MIKE LIPSKIN TRIO

MEZZROW / JUNE 9

Mike Lipskin may be the closest thing to a living archive of Harlem stride piano. He was mentored by Willie "The Lion" Smith – one of the form's founding voices alongside James P. Johnson and Fats Waller – and the two recorded piano duos together, placing Mike inside the tradition not as a student of recordings but as a direct musical descendant. His stride playing carries that lineage with authority: the rolling left hand, the melodically inventive right, the underlying rhythmic drive that defines the form. Few pianists remain who learned this music from the people who invented it. Mike is one of them. - KD