I got into this argument once with somebody about how much music was left in the world. That's right, the idea was that there were only so many notes, scales, and chord progressions left out there. At some point in the not too distant future, the source material would be exhausted and no more music would be created. Frankly, this struck me as complete lunacy. It was like floating the argument that everything had been done in art. Right, and since the earth is so old, perhaps we should stop looking at sunsets. Those things are so old-fashioned and redundant!

Well, I have heard similar — but not so crazy — lines of thought on the jazz trio. The piano trio has been around seemingly forever. It has nothing left to say. The piano runs the show, sketches out the chord progression, plays the head, takes a solo, and then lays back and comps behind the bass solo to follow. Maybe another piano solo is presented, and they might give the drummer some too, before the inevitable restatement of the theme.

The piano trio has become, supposedly, a jazz version of a Hallmark greeting card. C'mon, you know how things will turn out. Don't believe it. There is an unlimited wealth of musical contours to be traced, even by a traditional jazz trio. The cliché of "subtlety is lost on some people" rings true here.

Of course, the words 'traditional' and 'Matthew Shipp' don't often appear together. On Piano Vortex though, Shipp dials back on the technology, instead focusing on the possibilities of piano/bass/drums interplay. To my ears, there are way too many highlights to enumerate, but let's get at what makes this trio different.

"The New Circumstance" begins with Joe Morris (yes, that Joe Morris, this time on bass) playing a short bowed solo backed by Whit Dickey's swift brushes before Shipp's first piano chords splash over them. There's a lot of tension and release on this tune as the intensity of the improvisations build and explode while ideas are passed back and forth between Shipp and his cohorts. Just when you're absolutely certain that chaos is about to take over, everybody lays back to start the process all over again. Morris and Dickey both take extended solos near the end of the piece before Shipp comes back in with a final series of chords that seem to resolve everything.