Avant-jazz pianist and composer Matthew Shipp has been referred to as the "elder statesman" of the art form by DownBeat magazine, but the reach and scope of his music extends much further than mere genre. The Cosmic Piano delivers on that promise - a solo recording that taps into the deeper exploratory potential of the instrument, with Shipp channeling a lifetime of knowledge and a daunting array of influences into nearly an hour of spontaneous, enlightened and joyfully rendered music.

2024 release. This group evolves in leaps and bounds. You've never heard a jazz piano trio sound like this album - not even this band on it's previous album, the much-praised World Construct. That said, there is a through line from the first Matthew Shipp Trio album, 1990's Circular Temple (ESPDISK 4082CD, 2023 reissue) to New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz. Says Shipp, "Yes, we went there with that type of title this time. To anyone who thought the trio had reached it's apotheosis on World Construct, you are in for a surprise - this is light years ahead of World Construct. Of course each CD is it's own world and valuable for that, but I am in complete and utter shock at what I am listening to. New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz sounds completely thoroughly composed and yet completely spontaneously improvised at the same time. This is a major album in jazz history. Newman Taylor Baker is one of the most profound percussionists ever. Michael Bisio sounds like God's angel on this album. He has dedicated himself to working in my vision for years now and I think this might be the ultimate of how we can read each other and hook up. This is one of the greatest trio albums ever. While creating a whole new cosmos we manage to escape every cliche that exists in jazz and in avant jazz. This really might be the last trio CD because it really cannot get better than this."

Duke Ellington is the fortuitous touchstone that Matthew Shipp to bring to his recent collaboration with Arkansas-based saxophonist Chad Fowler on Old Stories, their new album of duets on Mahakala Music. For his part, Fowler brought to the sessions a longstanding fascination with Ellington sideman (and alto saxophone pioneer) Johnny Hodges, though, like Shipp, this is expressed obliquely through Fowler's work with avant garde luminaries like Alvin Fielder, Douglas Ewart and Parker. To Shipp, the title of the album and the chapters comprising it match the music perfectly. "It's a narrative," he says. "A novel of sorts. And even if your story is new, it's a rearranging of elements. All the new stories are old, in some ways. We seem to have been prepared for it, somehow. It was a real delight. Between the freshness of a new encounter and being prepared, that balance is really there. That's what makes it vibrant and exciting for me." Or, as Fowler puts it, "When you listen to it, it feels like we already knew each other, like we're old friends, even though we had barely talked to each other before that. So it felt like the old shared stories that we tell, that reference events that neither of us has experienced." 001. Disk 1: Chapter I 002. Disk 1: Chapter II 003. Disk 1: Chapter III 004. Disk 1: Chapter IV 005. Disk 1: Chapter V 006. Disk 1: Chapter VI 007. Disk 1: Chapter VII 008. Disk 2: Chapter VIII 009. Disk 2: Chapter IX 010. Disk 2: Chapter X 011. Disk 2: Chapter XI 012. Disk 2: Chapter XII 014. Disk 2: Chapter XIV

Vinyl LP pressing. Within the voluminous catalog that pianist Matthew Shipp has created over the last three and a half decades, his solo piano work has charted a unique and compelling pathway for the evolution of the instrument's vocabulary. On Codebreaker, that path turns yet another unexpected corner, continuing to venture further while taking a surprising turn inward. Codebreaker finds Shipp in an uncharacteristically meditative state of mind. Though the language is unmistakably his own, the usual violent attacks, dense clusters and insistent circularity are in short supply, replaced by harmonic nebulae that luxuriate in the mysterious resonances that Shipp conjures from the keyboard. As ever with the work of this consummate improviser, intention had very little to do with it.

