Clifford Allen

"Singularity Codex is a 200 page study of Shipp and the broader continuum of jazz and free music through the lens of his 25 albums (and one volume with poet Steve Dalachinsky) for RogueArt. ... Packed with interviews, photos, and aesthetic meditations, it’s a unique book, neither strictly a biography nor a discography but something else entirely. ... Significant a pursuit as it may be, the purpose of this volume is not to catalog each of Shipp’s numerous appearances thus far. While a discography can tell part of the story of an individual’s work and certainly whets the appetite for sounds unheard, it would almost immediately be out of date and, in truth, only skim the surface of what makes Shipp’s music vital and interesting. But to the latter point, this volume is also hardly a biographical tell-all, though none of the recordings discussed would have occurred without the humanity and philosophy of the artist(s) coalescing in profound ways. So, what is this book? Its purpose is to take a 25-disc (and one printed volume) slice of Shipp’s universe as a microcosm of the larger world of creative music and explore the mutable interactions between history, current practices, and ideas through the lens of one pianist, his various playing partners, and others who have helped realize this work… The albums on RogueArt cut a wide swath through Shipp’s approach and groups and are therefore in turns both representative and unique." - Clifford Allen


"What I find so fascinating about this book is that even though it is about my work, it touches on so many tangents of issues related to modern jazz — the modern art world — the metaphysics of jazz language — the sociology of all this — the revivification of jazz avant-garde language that started happening in the Lower East Side before I moved to NYC, etc. etc. etc. etc. This book goes way beyond me. That I can be a conduit for this makes me proud. That Clifford Allen is a great writer who can bring the nexus of all this together makes me feel fortunate." - Matthew Shipp