Matthew Shipp - Gust Burns // Earshot Jazz Festival October 23, 2006

$20 general; $18 members/discount BUY ONLINE
Copresented with Nonsequitur; welcomed by KBCS 91.3-FM Community Radio
Jazz: The Second Century, discussion with both musicians at Cornish, noon

Still New York's most fascinating piano iconoclast, Shipp has thrilled listeners with his collaborations with David S. Ware and other vanguardists. His new album, One, displays the ample solo talents that we will hear, here. It is "brave and beautiful," said Dream magazine. "Tremulous notes flutter like some watercolor vision of a sad butterfly as Erik Satie dissolves into vamping reductive fractals, like ripples expanding out over the smooth surface of a still pond. Scattered be-bop shapes bubble up to the surface. Busy spiderwebs of sound are spun in frantic circles. This sometimes seems to be about jazz, and other times its closer to some slightly hallucinatory chamber music."
matthewshipp.com

Seattle-based pianist, improviser, and composer Gust Burns is one of the city's leading innovators in all those arenas, and also has been, as an organizer, one of the prime movers in the emergence of a bright, new scene for new music.

After reading philosophy at Western Washington University—focusing on Heidegger, metaphysics, and Existentialism—and studying piano with Canadian virtuoso Paul Plimley, Burns spent six months in the Bay area, collaborating with bassist Damon Smith, then moved to Seattle.

His approach draws from jazz, avant-garde chamber music, hip-hop and rap, and much else.

He also brings to bear on improvisation and composition his exploration of such issues as intention, form, practice, and community, and the social, political, and economic roles they play.

Far from arid theoretician, however, he is one of the most exciting players in this city, or far around.

Official Website: http://earshot.org/fest/artistinfo/matthewshippburns.html