Bisio, Michael / Matt Shipp Duo

Floating Ice

Label: Relative Pitch Country: USA

An email Q&A with Michael Bisio (4 April 2012) about his new recording, Floating Ice, on Relative Pitch Records

Q: When did you and Matthew Shipp first play together? What group?

Michael Bisio: I believe Matthew and I first played music together in November of 2006 at The Kitchen in NYC. The piece was Matthew's Sacred Geometry for piano, viola (Mat Maneri), cello (Okkyung Lee) and bass. Although we have been aware of each otherÕs music since 1990 as we were label mates for Silkheart Records.

Q: How many recordings have you done together?

MB: We have appeared together on 2 trio recordings: Art of the Improviser (Thirsty Ear) and Elastic Aspects (Thirsty Ear) along with our bandmate Whit Dickey. This is the best piano trio in creative music today. There is the CD Blink of an Eye (Thirsty Ear) also.

- Michael Bisio, bass

Nate Chinen in The New York Times has said of Michael Bisio, "The physicality of Mr. Bisio's bass playing puts him in touch with numerous predecessors in the avant-garde, but his expressive touch is distinctive;..."

Bisio was born in 1955 and raised in Troy, New York. His first instrument was electric bass, discovering string bass in high school. He moved to Seattle in 1976 after one year at State University of New York at Albany. In Seattle, he studied with then Seattle Symphony principal bassist James Harnett and attended the University of Washington, where he was exposed to jazz, classical and new music, playing in the Contemporary Group co-led by faculty members Bill (William O.) Smith and Stuart Dempster. Graduating in 1979, for many years he subbed and toured with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

As a sideman in the early Ô80s, he performed with Barbara Donald and her group Unity with Carter Jefferson, appearing on the LP The Past and Tomorrows, released by Cadence Jazz Records in 1983. That was the start of a friendship and professional relationship with publisher and label head Bob Rusch.

Over the next several years, Bisio also performed or recorded with Wayne Horvitz, Bob Nell, Andrew Hill, Sonny Simmons, John Tchicai, Bern Nix, Jim Nolet, Joe McPhee, Vinny Golia, Van Manakas, Greg Bendian, Carter Jefferson, Charles Gayle, and Marilyn Crispell.

BisioÕs first record as leader of his own group was Ours on CT Records, released 1983 to critical praise in Cadence and from Seattle music journalist Paul de Barros. His second album as a leader, In Seattle (Silkheart Records), made the Village Voice "Best Jazz Records of the 1980's," as well as critic Kevin Whitehead's 1988 Top 10 for National Public Radio.

Bisio appears on about 70 recordings, a third of those as either leader or in duet with artists such as Joe McPhee, Joe Giardullo, Tomas Ulrich, Eyvind Kang, Avram Fefer and Connie Crothers, on numerous labels including CIMP, Cadence Jazz Records, Porter Records, Silkheart Records, Mutable Music, Meniscus, Clean Feed, Thirsty Ear and Not Two.

As a composer Bisio has been recognized with numerous project grants from various arts organizations; in 2003 he was awarded an Artist Trust Fellowship.

- Matthew Shipp, piano

Paula Edelstein on RollingStone.com described Matthew Shipp as Òone of the most daring and original pianists in jazz.Ó

Shipp first became well known in the early '90s as the pianist in the David S. Ware Quartet, and soon began leading his own dates, most often including Ware bandmate and leading bassist William Parker, and recording a number of duets with a variety of musicians, from the legendary Roscoe Mitchell to violinist Mat Maneri

Shipp was born in 1960 and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. He began playing piano at the age of five, and decided to focus on jazz by age 12. After one year at the University of Delaware, he left to briefly study with Dennis Sandole (legendary jazz teacher whose students included John Coltrane, Jim Hall and Michael Brecker) in Philadelphia before attending the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston where he studied with Ran Blake.

Moving to NYC in 1984, he met bassist William Parker, among others. His debut as a recording artist was in a duo with alto player Rob Brown on Sonic Explorations, recorded in November 1987 and February 1988. By1989, both Shipp and Parker had joined the Ware Quartet. Since then Shipp has led dates for FMP, No More, Eremite, Thirsty Ear, hatArt, RogueArt, Silkheart and other labels. In 2000, he began acting as curator for Thirsty Ear's Blue Series, hosting a number of his own recordings as well as those by William Parker, Tim Berne, Roy Campbell, Craig Taborn, Spring Heel Jack, and Mat Maneri.

His prolific output in the new century includes Nu Bop (2002), Equilibrium (2003), Harmony and Abyss (2004), Piano Vortex (2007), Harmonic Disorder (2009), Cosmic Suite (2009), Right Hemisphere (2009), Un Piano (2009) and 4D (2010).