Matthew Shipp

BIOGRAPHY

Avant-jazz pianist and composer Matthew Shipp announces the release of The Cosmic Piano, a new album of solo material, on June 20 through Cantaloupe Music.

The Cosmic Piano taps into the deeper exploratory potential of the piano, with Shipp channeling a lifetime of knowledge and a daunting array of influences into nearly an hour of spontaneous, enlightened and joyfully rendered music. “The preparation is your life,” he says. “If you’re a real improviser — and I mean real by acknowledging that it’s a praxis and an art form and a discipline — it’s like being a boxer. You do your road work, speed bag, heavy bag and then you spar, and it’s an all-day process for you. It’s a lifestyle.”

As with all of Shipp’s music, this recording goes beyond any simple categorization, and in part informs why Shipp wanted to release the album through Cantaloupe, the in-house label of Bang on a Can. The New York-based arts collective has built a worldwide reputation for nurturing new music dubbed as “alternative classical,” “experimental classical” or “indie classical,” and is known for collaborating with artists and composers across all genres, including jazz, electronic, rock, pop and hip-hop.

Shipp’s music has inspired many admirers, including David Bowie, Thurston Moore and Henry Rollins, who has released some of Shipp’s music on his 2.13.61 record label. Shipp himself is a restless spirit, always at work with new creative endeavors and challenges, and rarely with even a moment to enjoy the accolades — so it’s no surprise that he recently published a collection of essays and prose poems, Black Mystery School Pianists and Other Writings (Autonomedia) in April. Meanwhile, on the same date as The Cosmic Piano, the Tao Forms imprint will release Armageddon Flower, an album pairing the Matthew Shipp String Trio with Brazilian saxophonist Ivo Perelman. And the work continues…