Matthew Shipp Solo Saturday, Jan 20, 2007 at Tenri Cultural Institute

TENRI CULTURAL INSTITUTE
SETS AT 8 & 9:30 P.M., $15 PER SET
43A West 13th Street, NYC (btwn 5th and 6th Avenues)
www.tenri.org

Matthew Shipp, having recently released a seminal solo piano CD, One (Thirsty Ear), will bring his unique and awe-inspiring instrumental and compositional virtuosity to a solo NYC performance. This is a rare opportunity to hear this important artist perform totally acoustic in the intimacy of an art gallery on a Steinway B grand piano.

Biography by Joslyn Layne

With his unique and recognizable style, pianist Matthew Shipp worked and recorded vigorously during the 1990s, creating music in which free jazz and modern classical intertwine. He first became known in the early '90s as the pianist in the David S. Ware Quartet, and soon began leading his own dates -- most often including Ware bandmate and leading bassist William Parker -- and recording a number of duets with a variety of musicians, from the legendary Roscoe Mitchell to violist Mat Maneri.

Through his range of live and recorded performances and unswerving individual development, Shipp came to be regarded as a prolific and respected voice in creative music by the decade's close.

In 2000, Shipp began acting as curator for Thirsty Ear's Blue Series. This excellent series hosted a number of Shipp's own recordings, as well as the recordings of William Parker, Tim Berne, Roy Campbell, Craig Taborn, Spring Heel Jack, and Mat Maneri. The following year saw the release of Nu Bop, an exploration into traditional jazz, followed closely by its 2003 counterpart, Equilibrium. In 2004 Shipp released Harmony and Abyss, a meditation on repetitive melodic and harmonic structures. One arrived in January of 2006.