Shipp's recent extensive output with saxophonist Ivo Perelman has underlined how effective a team player he is, so this absorbing concert is a timely reminder of his considerable strength as a solo performer. The set has 11 pieces, some of which are fleeting interludes, but they flow so seamlessly over 50 minutes that the cumulative effect is very much that of a suite that has multiple streams of ideas, some of which are whirlpools of activity in which Shipp's tight grip on the history of the piano in black music really comes into its own. His well-known bass desires do occasionally have a barrelhouse quality to them. But the appearance of bluesy, raggedy ‘hooks’, charming distillations of Johnson, Fats and Duke, mark a fine contrast to the tidal wave chords in the low register that are allowed to linger over the barline like thick fog rolling in from a dark ocean. Shipp makes an art of building and breaking momentum and harmonising to really play with perceptions of both era and genre. Which means that when his right-hand touch is at its most featherlight he goes close to baroque harpsichord and when the left is punching hard and heavy it is Monk as Chicago house producer unplugged. Shipp brings a touch of urbane, sometimes bitter irony to his work, as suggested by his evocation of ‘Monk's Nightmare’ rather than his dream. That ability to synthesise sweetness and harshness as much as he combines rhythmic flow with chordal fragmentation makes Shipp a vital exponent of the piano, a man who plays a good long game by way of short sharp shocks.