This year belonged to Matthew Shipp in a pair of mediums. First, the perennially prolific pianist dropped three stellar records this year alone: the solo piano genius work The Cosmic Piano, his String Trio’s Armageddon Flower with saxophonist Ivo Perelman and duo album Horizon with fellow pianist Eri Yamamoto. Then the downtown New York City avant-gardist achieved further greatness on the printed page with the revelatory read, Black Mystery School Pianists And Other Writings. Absolutely essential for hardcore enthusiasts of Shipp’s craft and novices and jazz fans alike, the words, subjects and opinions Shipp tackles in Black Mystery School Pianists […]

Continue reading » Black Mystery School Pianists And Other Writings

The great and ferociously original jazz pianist Matthew Shipp riffs with Leonard Benardo on what it means for a musician to find a truly personal sound—something deeper than virtuosity, rooted in instinct, risk, and a kind of “unlearning” of received rules. Shipp describes improvisation as an ability to draw on the subconscious, almost like speaking a language whose grammar lives in the nervous system. He observes that real authenticity comes from ruthless self-knowledge rather than from imitating heroes or chasing technical perfection. Influences, for him, are “food” to be digested and transformed. Leonard Benardo: I would like to kick off […]

Continue reading » A Pure Act in a Dirty World: An Interview with Matthew Shipp

Clifford Allen begins his book Singularity Codex: Matthew Shipp on Rogueart, which is an exploration of the pianist’s works and philosophy, with this important insight, “The music in this volume [that of Shipp and his compeers] is quintessentially a New York music, and to narrow it down even further, it’s a Lower East Side music” (21). Allen describes the LES neighborhood, “In the 1960s and 1970s, the neighborhood was a haven for artists, musicians, theater makers, and writers due to low rents and squats … Many of these spaces were absent amenities like hot water, central heat, and insulation, but those with […]

Continue reading » Thoughts on Clifford Allen’s Singularity Codex: Matthew Shipp on RogueArt

Avant-Jazz Visionary Drops Solo Album and Celebrates Summer Solstice with Twin Performances at Houston’s Rothko Chapel Pianist and avant-garde jazz mainstay Matthew Shipp has never been one to tread predictable ground, and with the release of his latest solo album, The Cosmic Piano, he once again moves well beyond the known. Out now via Cantaloupe Music, the hour-long suite of improvisational piano compositions unfolds like a meditative exploration of sound, time, and being itself—simultaneously dense and spontaneous, spiritual and elemental. To mark the album’s release, Shipp performed two intimate solo concerts today at Houston’s Rothko Chapel, a site known for […]

Continue reading » Matthew Shipp Channels the Universe on The Cosmic Piano

Pianist Matthew Shipp has recorded in about every context you can imagine. He’s led multiple trios with some of the most eminent bassists and drummers in the world of avant-garde jazz; has made quartet albums with trumpeters Wadada Leo Smith and Roy Campbell, saxophonist Daniel Carter and Ivo Perelman, and others; has joined horn players, bassists, and drummers in duos; has accompanied poets; and has worked with electronic musicians. And that’s not even counting his work as a member of the David S. Ware Quartet or Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory. But no matter the circumstance, his style is identifiable in […]

Continue reading » The Solo Music Of Matthew Shipp

Imagine our earliest ancestors huddled deep inside a cave, safe from the howling wind and stalking predators outside. A fire flickers at the center, casting erratic shadows onto the jagged walls. Among the tribe, someone watches those shadows—not with fear, but with imagination. Perhaps they see, in the dancing silhouettes, the outlines of animals hunted earlier that day. This individual reaches out, dips a crude brush in pigment and begins to trace the forms on stone. In that moment, a leap occurs—not just artistic, but cognitive and communal. This is the birth of symbolic thought, the convergence of art, language […]

Continue reading » Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio: Armageddon Flower

Early Life and Education Matthew Shipp was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, where he began playing piano at the age of five. His childhood environment was touched by jazz; his mother was a friend of the legendary trumpeter Clifford Brown, providing an early, if indirect, connection to the music’s legacy. During his high school years, Shipp’s musical passions were divided between a strong attraction to jazz and playing in rock groups, hinting at the genre-fluid approach that would later define his career. His formal education was unconventional and driven by a clear sense of purpose. He attended the University of Delaware […]

Continue reading » Matthew Shipp (The Notable People Project)

The Matthew Shipp Trio is the centerpiece of Matthew Shipp’s bold musicworld and for some thirty-five years it has sought to redefine the whole piano trio jazz concept. They’ve gone changing the game from what’s come before them to changing up even their own approach. Most of the time, those changes are incremental but occasionally, there’s a step change. Certainly, William Parker swapped out for Michael Bisio at the bass chair was a disruptor, as was Newman Taylor Baker replacing Whit Dickey behind the drum kit. Compared to its immediate, 2022 predecessor World Construct, New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz […]

Continue reading » Matthew Shipp Trio – ‘New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz’ (2024)

(ESP Disk’ CD/DL) The first jazz piano trio was probably Jess Stacy’s, a side event at Benny Goodman dates while the boss told the others how useless they were. Scroll forward from there, through Art Tatum with Tiny Grimes and Slam Stewart, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, Cecil Taylor, Keith Jarrett, plus revisionists like EST and The Bad Plus, and a wilderness of epigoni, and you might think the form was exhausted. You then turn to Matthew Shipp’s current band and it’s as if no one had ever thought of working in this format before. Shipp isn’t so much […]

Continue reading » Matthew Shipp, World Construct

However high expectations might be concerning a meeting of two veterans in collaboration, there are certain recordings that simply destroy all preconceptions. This duo performance of saxophonist Rob Brown and Matthew Shipp is a case in point, and while each of their duo projects, spanning thirty years, is wonderful in its own way, this one sets a new standard. The eight sections of this single piece of music mirror the duo’s previous collaborations in that they form a unit, but the imitation ends there. To suggest that a telepathic relationship has deepened would be to state the obvious. Listen to […]

Continue reading » Rob Brown and Matthew Shipp: Then Now (RogueArt)