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Matthew Shipp

Matthew Shipp is my favorite living pianist. You can watch his concert last night on YouTube at Roulette. you can see Fujiwara/ Formanek/ Halvorson in Thumbscrew the night before. I like Halvorson. My daughter says she doesn't like the music and it's yucky, but then she can sit and look at it some.

The cool move in this kind of jazz is to play a bunch of ear jarring stuff, build up your tolerance, and then they do a short riff of some sweet and simple. The contrast makes it amazing.

Shipp came up playing with David Ware, the great Saxophonist and William Parker the great base player. 

You can't really say what his music is like, but I think of Keith Jarrett in his unique performances on piano. Unfortunately Jarrett had 2 strokes.

I guess you could call it avant garde because it's dissonant and unique, but every jazz performance is unique. I like Jason Moran too. And Ethan Iverson. And Brad Mehldau.

My favorite jazz pianist is Bill Evans. But I like Bud Powell and Art Tatum.

Jazz went from early jazz to swing, to bebop, to cool and free, then it exploded into everything and post-jazz. Post-postmodernism is that anything goes in literature, jazz, painting and all art forms. 

Copy someone you like and then develop your own style, even if it's just copying pop hits even if you're only 15. I like Allie Sherlock and Moriah Formica. I want to see how these youths develop.


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