Ars Nova Workshop presents the visionary improvising quartet East Axis, featuring Matthew Shipp, Scott Robinson, Newman Taylor Baker, and Kevin Ray, at Solar Myth on Saturday, July 27.

Legendarily prolific pianist Matthew Shipp describes the music of East Axis as “trying to generate music from multiple premises, multiple points, multiple rhythmic foundations, and multiple harmonic foundations.” The band’s music on any given night is the result of the cumulative life experience of its members expressing itself in spontaneous musical conversation. That experience is formidable – Shipp, of course, is one of the foundational figures of the modern American avant-garde, while Baker is an investigatory drummer who has collaborated with innovators like Kenny Barron, Henry Grimes, Billy Harper, and Henry Threadgill, among others. Ray is a veteran improviser who also co-founded the group 10³²K with Ku-umba Frank Lacy and Andrew Drury. Their newest addition, multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson, veers from a deep knowledge of trad jazz to lengthy tenures with the Maria Schneider Orchestra and the Mingus Big Band to truly experimental recordings with Marshall Allen, Roscoe Mitchell and Milford Graves.