Matt Shulman; “So It Goes”; Jaggo Records(Photo: Jimmy Katz, from http://www.mattshulman.com/)
Trumpeter/composer Matt Shulman has serious chops as a player and an imagination to match. “So It Goes” is a brave, bracing blast of innovation and spirit that reminds us that experimentation and entertainment can, in the right hands, be natural allies.
He has a dual background in classical and jazz technique and repertoire, and cites indie-rock influences Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Magnet in deriving his singing style. From a trombonist friend he picked up playing and vocalizing simultaneously for multiphonics, and he uses reverb and loop pedals for further layering his sounds. In addition to his own tunes, this album includes Rogers and Hart’s “My Funny Valentine,” Berke and VanHeusen’s “It Could Happen to You,” and Bach’s “Air for the G String.” So when Shulman’s acknowledgements begin with “the universe,” it’s perhaps not just a figure of speech.
The title number is a soulful, trippy slow swing tune that has the air of self-therapy in its alternating small-club bluesy choruses and its flailing solos. And that’s echoed by the lyrics: “Has this world come to nothing but a show / It’s been long since you’ve seen / those better days / so it goes.” It’s as if the song organically developed in efforts at consolation.
“Almost There” reaches for something illuminated and elusive. “It’s fading fast / No I won’t be last / ’Cause I know you care / We’re almost there.”
In “My Funny Valentine,” quiet trumpet loops and vocals hover in the background like the ghost of Chet Baker. In the foreground are Shulman’s vocals—like those of an even more dissolute Baker brother—and a muted horn love lament.
“Forgetting/Remembering Yourself” is a loop-rich bop trance with the rhythmic heart of a clock or, the lyrics suggest, a train. He transfers vehicles to “Truckin’,” which features fun, raw polyphonics from Shulman and a nice solo shuttle from Matt Clohesy on bass. Then Shulman takes off completely in “Zeppelin,” a primal scream of a track propelled by the appropriately named Jason Wildman on drums (yeah, I’m sure he’s never heard that before, but still—it’s so right here). The lyrics wouldn’t stand on their own too well as poetry (“I can feel the rain / I feel your pain / I’ve gone insane / You just came”) but work weirdly well in this clearly combustible context.
“It Could Happen to You” is Shulman’s chance to recall for us that he’s just a darned fine trumpet player. I don’t know the ins and outs of an instrument-bracing device he developed (the ShulmanSystem) to help apply Alexander relaxation techniques to brass playing. But whatever he’s been up to, or learned at Oberlin and NYU, seems to be working well for him.
In “Key,” we’re back in the trance-philosophy realm, and one deduces from the lyrics that it’s a love story in cymbal- and symbol-shrouded song. “A warrior / I held my perception in solitude / I needed another / to circulate / to share / there she was / a pure soul / one who knows.” I hope it’s not yet another case of the lyrics outlasting the relationship. Because their “journey together” has inspired some wonderful music. And if the other is a noncorporeal presence, all the better—he won’t need to buy it a seat on road trips.
“Air for the G String” might be an homage to Shulman’s father, whom he heard when Shulman was a kid playing solo Bach repertoire. It resonated particularly with me, too, since it was played at the funeral of my violinist grandmother. A great, sweet, spooky way to end an album.
Why do I feel compelled to add my few slight worries for Shulman? He uses the looping and sing-playing cleverly here, but I hope he doesn’t come to over-rely on them. My fear is that they’ll become a crutch, like for the subway busker with the amp effects who comes to like the sound of his own instrument too much. Already in this album I’d like to have heard more of Clohesy and Wildman, and I don’t want Shulman to shortchange those and other colleagues in future projects. The looping, particularly, also risks becoming too heavy and static sometimes, or like the alpenhorn background music for a winter Olympics TV feature.
Again, he doesn’t succumb to those pitfalls here. So far his electronic roving reminds me pleasantly of what cellist Eugene Friesen was doing in the late 1980s in "Arms Around You." But as I’m sure Shulman knows better than I, the most interesting effect of all, in the long run, is thoughtful collaboration with other like-minded and like-souled musicians. I particularly missed the keyboard component here that would have interlaced nicely with looping used a tad more lightly.
Still, this is a great album. And someday when I’m blue and feeling spiritually confined, I’ll count on it to blast me out of my doldrums.
-Alexander C. Kafka
