Album Notes

Matthew Shipp (born in 1960 in Wilmington, Delaware) started piano at 5 years old. He fell in love with jazz at 12. After moving to New York in 1984 he quickly became one of the leading lights in the New York jazz scene. He was a sideman in the David S. Ware quartet and also for Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory before making the decision to concentrate on his own music.
Mr Shipp has reached the holy grail of jazz in that he possesses a unique style on his instrument that is all of his own - and he’s one of the few in jazz that can say so. Mr. Shipp has recorded a lot of albums with many labels. In his collection of recordings he has generated a whole body of work that is visionary, far reaching and many faceted.

“One of today's most iconic artists” (All About Jazz)

“Shipp's initial inspiration was Bud Powell, who to a great extent is the underpinning of his music. The unfettered approach of the formidable technician and free adventurer Cecil Taylor is a potent strain in Shipp's work, but no matter how far out he goes, Shipp's sense of chord and line movement puts him closer to Powell than Taylor ever was.” (All About Jazz)

“Matthew Shipp is a jazz pianist with downtown/indie credibility. No cocktail pianist he, but a knotty artist-once profiled by The New York Times as courting a rock audience. A rebel of the ivories.” (Pop Matters)

“One of today's most inventive and challenging jazz pianists plays like a modern day Thelonious Monk, with rich modal playing and percussive playfulness, beyond that he sounds like no one else." (Lexington Herald)

Matthew Shipp is truly one of the leading lights of a new generation of jazz giants.