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Excerpt of An Interview with Matthew Shipp conducted by John Eastridge and Daniel Dimaggio on august 2, 2002.
An excerpt of an interview with the amazing and enchanting Matthew Shipp conducted by Strong Litle Legs Radio Program hosts John Eastridge and Daniel Dimaggio. (edited for clarity)
Daniel: So there were a few years in The Knitting Factory when you weren't playing with William Parker?
Matthew: Yeah, yeah. It's been here and there, none of it on record, but I've played with Reggie Workman a couple of different times in different settings for example.
Daniel: But in your own projects you find that William Parker is best suited to--
Matthew: Well, we have such a thing together that I don't see how it would benefit me to play with someone else within my own music. He's right for what I'm trying to do now.
Daniel: We'd like to talk about your place in The David S. Ware Quartet. How does your approach to playing differ with him from when your playing with your own projects?
Matthew: Well, David is such a huge-toned, barn knock-down, tree knock-down tenor and I don't tend to play with players like that in my own groups so the whole approach is different. I'm a comper in that band and he gives me enough freedom. He doesn't dictate. If I played with some other horn players they'd probably tell me that I was wrong or they'd say something like "hey, don't play that way," but he has allowed me to create a niche within the rhythm section wherein my own sense of how to build drama, how to build suspense, is allowed to flower. Basically he hires me to be myself. In a sense I get to orchestrate the music because he comes in with lines and he knows what's going to unfold but like I talked about William [Parker] being a perfect foil for me in my group my style is a perfect foil for David and his group. It's just one of those things where my language and his language intersect as does my harmonic sense and rhythmic sense with the rhythm section of the band. Its the perfect thing to allow him to develop his music. Like, McCoy Tyner [piano player in the John Coltrane Quartet] was that thing for Coltrane and his group. Not to sat that if McCoy hadn't come along Coltrane wouldn't have had a great group or wouldn't have gone on to develop his music but it's kind of hard to imagine what the Coltrane group would have been without McCoy Tyner because his specific sound on piano, his sound alone, is just such an integral part of how we think if that music. It's conceivable that somebody else could have come along with some other stuff and it would have been great but it's just hard to imagine. It's also conceivable had McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin [Jones] not come along he [Coltrane] would not have been able to develop a music as dynamic as that specific thing he did that changed the world. I am not claiming that [The David S. Ware Quartet] is the modern Coltrane Quartet, what I'm saying is that there's a marriage between my specific style on piano and what David does. I take his ideas and orchestrate them out and kind of freshen them out, and it works.
Daniel: Relating to that, on the last David S. Ware album you played synthesizer. How is your synthesizer playing?
Matthew: (laughs) How is it? That's for the people who listen to decide.
Daniel: No. Sorry. Well, firstly, um, who made the decision to do it?
Matthew: David did. Yeah, he actually went out and bought a synthesizer and at first I was completely reluctant. I didn't want to do it but then I saw the cat go out and spend all this money to buy it and he wanted me to try it out. I was like (under his breath) "Why did this cat go out and spend all this money?" (laughs) Yeah, so I was completely reluctant but then we did a session and it was fun. It was a blast so we decided to go ahead and do an album.
Daniel: How does your approach to playing synthesizer differ?
Matthew: Well, I can't do what I do on piano. It's a different instrument, it has a different touch. There is a pedal for it and I use the pedal (on the acoustic piano). I have my own idiosyncratic ways of using it. But we're all kind of... um... idiots when it comes to mechanical things. We couldn't figure out how to get it to work so we recorded the album without the pedal. I use the pedal (on the acoustic piano) in different ways. It's part of my language and then of course you have all those different tone colors (on the organ) that differ. It's just a whole different approach to how you attack it, how you let the tones die out. The decay is completely different.
Daniel: What are the future plans for the David S. Ware Quartet?
Matthew: Well we have an album coming out this October on Aum Fidelity where we do our own version of Sonny Rollins' 'Freedom Suite.' A modern update of that and we're touring and other than that it's always just trying to get gigs and the next album and there's no like super plan or super structure, it's just do an album and try to get some gigs. It's pretty much what you're doing in the beginning. It doesn't really change.
Daniel: And you play acoustic piano on the next album?
Matthew: Yeah, yeah.
John: So, moving on, what have you been listening to lately? Can you tell us the last few albums you bought?
Matthew: Well thing I just bought and am getting ready to put on is El-p.
John: Oh, great. That was number one at our station for a while.
Matthew: Yeah, I've been talking to him. We're talking about a possible collaboration and besides that, I was listening to 'Eurythmia' by the Anti-pop Consortium. I've done a collaboration with them. They're finishing it up this week, they're mixing it... I don't know how much people know they broke up and they're all going to be doing solo preojects.
John: Wow... First I've heard of it.
Matthew: Hmm. I'm trying to think of what else... I've been so busy lately with general everyday music industry things. I'm looking forward to when I can just sit back and enjoy it. Just listen to music. Even if I get a chance to listen to it, it's like I gotta listen to this for whatever reason. I can't sit back and enjoy anything anymore like I used to when I was a teenager. The day is so structured, I gotta do this, I gotta do that, and even if I do have like 45 minutes to listen, I can't even listen to the whole c.d. because I only have 45 minutes. Then I gotta take it off and go do whatever, and I'm talking about my own c.d.'s too, like my new c.d., I got the finished master back and I haven't even got the chance to take the 50 minutes to listen to it all the way through. When you really get involved with the music industry life gets like that but I'm trying to figure out a way to get back to listening to the music. I listen to a lot of things in record stores. I walk around when they're playing stuff and want to check it out. I'll stand around, maybe talk to some of the people, and listen to the whole c.d. because at home, y'know, the phone rings, life bugs you and it's hard just to put my earphones on and listen to a c.d. without someone bugging you.
Daniel: (quietly) Yea... Kind of like what we're doing now I guess...
(a long silence)
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