Vinyl LP pressing. Within the voluminous catalog that pianist Matthew Shipp has created over the last three and a half decades, his solo piano work has charted a unique and compelling pathway for the evolution of the instrument's vocabulary. On Codebreaker, that path turns yet another unexpected corner, continuing to venture further while taking a surprising turn inward. Codebreaker finds Shipp in an uncharacteristically meditative state of mind. Though the language is unmistakably his own, the usual violent attacks, dense clusters and insistent circularity are in short supply, replaced by harmonic nebulae that luxuriate in the mysterious resonances that Shipp conjures from the keyboard. As ever with the work of this consummate improviser, intention had very little to do with it.

Matthew Shipp takes an introspective turn on his latest solo piano album, continuing to discover new territory for his singular cosmic pianism. Codebreaker encrypts rich harmonies, cloud-like clusters, and the unlikely confluence of Bill Evans and Bud Powell

Matthew Shipp takes an introspective turn on his latest solo piano album, continuing to discover new territory for his singular cosmic pianism. Codebreaker encrypts rich harmonies, cloud-like clusters, and the unlikely confluence of Bill Evans and Bud Powell

For over 30 years Matthew Shipp has built up an unparalleled body of work and a wholly original musical language that becomes more focused and distinctive with the passage of time. His abstract eloquence is on vivid display throughout The Piano Equation, new works for solo piano. Shipp builds his solo music in a cellular fashion, formed out of disparate elements that combine and evolve in novel and fascinating forms. Stride, swing and the avant-garde collide like elemental particles, the aftereffects radiating outward in increasingly complex and intricate formations. The scientific, the personal, the political and the fantastic co-exist throughout his work, melding in the pianists radical vocabulary which speaks with it's own alien yet familiar logic. Fragments of melody coalesce and transform, dissolve or shatter into kaleidoscopic reveries. The Piano Equation celebrates Matthew Shipp's 60th birtday, and while some may have used the arrival of such a landmark occasion as their 60th birthday to look backwards, Shipp continues to move resolutely forward, further evolving a voice that is as intimately personal as it is cosmically adventurous. This release is also the inaugural release from Tao Forms, a new label founded by drummer-improviser-composer - and longtime Shipp collaborator - Whit Dickey.

Symbol Systems occupies a special place in Matthew Shipp's discography. Originally issued in 1995 on the No More Records label, it was at the time his sixth release as a leader or co-leader, but significantly his first solo album, and as such provided us with the purest view to date of his multifaceted, indivisible improvisational/compositional concepts. Matthew Shipp was born in 1960 in Delaware. He began piano at 5 years old, and fell in love when jazz when he was 12. After moving to New York in 1984 he quickly became one of the leading lights in the New York Jazz Scene. Mr. Shipp has reached the holy grail of jazz in that he possesses a unique style on his instrument that is all his own- and he's one of the few in jazz that can say so.

Matthew Shipp is the American Piano Jazz Mature Secret as printed in Norway's biggest newspaper, Aftenposten. Continuing..."In the shadow of Cecil Taylor and Keith Jarrett, he has played out his individuality through three decades. He can be described as a cross between the two giants, but he exceeds both, with it's ownership of the blues and the free expression's inherent possibilities." Powerful thoughts from afar but strikingly rich in their poignant affirmation of Shipp's talent. Mr. Shipp is no stranger to recording and no stranger to receiving accolades from the press. But with the release of "The Conduct of Jazz", one will hear with remarkable clarity that these words are not just prophetic but are exceedingly apt for a player whose time has come.

This recording is meant as a reflection on where I have been in the music ?so I visit and revisit or should I say re-interpret many of the houses I have occupied. Of course this being a solo CD, the main focus is to make the piano come alive and to be a direct extension of my spirit-psyche and body. The piano here is vascular-cut it and it will bleed. When you listen to this recording you are directly listening to my brain waves and in some cases on this CD I feel I have transcended the instrument and am dealing with pure brain waves or let's say cosmic pulse-Matthew Shipp.

