2020 could well be the year of the Shipp, among other things. He has already marked his 60th birthday in fine style with the solo album The Piano Equation, and this trio set makes a very important point about his monumental talent, artistic identity and the ambiguity of sub-genres in jazz. Throughout the session the pianist is familiarly impressive in his ability to create narratives that shift pace and direction without going completely off-piste. Shipp can do compellingly tangential mini-events within an event like few others, and the roles of double bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker are daringly attuned to this. Sometimes the band is broken into duos or solo that brilliantly serves the overarching story of the album, where the focus is as much on the peculiar rumble of a frame drum as it is the tidal wave bass of a left hand chord.

But perhaps the key moments here come when Shipp reminds us that his status as an avant-garde icon does not mean that the entirety of traditions of black music are not within his grasp. The title track and ‘Regeneration’ are superb forays into swing and soul-jazz/boogaloo that Herbie Hancock or Ramsey Lewis would be proud of, and taken together the two tracks make an essential point about the breadth of Shipp's vocabulary as well as the shape-shifting nature of his aesthetic, or rather how relevant the likes of Herbie and Ramsey might be to free improvisers. This new stage of Shipp's career is beginning to feel as exciting as the heyday of his tenure as both artist and A&R of the groundbreaking millennial independent label Thirsty Ear.