Though he had recorded a couple of duo albums with altoist
Rob Brown before this,
Points was the first disc to be released under pianist
Matthew Shipp's name. At this stage of his career,
Shipp was drawing many comparisons to
Cecil Taylor and, in a sense, it's easy to see why: not so much in his actual piano playing, but very much so in his group conception. The lengthy opening and closing compositions, for instance, sound strikingly similar to some of
Taylor's mid-'60s work with
Sunny Murray and
Jimmy Lyons both in their loose spatial feel and in
Brown's plaintive,
Lyons-esque phrasing. "Afro Sonic" plies a different path,
Shipp's insistent piano recalling the minimalism of
Steve Reich, of all things, with bassist
William Parker launching some furious arco scrabbling over the top while
Brown and
Whit Dickey scurry along the sidelines. With "Piano Pyramid," a hornless trio, listeners are back in
Taylor territory again, specifically
Taylor around
Unit Structures (1966), and here one can pick up a lot more overt presence in
Shipp's actual playing. It's handled in a graceful and polished manner but begs the question: Why does an ostensibly avant-garde musician work in a style that was 25 years old at the time of this recording? It was interesting to realize that just as the ghost of
Miles Davis' early-'60s recordings hung over the work of
Wynton Marsalis and other "Young Lions," so did the work of free jazz pioneers like
Taylor and
Albert Ayler overwhelm many of the younger musicians castigating
Marsalis for not doing something "new."
Shipp would, to some extent, work his way out of this conundrum in ensuing years and fans of his work will want to hear
Points at the very least for its historical value but, objectively, it's an inconsistent and not entirely original release. ~ Brian Olewnick