“Shipp’s…classic piano trio…ranks among the pre-eminent units in modern jazz.”
—New York City Jazz Record
Since the 1980s, pianist Matthew Shipp has been the Platonic ideal of an original improviser. With his unique and electrifying style, Shipp is now recognized as a living legend of the avant-garde.
A New York downtown-scene fixture, Shipp has combined forces over the years with the likes of AACM cofounder Roscoe Mitchell, D.C.-born punk legend Henry Rollins, and iconic bassist William Parker. But his most consistent vehicle has been his trio.
CapitalBop is honored to be presenting the Matthew Shipp Trio on Friday, Sep. 27, at New York University in DC, featuring his longtime partners Newman Taylor Baker on drums and Michael Bisio on bass. This special concert will also feature the Janelle Gill Trio.
Shipp was a regular visitor to the nation’s capital for years, thanks to Transparent Productions’ series at Bohemian Caverns. We’re proud to pick up the baton and welcome Shipp back to D.C.
About Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp arrived on the New York scene in the 1980s, playing alongside William Parker and David S. Ware (two veterans of iconic pianist Cecil Taylor’s bands) and eventually joining Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory band. In Shipp’s unbounded piano style, the influence of Cecil Taylor has always felt undeniable – but he has also said that it could more accurately be heard as “an abstraction of Bud Powell, Monk, Tristano and McCoy Tyner.” While often associated with free jazz, Shipp is far too capacious to be tied to any one school or aesthetic. He has a famously percussive attack, but is also known for his moments of startling, rhapsodic lyricism and his love of open space – as his 2023 solo album, The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp, attests.Michael Bisio has been Shipp’s regular bassist for almost 15 years, and he has repeatedly proved to be an ideal partner due to his deep sensitivity and his intuitive affinity for the leader’s oblique methodology. In Newman Taylor Baker, Shipp says, he has found a drummer who offers him “absolute freedom.” The trio’s 2024 release, New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz, was described by Burning Ambulance as delivering “some of the most audacious free swing you’ll ever hear.”
About Janelle Gill
Janelle Gill will play the first set of the night with a trio featuring bassist Obasi Akoto and drummer Mark Prince. Gill is a graduate of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Howard University, where she studied under Dr. Raymond Jackson and Charles Covington.
She has performed with artists including Oliver Lake, The Blackbyrds, Delfeayo Marsalis, David Murray and countless D.C.-based musicians. She can be heard on recordings by Kenny Rittenhouse, Mauro Marcondes, Kris Funn and Will Smith, and can be found performing throughout the D.C. metro area and beyond.
CapitalBop’s presentation of Matthew Shipp Trio is supported through a Chamber Music America Presenter Consortium for Jazz grant in collaboration with Arts for Art and Ars Nova Workshop. A component of the Doris Duke Jazz Ensembles Project, Presenter Consortium for Jazz is funded by the Doris Duke Foundation.
This engagement of Matthew Shipp Trio is also made possible in part through the Special Presenter Initiatives program of Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
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