree he could.
america is unkind to its heroes few streets with plaques few obscure country roads renamed i being ignorant historian will not even bother to name even one used to be that things used to be that way like being in a storm with no clouds to blame it on sketching perfect stories flag folded into a neat triangle beckon / become these strings that thought: lament remaining full / brought toward your chin exhaled blown away expelled / womb emptied out of guts & self inhaled
& now American hero you are in someone else’s hands in a system far far away yet connected always to HERE & the thirst one feels of apprehension when apparitions appear the thirst one feels / the thirst one has for comprehension the death of metaphor but not of soul
if everything we do is in the past then all our conversations are memories about to happen & though you are gone your spirit has not even begun to touch down rest & reside here in the present in the past in the future which is your music & your passion your occupation & your light so it would seem then that we have unlimited time in the past which is now to gather & to speak / to make music & to sing illuminating – warrior – translator of emotions - to those who knew you – soldier now M.I.A. – unpredictable big sadness awaits us – big joy from your SOUND your art a postcard of the world – its beauty – its horror – its tenderness - its ferocity you had a way of opening up the silences from within – cluttering them with form – taming then unleashing language – twisting it in & out – your train of thought never drifting from your purpose - the hardship of battle & the spaces between things
you no longer wait to be pulled away – the deities claim you now welcome home hero – to a new birth every day - the clouds & birds possess you now all manner of clouds & birds to praise the great upheaval that your music brings bottled the way our dreams are - the way things reach us the way we inhale & exhale the lyrical night
the way the music so sweetly assaults us from so many different directions surrounding us with an aura of freedom that seeps into our blood beyond ailments / pain &; bones - inside our life - as we grow “older” sometimes weeping for the happy crowd
i could sing all day about the passing storm tiny explorations of the horizon the way the wind pronounces its name during the aftermath limping home at war’s end / this never ending war
so march on / march on a city is only as good as its music your music filling the city’s voids & chaos’s city boy from the country this will always be your home & the song that sometimes comes out wrong is always right - so you do it your way & i’ll do it my way & this way it becomes a thing. mine. yours. ours. memory’s. time’s.
Between 1987 and now Matthew Shipp has made duets with wind players a recurring pursuit to the point where there are a number of recordings and examples of these focused and fascinating benchmarks of his elaborate participations and contributions.
The earliest recorded one was a document of a collaboration with a friend. Several are projects where Mr. Shipp was specifically engaged to bring his potentials to a colleague.
Others follow the original plan and come from affinities and friendships strikingly shaped as sounds.
The summary of these duets makes the counterpart participants and their various roles the focus. Mr. Shipp is true to his essential outlook and aim throughout so a listener mainly follows the arc of his discoveries and excursions.
It all rests on ground of an easy familiarity with all that has preceded him and rises to seeking with each waking day. It is the search of the intrigued and wonder based outlook where a piece grows from some kernel or other and shifts as a stream runs its course. He covers drums, bass and a counter voice to his wind rooted counterparts with a powerful and alert suppleness.
The highly portable and concentrated mini ensemble form that is a piano and wind duet has been a Shipp focus since he roamed Jordan Hall, at least.
The upper floors of Jordan Hall then were full of small piano practice rooms. The most readily available ones are too small for an ensemble or even an upright bass but a horn player can fit in. Matthew generally has a charitable and warm regard for pianos and will cut em slack if they work reasonably well. Sure, in a fair and thoughtful world he’d mainly be working high end Steinways and up but why let a little thing like humble provenance and a bit of wear get in the way?
In a life often reduced to a blur of flights, train trips and bus rides over the rind of the spinning globe, a piano, for Mr. Shipp, is home. When he arrived here on Mothers Day, he embraced the gallery upright the minute he got there so the flow of conversation met a stream of Ellington channeled as a spirit more than a structure.
Where others before him have been known to fuss mightily over breaking through boxes to offer up monumental edifices, he prefers to let the moment make the structure, to let the stream course shape the shore.
And so it was that a Piano and Saxophone duet became a valuable way to model sonic teamwork and ensemble dynamics. Practice room access wasn’t too restricted and the cat herding that attends getting a drum and bass involved was removed as an issue. There may be an early example of these duets from 84 to 85 involving Gary Joynes at the Brandeis Radio Station series, World Class Jazz at the Joint. The search is ongoing.
