Matthew Shipp 2021

A recording of his performance on 10/17/21

The incomparable pianist-composer-improviser Matthew Shipp embarks on his first solo piano tour in three years, performing in 6 U.S. cities, October 15 through 30, 2021. The tour brings Shipp's distinctive sonic vernacular and virtuosic artistry to New York City, Charlottesville, Baltimore, Cleveland, Nashville and Ann Arbor.

Shipp's tour comes ahead of the release of Codebreaker (Nov. 5, Tao Forms), his latest solo piano recording. Within the voluminous catalogue 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. Codebreaker finds Shipp in a meditative state of mind. Though the language is unmistakably his own, his signature attacks, dense clusters and insistent circularity give  way to harmonic nebulae in the mysterious resonances that Shipp conjures from the keyboard.  

“I was actually shocked at how introspective the album was when I listened back to it,” Shipp admits.  “If I try to dissect my motivations, which are not always conscious and which just happen on their own,  I see myself really basking in harmony. I'm interested in trying to wring all of the harmonics from the  piano that I possibly can, and with that in mind, any set of harmonics has a set of melodic fragments  that are implied.” 

Matthew Shipp's Solo Piano Tour will happen in partnership with Arts for Art, Inc. (NYC), Charlottesville Jazz Society (Charlottesville VA), An die Musik Live (Baltimore MD), New Ghost (Cleveland OH); FMRL/Chris Davis (Nashville TN), Edgefest (Ann Arbor MI).

This tour is made possible with the support of Jazz Road, a national initiative of South Arts, which is  funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon  Foundation.

Streaming cost is $10

Donations are welcomed.