An opening minute of utmost sincerity as Dave Burrell sat himself down at the piano, spotting a quarter lying on the stage and offering it up in his low, soft voice to anyone who might have lost it, then thanking the audience and paying homage to William Parker and Mathew Shipp (who were to play later in the night) before opening with an extended piece called "Double Heartbeat," hammering in the bass clef in a manner more than literal to the title. Within seconds, his huge hands were piling on top of each other, staggering across the keyboard in a way that belied the musicality of his playing. He's forcefully delicate, a gentle giant dwarfing the baby grand and rocking in his plastic yellow chair (the cushioned, adjustable piano bench pushed to the side, true, perhaps, to someone who has played more barrooms than concert halls), rocking in fact the entire instrument, and rarely even touching the pedals below.

There's something manic about Burrell's playing (in as much as simply being human is a manic state): moods shift quickly, unpredictably, but making sense of the moment for at least as long as he, as we, are in each moment. He stood, he shuddered, his side to the keyboard, his hands seeming to shoot from the hips. His entire body played piano, not in a display of technique but because that's what the moment required. His body might rock while he plays quietly, then be still while he delivers a thunderous roll.

Which is why this should be a filmed documentary and not a written concert review. Attempts to set in words the experience of Dave Burrell on stage are quickly subsumed by his remarkable presence, which is to miss the important part. Like Bobby Few, Burrell holds all of jazz in his fingertips. He can glance off his beloved Jellyroll, Ellington and Monk, excite like Cecil Taylor and swing like Art Tatum (including along the way the implicit overlaps and shades between). But whathe plays is unmistakably his own, sweet and melancholy yet flying by like a wild cat. Any four-minute segment contains ideas that could easily be explored for an hour.

After the long original composition, he closed the too short set with two standards. "April in Paris" received a Nascar reading. "They Say It's Wonderful" lobbed between barrelhouse and barrel factory, with moments of a barrel going over a waterfall. A barrel with Burrell inside, smiling contentedly.

After Burrell's jazzicisms, Shipp's algebraic flights felt strangely sparse and controlled, almost jarring. Calculated, but far from cold. Parker and he have such history together that it's hard to conceive of their music as improvisation. Parker plays perfectly Shipp's left hand man (if Burrell's history is in Irving Berlin, Parker and Shipp, at least as a duo, find their history in themselves). As always, theirs was a dense display, an intricate thatch, Parker's bass quickly moving underneath Shipp's bold repetitions from the piano.

In a sense it's surprising how well they work together because they're quite different players. They both cover a lot of ground, and a lot of tempi, and they're both remarkably sensitive, creating a space and allowing it to develop. But where Parker plays in paragraphs, Shipp's ideas come in single words and short phrases, so complex and specific that he understands they must be repeated not for emphasis but for mere comprehension. And of course if they were actual words they'd be more easily understood. His side of the conversation is more like someone speaking in Latin roots, intoning half-recognized syllables until their meaning starts to become clear, and then moving on. You're not going to get every word, but you can tell what he's saying.

The given here is their mastery. Such dizzying conversation is only worthy of note, after all, if the speakers know what they're talking about. Shipp and Parker do. Deeply.