Matthew Shipp has pushed his own boundaries for decades, each album different than the last, subtly or starkly. New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz, too, charts a new path for Shipp, bassist Michael Bisio, and drummer Newman Taylor Baker, as the lines between free improvisation and compositional craft blur. Lessening the combustible statements he often makes behind the keyboard that shatter the music staff on the way from Point A to Point Q, Shipp instead adds quiet but vivid intensity through repetition to his melodies. “Non Circle” and “Brain System” sound like the Trio invented their own keys for Shipp’s sketches, but there’s a logic to them – the kind that comes from three men can converse without forethought or, indeed, any worry about whether or not the rest of the world groks their imagination.