Piano Sutras is a landmark release for Matthew Shipp whose accolades rank him as being universally acclaimed, the most brilliant pianists of his generation and one of the most original stylists in Jazz history. This solo recording is both breathtakingly beautiful, deeply companionate and intellectually upending. If you want to know where Jazz is in the present and where it will be in the future, all you have to do is listen to this release. A tour de force.

Elastic Aspects was developed as a suite for trio, highlighting the telepathic interplay of bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey. It is given to vast complexities, spiked with moments of shear beauty against lightening transitions to polyphonic figures wrapped in a sonic voice that is both metaphysical and arresting. Whether it is a swing motif played inside the piano or his trademark cluster chords or a light as a feather touch barely kissing the keys, Shipp's range is effortlessly encyclopedic; probing the many energies of life.

THE ART OF THE IMPROVISER, a 2XCD, is Shipp's most audacious attempt yet to answer the enigmatic question of what it means to be a modern jazz musician. Already having explored the possibilities of electronically infused jazz on critically acclaimed projects with the likes of DJ Spooky, Scanner, and Anti-Pop Consortium, Shipp revisits an acoustic sound for this fearless voyage into the psyche of the improviser.

Matthew Shipps new solo piano CD, "4D" is the complete synthesis and culmination of all of his past Thirsty Ear releases, with the added wrinkle of standards re-interpreted as only he could create, while combining his own brand of compositions to the mix. Mr. Shipps musical language, having been refined an mutated, as his career, has continued to grow at exponential rates, allowing him to fully explore the hidden aspects of jazz. He is an innovator of the highest level on his instrument, and offers his presentations with a poets touch, adding lyricism and voice to his playing, without words. In his own determination to explain his musical inclinations, he likens his approach to that of "peering into the piano as a starship in it's relation to psychic space." But it's something more to be felt than to be understood. The end result of this recording is a 4th dimensional sonic tapestry that fills space, but with precise contours and unpredictable sequences, adding and linking together like audible pieces in a diabolically devised puzzle. In Essence, this serves as a supposition of what exists in the fourth dimension, expressed through the dimension of sound.

Nu Bop is Matthew Shipp's second release which follows his 2002 first studio album produced by "Thirsty Ear". One of the leading figures on the contemporary jazz scene, the pianist's open approach is fully explored as he crosses free jazz boundaries with quasi-electro funk dynamics. "Nu Bop" is the energetic live recording of the concert from the "New York is Now" festival. The line up includes New York luminaries such as Daniel Carter, William Parker and Guillermo E. Brown who all contribute to the perfect environment for mixing up free jazz elements and digital beats. This music freely surges from highly dense free jazz to hard-driven electronic grooves, from free open sounds and phrasing, to intricate and repetitive rhythmic jungles. Daniel Carter's lyrical energy digs down into the band-leader's deep and dark piano chords, while William Parker's earthly bass shares the terrain and fire with Guillermo E. Brown's electro-acoustic pulse.

Matthew Shipp possesses a unique style on his instrument that is his and his alone. Using his vastly talented rhythm section, (Joe Morris on Bass, Whit Dickey on Drums), Mr. Shipp comes through with another instant jazz classic, packed with tension and dynamism. On HARMONIC DISORDER, Shipp re-invents the trio with the explosive impact of a true innovator and future icon.

Shipp has perfected his own style, drawing effortlessly from free Jazz, Hip-Hop, Electronica, and modern Classical. From pastoral electronics to blazing and tight free improvisation, Shipp composes with the touch of a master. HARMONY AND ABYSS is the next phase in a creative rebirth from an epic career that has already spanned more than two decades. Even those who thought his last release EQUILIBRIUM was as far as he could go will be more than pleasantly surprised.

A seamless mix of beats, hip hop, free jazz and electronic music. Includes William Parker's stylistic bass, Gerald Cleaver's delicious beats, Chriss Flam's liquid synth programming, Khan Jamal's rich, resonating vibes and Shipp's unique piano styling.